Analysis Of Ernest Gaines A Gathering Of Old Men

There are always two sides to every coin. The novel A Gathering of Old Men by Earnest Gaines shows that everyone has a story to tell and that their reality is based on their point of view. That perception has a way of molding a person’s actions, relationships, and personality. Revitalizing society’s way of life and altering prejudice against another’s ethnicity is difficult when the scars run deeply through generations. Ernest J. Gaines does an excellent job of giving the reader insight to the individual experiences from the past that render changes difficult yet necessary. Appreciation and enlightenment comes from many different sources that range in age, race, sex, and social order. Slavery has been put to an end but in order
“When Fix told Mathu to take the bottle back in the store again, and Mathu didn’t, Fix hit him--and the fight was on” (Gains 30). “But that wasn’t the last fit Mathu had on that river with them white people” (Gains 30). Mathu earned a lot of respect because he took a stand. “That’s what he meant when he said if Mathu did it we out to be there. Mathu was the only one we knowed had ever stood up” (Gains 31). Mathu judged his peers by what he considered a man’s actions should be, “Parrain told me if I run from Beau Boutan he was on beat me himself. He told me he was eighty-two, but he was more man than me, and if I run from Beau he was on beat me himself” (Gains 191). It was not until the men came together that Mathu started to change. “Till a few minutes ago, I felt the same way that man out there feel about y’all—you never would ‘mount to anything. But I was wrong. And he’s still wrong. ‘Cause he ain’t on ever face the fact. But now I know. And I think y’all. And I look up to you. Every man in here. And this the proudest day of my life” (Gains 181). It wasn’t until this moment that Mathu began to truly see the others as
Fix is feared by many characters in the novel. Mapes shows concern for the way Fix may react, “ Get on that radio. Tell Russ—no one else—Russell to go back on that bayou and keep Fix there. No one else but him—and keep Fix and that crowd back there until he hears from me. And tell Herman to come out here and pick this up. But don’t tell him [that it is Beau Boutan]”(Gaines 65). Family honor is a held to the highest standard and in the past Fix Boutan has used violence to uphold the family name. Fix finds it difficult not to fall back on all he knows when his sons refuse to go with him to Marshall Plantation and says, “They say my ideas are all past. They say to love family, to defend family honor, is all past. What is left? All my life, That is all I found worthwhile living for. My family” (Gaines 146). Fix even expresses his frustration of the way things have changed when he tells Auguste “I’m an old man, too. Twenty years ago I would have not asked questions. I would have been at Marshall’s by now”(Gaines 143). Fix is disgusted with his son’s, Gil, decision to not fight for their family’s honor. Taking out his anger on Gil, Fix disowns him telling him, “ Leave, go on… I don’t wish to see you at this house or the cemetery. Go”(Gaines 146). To the surprise of everyone Fix has ever known he does the opposite of