A Gathering of Old Men Unit of Study
The Desire For Dignity and Recognition Lesson Plan
By Marshall Surratt

Overview

The desire for dignity and recognition in both young and old, men and women, is, in fact, the central theme of A Gathering of Old Men. Using close-text reading of the story, students will analyze instances where Gaines, through language and action, affords both dignity and development of self worth to his characters.

The Lesson

Note to Teacher:

Share the following essay with students after they have read the novel and before entering into discussion.

In German criticism, Entwicklungsroman is the term for a novel that emphasizes the development of the principal character, though, if these kinds of terms are used at all, the more-general term of Bildungsroman is more commonly used. This category of the "novel of development" is a broad one, covering everything from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations to James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain or James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

The desire for dignity and recognition in both young and old, men and women, is, in fact, the central theme of A Gathering of Old Men. The characters populating his fiction find identity and meaning in finally standing up to injustice and oppression.

On December 18, 1865, the 13^th Amendment became law, finally abolishing slavery. The subsequent 14^th and 15^th Amendments, in theory, gave African Americans equal protection and equal opportunities and the right to vote. However, it would be a long time before the law was aggressively enforced. The case of Plessy v. Ferguson, decided by the Supreme Court in 1896, allowed states to segregate by race, so long as conditions were relatively equal. The case, in fact, had originated in Louisiana, when a man of mixed race was refused entry to the white section of a train.

Not being able to, or being unwilling to, confront the injustice, African Americans have vented frustration on one another. Early in A Gathering of Old Men, Mat says to his wife:

The years I done stood out in that back yard and cussed at God ... the times I done come home drunk and beat you for no reason at all--and, woman, you still don't know what's the matter with me?" (38)

In the end, it is the characters' willingness to stand up for themselves that brings them respect and recognition from Sheriff Mapes and from one another. Gaines understands that this remnant of slavery must be overcome for the men to have any sense of dignity. Before the shooting of Beau in A Gathering of Old Men, the men in the quarters have sought to be invisible to white folks in the community. Out of cowardice, they have shunned any conflict. They now have an opportunity to confront their cowardice. Gaines explained in an interview:

You must understand that the blacks who were brought here as slaves were prevented from becoming the men that they could be. They were to be servants of the whites, nothing more. A man can speak up, he can do things to protect himself, his home and his family, but the slaves could never do that. If the white said the slave was wrong, he was wrong. These things happened even after slavery, in the South and here, too.

So eventually the blacks started stepping over the line. They said, "Damn what you think I'm supposed to be-- I will be what I ought to be. And if I must die to do it, I'll die." And for a long time they did get killed. Once they stepped over that line there was always that possibility, and quite a few of my characters step over that line.

[Conversations with Ernest Gaines, 114-115.]

Reading assignment

Make sure students have finished reading A Gathering of Old Men.

Questions for Discussion

1. There are obvious injustices spoken of in the stories told by the different first-person narrators. But, what are the small ways in which Gaines shows the everyday indignities to African Americans at the time the story takes place? For example, the white women are given the honorific title "Miss" or "Mrs." There is a climactic scene in which Charlie, an African-American man in his 50s, is finally addressed as "Mr. Biggs" by the white sheriff. What significance does his choice of words represent? Have students find other similar examples in the novel.


2. Early in the story, Snookum does not stand up to Toddy's teasing him for fear that Toddy will tell their parents something Snookum had done. By story's end, Snookum declares to the white sheriff: "I don't know about Toddy, but I'm ready to go.... Wish I was just a little older so I could have shot [Beau]" (109). What has caused this change in Snookum and what does this change signify?


3. In the novel, what kinds of actions are depicted as courageous? Do the characters display physical courage or moral courage or both? Provide specific examples of different characters.

Activity Suggestions

Pick from the following choices to address the struggle for dignity, honor, and self worth:

1. There is some irony that Gaines has continued to have as his preeminent theme the search for black manhood at the same time that women writers have captured attention in the literary world. Students could compare the themes in A Gathering of Old Men with those in the short stories of Jamaica Kincaid (e.g., "What I Have Been Doing Lately") and Alice Walker (e.g., "Everyday Use"), each available in popular anthologies, or especially in Walker's novel The Color Purple, which speaks of the brutality of some men against women.

   As mentioned above, though women are peripheral in A Gathering of Old Men, Gaines acknowledges the indignities women have suffered, too, including some at the hands of black men. The brutalizing done by those who have been brutalized themselves has been explored by other writers, too. Gaines himself has mentioned as examples such short stories as James Joyce's "The Informer" and William Faulkner's short story "Dry September." Students could compare and contrast the themes and characters in one or more of those works with those in A Gathering of Old Men.



2. Read the excerpt from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass below. In this passage, Douglass "decodes" the meaning of the songs the slaves sang. He understands that they were songs of affliction suffered and the hope for deliverance. He wonders that they have been misunderstood by even benign white people "as evidence of their contentment and happiness." Why do students think that people wanted to believe this? Look at examples of stereotyping alluded to by Douglass. Why is it important for Douglass to show that the reality is different? In the selection from Frederick Douglass, there is a shift from third person to first person. How does this contribute to the impact of Douglass's story?


3. [Note: This is an advanced lesson or writing topic.] The novel of development shows up in Victorian fiction, too; but here, the subject is the development of young women, as they were given more opportunities in education. Examples include such novels as Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (1847), Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights (1847), and George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss (1860). Compare these with the works of African-American male writers such as Gaines or James Baldwin. What was the historical context of each? What were the Brontes and Eliot trying to do in their novels? How could this be compared to the aspirations of Gaines, Baldwin, etc.

From Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Chapter Two

The home plantation of Colonel Lloyd wore the appearance of a country village. All the mechanical operations for all the farms were performed here. The shoemaking and mending, the blacksmithing, cartwrighting, coopering, weaving, and grain-grinding, were all performed by the slaves on the home plantation. The whole place wore a business-like aspect very unlike the neighboring farms. The number of houses, too, conspired to give it advantage over the neighboring farms. It was called by the slaves the Great House Farm. Few privileges were esteemed higher, by the slaves of the out-farms, than that of being selected to do errands at the Great House Farm. It was associated in their minds with greatness. A representative could not be prouder of his election to a seat in the American Congress, than a slave on one of the out-farms would be of his election to do errands at the Great House Farm. They regarded it as evidence of great confidence reposed in them by their overseers; and it was on this account, as well as a constant desire to be out of the field from under the driver's lash, that they esteemed it a high privilege, one worth careful living for. He was called the smartest and most trusty fellow, who had this honor conferred upon him the most frequently. The competitors for this office sought as diligently to please their overseers, as the office-seekers in the political parties seek to please and deceive the people. The same traits of character might be seen in Colonel Lloyd's slaves, as are seen in the slaves of the political parties.

The slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm, for the monthly allowance for themselves and their fellow-slaves, were peculiarly enthusiastic. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness. They would compose and sing as they went along, consulting neither time nor tune. The thought that came up, came out--if not in the word, in the sound;--and as frequently in the one as in the other. They would sometimes sing the most pathetic sentiment in the most rapturous tone, and the most rapturous sentiment in the most pathetic tone. Into all of their songs they would manage to weave something of the Great House Farm. Especially would they do this, when leaving home. They would then sing most exultingly the following words:--

"I am going away to the Great House Farm!
O, yea! O, yea! O!"

This they would sing, as a chorus, to words which to many would seem unmeaning jargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaning to themselves. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do.

I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd's plantation, and, on allowance-day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul,--and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because "there is no flesh in his obdurate heart."

I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.

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