FratFiles

• Save Paper

A Gathering of Old Men by Earnest J. Gaines is a great novel about race relations in the south. The novel begins with a child narrator who relates the report that there has been a shooting on a Louisiana plantation, and a white, Cajun farmer Beau Boutan, is dead. He has been killed in the yard of an old black worker, Mathu. Because of the traditional conflict between Cajuns and blacks in South Louisiana, the tension in the situation and the fear of the black people is immediately felt in the novel. I would definitely recommend this book to someone else.
Gaines uses the fifteen narrators to deal with the changing relationship between the Cajuns and the blacks in Louisiana. As each narrator picks up the story, we see the tension between the past and the present, the conflict between the whites and the blacks. This allows Gaines to set up the unfolding of the depths of character and the courage of the men.
Mapes, the white sheriff who traditionally dealt with the black......

View the rest of this paper...

Approximate Word Count: 421
Approximate Pages: 2 (250 words per double-spaced page)

Similar Essays

1. A Gathering Of Old Men
   

   A Gathering of old men. A Gathering ... Cajun farmer. The simple symbols used in A
   Gathering of Old Men have a great impact on Gaines’ audience. ...

2. A Gathering Of Old Men
   

   A gathering of Old Men. A Gathering of Old Men (1983 Knopf Edition) In the
   novel A Gathering of Old Men, Ernest J. Gaines, portrays ...

3. Gathering Of Old Men
   

   Gathering Of Old Men. By: Joey In A Gathering of Old Men, by Ernest J. Gaines,
   racism plays a huge part of life in the south. When ...

4. Gathering Of Old Men
   

   GATHERING OF OLD MEN. A Gathering of Old Men by Earnest J. Gaines is a great
   novel about race relations in the south. The novel begins ...

5. A Gathering Of Old Men
   

   A Gathering Of Old Men. A Friendly Enemy "Death is my wish for myself, my enemies,
   my children" (Euripedes translated by Robinson Jeffers, Medea 11). ...