Rather than explaining his position to her in such a way that she will be able to understand it, he raises his argument to a metaphysical level and alienates her: You really dont believe in God? the lady says. For example, he believes that Catholic and non-Catholic prayers heal differently, but one suspects that the distinction between the two would be lost on the clergy of both Catholic and Protestant faiths. The trip to town on the bus marked White and Colored represents the real rite de passage for the black youth in white Americathe blurring of his sensibilities into gray: The river is gray. Critical Reflections on the Fiction of Ernest J. Gaines, Athens: Georgia University Press, 1994. The best-known version is by the Mamas & the Papas, who sang backup on the original version and released it as a single in 1965.The lyrics express the narrator's longing for the warmth of Los Angeles during a cold winter in New York City. To see gray merely as the integration of black and white on a literal level, and as a metaphor for racial integration on a symbolic level is, I think, to misunderstand Gainess real intent in the story. Ill take coke, or Ill use any kind of profanity, I dont give a damn. On the other side are the preacher and the other woman the young man speaks to after the preacher departs. 23 Feb. 2023 . Though the events in this story take place well before what is commonly called the Civil Rights era, one cannot read The Sky is Gray without a keen awareness that the writer is writing at the historical moment during which the Civil Rights movement exploded onto the national stage and that, surprisingly, given this context, the story somehow manages to describe but not to overplay the protagonists suffering in terms of prejudice and inequality. A young boy named James comes of age in 1940s Louisiana and grapples with what it means to be black during a time of racism and poverty. Indeed, one of the storys more disturbing episodes, during which his mother tries to make James kill two captured birds, is drawn from Gainess own experience. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.com cannot guarantee each citation it generates. The text of The Sky Is Gray subtly brings out this painful aurality: Id just lay there and listen to them, and listen to that wind out there, and listen to that fire in the fireplace. Ed. The story begins with James and his mother waiting, on a painfully cold morning, for the arrival of a bus which will take them to nearby Bayonne. Observing his mother manipulate their environment moves James closer to what will be his particular entry into manhood, the psychic freedom that comes from emotional self-mastery. Well, if I cant, to hell with it. For example, the road in this story is very gray: "It's a long old road, and far's you can see you don't see nothing but gravel," as James put it. Gaudet, Marcia G. Porch Talk with Ernest Gaines: a Conversation on the Writers Craft, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 1990. On the other hand, the student maintains a defensible position, but his egotistical stance exposes his feelings of alienation from his community. While the action of the stories revolves around, The gray of the sky which hangs threateningly over the action of the story symbolizes the dangers inherent in the extremes which James must reconcile.. In the microcosm of black society represented by the dentists office that morning, he offers an indictment of religion and of its opiate-like effect on the downtrodden that Gaines himself seems to share. Sets found in the same folder "If The Sky is Gray" by Ernest Gaines. Sources But this cure fails, too. James lives with his other siblings, his aun. Each of the first two stories in Ernest J. Gainess BloodlineA Long Day in November and The Sky Is Gray describes a black boy or youth attempting to come to terms not just with the world in which he lives, his parents problems, and the racism which circumscribes him but, more importantly, with the sensory orientation of his own body, the struggle between what William Faulkner called a black blood and white blood. It is this private or internal struggle more than any public or external debate that creates the real identity crisis for the young black and for the artist or writer who would contend with an America which has painted the senses white! Both Sonny in A Long Day in November and James in The Sky Is Gray have to resolve the conflict between their African/aural roots and their American/visual reorientationbetween James Baldwins declaration that it is only in his music . Ernest J. Gaines was born on River Lake Plantation in Oscar, a hamlet of Pointe Coupee Parish in rural Louisiana. With all of these facets, why would Gaines end the story with this quest unfinished? whatever their motivation may be, their small generosity will only be accepted as kindness, not as charity. The absence of the fatherin the armyhas somewhat prematurely forced James into the role of the man of the house; and we first find this young black initiate looking down the road, of American hypervisuality. Source: David Y. Kippen, An Overview of The Sky is Gray, in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 1999. Sources James instinctively knows that he would like to imitate the young man rather than the old preacher. (February 23, 2023). Conversations with Ernest Gaines, Mississippi: Mississippi University Press, 1995. Encyclopedia.com. Furthermore, the story implies that the community can continue to provide the individual with emotional support in his efforts to fulfill his individual needs. Kept completely offstage except for his terrifying effect on Little John Lee, who screams bloody murder on receipt of his dental ministrations, Dr. Basset exists in the narrative not for what he is, but for what he isntDr. With James' toothache at the central point of the plot, the story takes us through the obstacles this black family faces in terms of safety . Short Stories for Students. The Sky Is Gray Analysis. They are struggling for survival after James' father is taken in the army. [Chorus 1: Barry McQuire, The Mamas & The Papas] All the leaves are brown (All the leaves are brown) And the sky is gray (And the sky is gray) I've been for a walk (I've been for a walk) On a winter's day (On a winter's day) I'd be safe and warm (I'd be safe and warm) If I was in L.A (If I was in L.A.) California dreamin' (California dreamin') On such a winter's day [Verse: Barry McQuire, The . He looks at two contrasting ideas, the African/aural rootsthe idea that African Americans express themselves through their music and aural interpretationsand their American/visual reorientationthe idea that America is a country of visual stimulations, that as Emerson said the eye is final.. Put another way, if Gainess stories were set in the India of 1946, two years before partition, if the primary groups described were Muslim and Hindu, rather than black and white, would the stories still merit reading? The story occurs on a cold winter day in Louisiana, whose gray sky suggests the lack of hope for many African Americans. Sometimes itd stop long enough to let me get little rest. . Reviews The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, describing it as an epic poem. The critic writes: Literally, it is an account of Janes life. Nor is it likely a coincidence that I . Me, I dont listen to my heart. "The Sky is Gray"contains many of the themes and images Gaines returns to again and again in his work: themes of personal responsibility, grace under pressure, and moral behavior; images of strong mothers, mysteriously absent fathers, and families in which love is expressed more often in harsh words or silence than in overt praise or affection. Gaines writings about Louisiana have been understood and responded to largely as writings about race. These days, we know how to bring summer closer.<br><br>A plate of hot cherries, juicy, smelling berries, here it is summer on ! The Sky is Gray by Ernest J. Gaines is a short story set during World War 11 and is focused on a poor African American Family's struggles. Awesome read. It is both more reasonable and more in keeping with Gainess own views on the importance of dignity to read Octavia as intentionally withholding warmth from James to teach him that the value of their personal dignity is greater than the value of the most basic comfortsbeing warm and well-fed. Other awards he has received include the Joseph Henry Jackson Literary Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Study Award, a Rockefeller Foundation Grant-in-Aid, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacArthur Fellowship, and honorary doctorates from Denison University, Brown University, Bard College, Whittier College, and Louisiana State University. From Ernest J. Gaines, author of "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," comes a deceptively simple, yet emotionally complex tale of a young boy's discovery of what it's like to be black in Louisiana during the 1940's. A micro book of poems inspired by love, dreams, little flights of fantasy and the misty climes of the Pacific Northwest. Get help and learn more about the design. In the short story The Sky is Gray, Ernest J. Gaines shows the struggles, inflicted by poverty, in an eight-year-old boys life. In "Life and Letters of Thomas Huxley", Thomas Huxley says it best: "The rung of a ladder is never meant to rest upon . Human existence does not lend itself to such neat categorizing. Added . The storys protagonist, or main character, James is a young boy of about eight who lives with his mother, aunt, and their immediate family in the outskirts of Bayonne, Louisiana. Two of the stories in Bloodline, A Long Day in November and The Sky Is Gray, are particularly illustrative of the conflict between community perspective and individual needs. You are free to use it for research . Like Monsieur Bayonne, the Preacher is little more than a foilhe exists only to become angered by the student on behalf of the other people in the dentists office, to strike him on their behalf, and to pity him. I was 17 when I thought I could write a novel and send it to New York and get it published, Ernest J. Gaines told Publishers Weekl, William James; became British citizen, 1915. Yeah, the sky . By forcing James to sublimate his emotions and accept them as signs of human weakness, she fails to provide him with a means of dealing with the emotional responses of others in a way consistent with her philosophy. ostreet9 Plus. It also refers to the complexity of the time in which James's character livesthe mid- to late-1950s or early-1960sand how previous values will no longer hold as the South shifts toward modernity. But the counter to this argument is that one should, if Gaines is successful, be able to see how James will turn out, that the creation of a characterization sufficient to demonstrate that the child is father of the man is a demonstration of a naturalism like Zolas, and worthy of similar respect. In 1964, for example, Zanzibar and Tanganyika came together to form Tanzania, expelling a sultinate, while Zambia was formed out of Northern Rhodesias ashes by Kenneth Kaunda the same year that Kenya became a republic under Jomo Kenyatta. She say thats weakness and crybaby stuff. Time and time again, the black youth must simply take itmust see the advantages of the whites or the sufferings of himself and other blackswhile saying nothing and offering no complaints. If that is the reading one chooses, the more important, more striking, more interesting story disappears, while James and his mother become nothing more than sympathetic but uninteresting racial stereotypes about the lives of poor blacks long ago. Regardless of the scope, however, Gaines . The Winter Soldier peers through the scope and adjusts his grip, his finger ghosting over the trigger. This tooth of endless remorse/aurality may be deniedIt aint hurting me no morebut will never be extracted from the central black consciousness of The Sky Is Gray. Of course, too, there is a shrewd and even humorous irony involved in attempting to exorcise the black hyperverbality by prayerwhether this be Baptist or Catholic incantationfor the Word/word, spoken or sung, lies at the root of black religiosity. The Sky is Gray. Only now, in the narrative present, as an almost eight year-old boy, can James understand why she forced him to do this. The title of the story "The Sky is Gray" by Ernest Gaines is ironic. This comment incites a young mana teacher, James thinks, or a studentto join in. Ernest Gaines, Boston: Twayne, 1991. In both cases, the situation is presented as a puzzle to the young who must attempt to resolve the conflicts that come about as a result of this realization. The Sky Is Gray: Directed by Stan Lathan. . This time the trial is so severe that the verbal command is ineffectual: Mama tells me keep my eyes in front where they belong, but I cant helpfrom seeing (italics mine). SHORT STORY TEST! Though he would no doubt take issue with the South being described as a singular place and would certainly argue that it is many places, each different, each having unique gifts of nature and people, each facing unique challenges, he would just as surely agree with W. E. B. That work, like the five stories constituting Bloodline (1968) before it . Jamess vulnerability to this aspect of human nature is illustrated in the episode with an old couple who offer them food during their visit to town. James soon finds himself walking through the cold of Bayonne. In The Sky is Gray, by Ernest J. Gaines and Mr. Parker, by Laurie Colwin, James and Janie are no exception. https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/sky-gray, "The Sky is Gray He is the oldest of all the children. have chosen to tell the story from a number of different perspectives. Du Boiss famous observation, in the Forethought of The Souls of Black Folk, that the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line, for it is this color line in all of its manifestations that his work so carefully documents. Sometimes it just hurt, hurt, hurt. He responds to the emotional intent of the act. Roll the dice and learn a new word now! While many argue that the difference between races is less substantive than the difference between the classes, class inequality clearly takes a back seat to racial inequality in Gainess fiction. It suggests at first the bleak mood of the story but also hints at hope in the future. Based on Gaines own experience, the character of Monsieur Bayonne is a mildly unsympathetic but still dangerous figurethough he acts without malice, his actions keep James from a dentist for several days. So it's probably not coincidental that I began planning another northern California trip a few weeks ago. Lets hope that the ones who come after will have your faithif not in your God, then in something else, something definitely that they can lean on. It made my poor heart skip a beat. Thats the thing. In the communal microcosm of the doctors office he represents the defiance, the nonviolent non-cooperation of the Civil Rights movement that would sweep through the South thirty years later. The Sky Is Gray. As they ride in the back of the bus reserved for blacks and walk the streets of . What this suggests is that in the highly polarized world in which James is growing up, external appearance can be more significant that internal realityafter all, whether Jamess collar is up or down, hes clearly not a bum, but a boy, and even a man can be permitted, under conditions as cold as those James and Octavia find themselves in, to pull his collar up around his throat. Jamess mother talks at length about how much it will cost while James pretends to sleep. James, who begins the story as a boy more conscious of his feelings and inner life than of the world in which he lives, moves far along the path toward understanding the moral complexity. of adulthood and of being a man in the course of the single day. I havent anything. ostreet9 Plus "Angel Levine" by Bernard Malamud. The Sky Is Gray portraits both the ugly and beautiful experiences that James and his mother get on their way to the dentist. Indeed, the tooth with the aching root here is Jamess own Afro-American tongue and earthe dilemma of finding that his deepest roots are at odds with hypervisual America. Babb cant decide. Characters Reading Gaines first, foremost, always, and only as a black author, an author of race and race issues, rather than primarily as an imaginative author, an author of ideas, delimits the kinds of questions one can ask about his works and necessarily diminishes the readers appreciation of the imaginative sphere in which he works. James, in The Sky is Gray, is a somewhat older black youth who rightly faces a more complex dilemma concerning his ear and eye. Burke, William. Me, I don't listen to my heart. 3, Fall, 1984, pp. And when, at the storys conclusion, his mother pronounces him a man, the reader who has been inside Jamess subjective world can take measure of both how far he still is from manhood and of what he has learned from the lessons meant to take him the rest of the way there. Ernest Gaines has written a non-fictional story that has three major characters apart from him as the narrator. Overall, however, the move away from colonial entanglements was stronger than the ties that bound African countries to their colonial powers, and the move toward home rule was unstoppable. RT @BuddhistCeo: Morning meditation The first day of Spring I look from the zendo window Hoping the world has changed Alas no There is frost on the ground And the sky is gray As I sit zazen I dream of summer flowers The bell rings I smile I bow #thebuddistceo #buddhism #poetry #meditation . To imitate the young man rather than the old preacher responds to the emotional intent of the with. Oldest of all the children listen to my "the sky is gray" quotes by Ernest Gaines, Mississippi: Mississippi University Press,.! Sky is Gray & quot ; by Bernard Malamud experiences that James and Janie are no exception with. Plus & quot ; if the Sky is Gray & quot ; by Ernest Gaines, Athens Georgia. 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