"the sky is gray" quotes

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. Her alternative, however, creates an atmosphere which, for James, is potentially equal in the dangers it poses. Themes Ralph was strict about the kinds of children he would allow Gaines to befriend; because of his stepfathers insistence that most of the local children were trouble, Gaines turned to the local public library for entertainment and solacean institution that had been closed to him in Louisiana because he was black. But the conflict goes much deeper than that. 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. Critical Reflections on the Fiction of Ernest J. Gaines, Athens: Georgia University Press, 1994. If one reverts to the easiest sort of race-based reading, one will invariably decide to read the story as one about victimhood. Critical Overview The scene in which Jamess mother is toldor discoversthat her son must go to the dentist is skipped over, but the familys poverty, and the comparatively huge cost of having the tooth pulled, is not. However, because she never explains her motives to him, she presents James with a world filled with extremes which endangers his realization of the manhood she attempts to force prematurely on him. The Sky Is Gray. In American Short Stories. 436-38. 28 terms. Critics have been kind to Gaines, but his reputation has not risen with such meteoric speed as have the reputations of some of the other contemporary black writers of his generation. "The Sky is Gray Whatever the narrative gains by being told through Jamess eyes would need to add a great deal to offset these drawbacks. ''The Sky is Gray'' is fundamentally a story about the process of coming of age, of going from one state to another. The story occurs on a cold winter day in Louisiana, whose gray sky suggests the lack of hope for many African Americans. The purpose of the heart is to pump blood throughout the body, and nothing else. Babb, Valerie Melissa. allivarnell13. with superstition. Encyclopedia.com. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. 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. She insists that they come inside while she calls the dentist to tell him that they are coming. Plot Summary Bloodline, his collection of short stories published in 1968, is a work that includes some of his best known short fiction, "The Sky Is Gray," "Just Like a Tree," and "A Long Day in November" (also published as a children's book in 1971). Her personal situation can be seen as a metaphor for the plight of blacks. 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. My heart tells me. Sure, My heart tells me. And as long as you listen to what your heart tells you, you will have only what the white man gives you and nothing more. . As the argument between the student and minister in the dentists office clearly illustrates, there is a racial dimension present in the story. 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. jakeszalat Plus "If The Sky is Gray" by Ernest Gaines. Understanding The Sky is Gray requires that one not only understand something about the Louisiana of the 1930s and 1940s but also understand what was happening with regard to race in the United States during the 1960s, because the events of what later came to be called the Civil Rights era made a substantial and lasting impression on Gaines, one that can be seen not too far beneath the surface of The Sky is Gray in the person of the student and in the storys preoccupation with racial inequality. Mama tries to teach James that he is the man of the family now. These days, we know how to bring summer closer.<br><br>A plate of hot cherries, juicy, smelling berries, here it is summer on ! Regardless of the scope, however, Gaines . The black student demands hypervisuality Show me one reason to believe in the existence of a God (italics mine)while at the same time demanding a reinterrogation of is verbality: What do words like Freedom, Liberty, God, White, Colored mean? (italics mine). On the street again, James turns his collar up to keep his neck warm; his mother tells him not to, because only bums turn their collars up, and he is not a bum, he is a man. 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. The narrator is James, an eight-year-old black boy living in rural Louisiana. . that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story and Ralph Waldo Emersons assumption that the eye is final; what it tells us is the last stroke of nature; beyond color we cannot go. This hyperverbal/hypervisual trauma or rite de passage forms the real theme or subject of both black childrens accounts in A Long Day in November and The Sky Is Gray. . Publication date 1979 Topics Feature films, Feature films, Short Stories., Blacks. Can I live here tomorrow? "California Dreamin'" is a song written by John Phillips and Michelle Phillips and first recorded by Barry McGuire. View Cart . 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. Awesome bookit wraps within the narrative so many layers of the black's struggle in America, their historymakes the reader think and feel for the characters, as such engaged with their livesgave me goosebumps!! You have these kids, you know: Ill stick a goddamned needle in my arm, Ill sniff coke, to hell with anybody telling me what to do. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. His father, were told, is dead, and his mother is in a charity ward with a serious illness. 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. This poor, Negro boy, James, lives with his mother and five other relatives while his father is away. In her efforts to make James a man, Octavia apparently believes that she has only her own behavior and attitude toward life to offer as a model. A woman tries to engage Jamess mother in conversation, but a man James takes to be a preacher joins in instead. The purpose of the heart is to pump blood throughout the body, and nothing else.. 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. Futhermore, he is forced to wash dishes at night to finance his education. I know I dont.). Sold by: Tidal Wave Group . Last Updated on May 5, 2015, by eNotes Editorial. Less clear, because less attention has been paid to this question, is how much is left when race is left out or made irrelevant to the readers. Source: David Y. Kippen, An Overview of The Sky is Gray, in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 1999. 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. 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. The Sky is Gray. New York: Longman, 1997, 511530. Lord, have mercy (italics mine). Though her presence in The Sky is Gray is minimal, Augustines presence in Gainess life can hardly be overstated: Unless you include her, he says, you cant write about me at all.. The Harlem Renaissance was a period between World War I and the Great Depression when black artists and writers flourished in the United Stat, Sweat It is also clear that race, racial injustice, the years of segregation, and the particular way these things play themselves out in rural Louisiana are central to Gainess writing and therefore are central to understanding his works. . In such a cultural climate, the spiritual and emotional well-being of both the community and the individual is threatened. In their introduction to Porch Talk with Ernest Gaines: Conversations on the Writers Craft they write: Gainess characters evoke laughter, joy, despair, grief, anger, sympathy, andperhaps most of allpride. The minister accepts God unquestioningly, while the student rejects God because belief in Him alleviates the need to question: Show me one reason to believe in the existence of a God, the boy says. . Only slightly less prominent than the theme of Civil Rights is class inequality. Consider, for example, the contradiction in Babbs representation of Octavia as on the one hand trying to keep James from the cold while adher[ing] to strict rules of racial separation, but on the other being enabled by her dissembling to keep him warm without compromising her dignity. Exactly what is keeping James cold, one wondersstrict rules of racial separation, or Octavias uncompromised dignity? Drama - 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. James, the boy in question, has a raging toothache that necessitates a trip to the dentist. . But if one takes a step back from the more obvious reading another, more subtle, reading begins to emerge. ostreet9 Plus "Angel Levine" by Bernard Malamud. Because James is suffering a toothache, symbolic of the festering wounds of racism, he and his mother take the bus into Bayonne to see a dentist. 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. The bus arrives and, while his mother pays, James moves to the back of the bus, where the blacks are made to sit. Ed. Pressure continues to mount on the government over a number of events that allegedly took place in Whitehall and Downing Street while COVID-19 restrictions were in force. Faced with the necessity to act and finding traditional solutions no longer viable, the characters in Gainess stories struggle desperately to restore some semblance of normalcy to their worlds. Like James and Jamess mother, the source for Jamess aunt is drawn from Gainess own experience, modeled after his own great aunt, Augustine Jefferson. Here, hiding her true feelings and motives, she makes use of the technique of masking and teaches her son a valuable lesson in pride and survival. She feels her first duty to her children is to toughen them up and show them how to live and survive. Historical Context The limitations imposed on the narrative by an eight-year-old narrator are more obvious when he tries, unsuccessfully, to understand his mothers frequent mood changes or her mysterious decisions to fight or flee at each of the stations of mood the narrative visits. The title of the piece hints to the general dreariness which lingers throughout the story. Ernest James Gaines (January 15, 1933 - November 5, 2019) was an American author whose works have been taught in college classrooms and translated into many languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian and Chinese. The first thing that James learns is to rein in his potential visualityto accept verbal blinders for his eyes: Mama tells me to keep my eyes in front where they belong (italics mine). - "The Sky is Gray" 9 terms. Lowe, John., editor. Sources Octavia shows the characteristics of a good parent by being stern, loving, and independent. Robillard, the good dentist who takes care of the teeth of Bayonnes whites. Ernest Gaines story, The Sky Is Grey, is a heartfelt story about James, a black youth living in Louisiana during the Second World War. But assume for a moment that Octavias world is not so simple. 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 . In Gainess words, describing the type of person he depicts in the student to Carl Wooton in an interview reprinted in Porch Talk: you will have this rebellion against authority. Here, James must learn to balance the words of his black heritage with the visions of white Americamust learn to observe his mothers sadness and poverty while at the same time controlling his words after the fashion of the stoic adult black male: I want put my arm round her and tell her. Subsequent publications included the short stories A Long Day in November (1959), Just Like a Tree (1962), and The Sky is Gray (1963), and the novels Catherine Carmier (1964), Of Love and Dust (1967), Bloodline (1968), The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971), In My Fathers House (1978) A Gathering of Old Men (1983), and A Lesson Before Dying (1993). Characters Through the stories of the many fascinating people who touch Jane's life, Gaines presents not only a moving perspective on the struggles of African Americans but also a social history of the United States since the Civil War. Because his fiction focuses on the peculiar plight of black Americans in the South, Gaines must consider an additional level of significancethe strong communal bonds characteristic of Southern black folk culture. Just as the clouds clear after a storm, James finds out on his trip to Bayonne that the stormy clouds that are his life are parting to let some sunshine through. William James, the American philosopher and psychologist, was born in New York City to Mary Robertson Walsh James and Henr, Cane 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. This theory is supported by three specific events during the story. 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') In these stories, black folk culture, with its emphasis on community-defined values and behaviors, shows signs of deterioration, while Western individualism and the development of more personally-defined values appear as catalysts in the demise of the black folk world view. 212, No. Gaines is best-known for his novel, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, published in 1971 and adapted into a television movie starring Cicely Tyson in 1974. table<br>We make dumplings from a thin but durable dough so that it . Edited by Eugene Current-Garca and Bert Hitchcock. The symbolic significance of the gray sky is the key to an understanding of the complexity of the issue raised in the story. 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. The action in "The Sky is Gray" is broken up into thirteen short sections which describe a half day or so in the life of James, an eight-year-old black boy in the rural South of the late 1930s. [Instrumental Bridge] [Verse 3] I've got a bad feeling. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. It is also possible to rent "The Sky Is Gray" on Vudu, Amazon Video online and to download it on Amazon Video, Vudu. Of racial separation, or Octavias uncompromised dignity for many African Americans of reading! Which, for James, is potentially equal in the story story occurs a! His education relatives while his father, were told, is potentially equal in the dentists office clearly illustrates there... Negro boy, James, an eight-year-old black boy living in rural Louisiana, that is... 2015, by eNotes Editorial potentially equal in the story finance his education a winter... 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