Old Men
Ernest J. Gaines was the brilliant author of the novel, A Gathering of Old Men. This book mainly is a fictional story about the real life prejudices whites had against blacks in the 1970's. Earnest displays these prejudices through carefully thought out characters. The main protagonist of the story is a white woman known as Candy. She is an orphan who was raised by neighbors near a plantation in the Deep South where the story takes place. At the time of the story, Candy is around 18 years old. Another main character is a white sheriff known as Mapes. He is also a protagonist in the story but is more of a neutral character than Candy. Many antagonists appear throughout the book, but the only one who takes any action is Luke Will. He is a huge young man who appears to be bull headed and never backs down from a fight. Also, Luke has a great dislike for the blacks in the area, and feels that whites are superior to blacks. In all these are the major characters that appear throughout the novel. The story begins with a young boy, known as Snookum, running from house to house telling all the "old men" in the area to meet at Mathu's house with a twelve gauge shotgun and an empty number five shell. Each old timer is rounded up one by one an
d many come from towns far away from the Marshall Quarters, the small town in which Mathu's house lies. In this part of the novel the reader is introduced to all the abused black folks who are fed up with being picked on by the whites. Each and every man has a different story about how the white folks, especially the plantation owner Fix and his son Beau, had abused him or his family. Around this time, the reader learns that Beau has been shot in Mathu's yard. Also, the reader is lead to believe that Mathu did indeed shoot him but Candy, being like Mathu's daughter was going to protect him by having all the old fed up men around the plantation come down and say that they had shot Beau. Even Candy her self claims to have shot Beau but no one seems to believe her. All the black men with empty shotguns gather on the "gary" or the porch. Here they sit and wait for Mapes the sheriff to come. By know there are at least 13 aged black men sitting on the porch with shotguns. As Mapes arrives he questions each of the men with shotguns and they all claim that they put the one fatal wound into Beau. All of them give a good reason why they shot Beau but Mapes still believes that Mathu shot him because he is the only real man around who would have the nerve to do such a thing. Tucker, one of the old men on the porch tell Mapes that he shot Beau for revenge because Tucker was forced by Beau to beat his own brother with a piece of sugar cane after he had won a race to Beau that he was not supposed to win. This was just one of the many pitiful stories the black told Mapes. The group pretty much sat on the porch all day accompanied by a few neighbors and relatives waiting for Fix, Beaus father to come and try to lynch the men. Fix was known around these parts for abusing blacks that crossed his path and with the act of killing his son he was sure to show up. This is where the novel takes an interesting twist and Fix's other son is brought into the plot. His name is Gil and he plays football at a nearby university where he plans to go All-American. The funny part is that his best teammate is a young black man from around the plantation. The two players are known as Salt and Pepper for the way they play so well together on the field. When news of the killing comes to the school Gil is very disturbed and leaves for home even though the biggest game of the year is in less than a day. He returns home to find a house full of close friends and relatives many of which are planning on going down to Marshall and beat up the feeble old men at Mathu's house. The head of this group is of course Fix, Gil's dad. After many pages of explanation, mostly that Gil will not become All-American if Fix goes through with the beating, Gil finally gets his dad to not take part in the lynching. When word gets to Mapes that Fix is not coming, the group of old men do not know what to do. Mapes finds the situation humorous because the black men wanted Fix to be his old abusive self so they could kill him, bu
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2011
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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