The text of The Sky Is Gray subtly brings out this painful aurality: Id just lay there and listen to them, and listen to that wind out there, and listen to that fire in the fireplace. The distinction his mother makes between men and bums is both subtle and significant: bums pull their coat collars up, while men dont. The story occurs on a cold winter day in Louisiana, whose gray sky suggests the lack of hope for many African Americans. By recording and preserving his peoples culture in his literature, Gaines creates both an ongoing memorial to a vanishing way of life and an enduring testament to human concerns., Marcia Gaudet and Carl Wooton share many of Babbs observations, particularly with regard to the importance of dignity under strain and courage. James's mother accompanies her son to town to see about the boy's nagging toothache, and his journey soon becomes an eye-opening odyssey. As the argument between the student and minister in the dentists office clearly illustrates, there is a racial dimension present in the story. Here, the key episode occurs between the liberal black student and the conservative black preachera paradoxical conflict between Word and word, between faith and sight. On the other hand, James in The Sky Is Gray will never know the values of communal bonds if Octavia has her way. Overall, however, the move away from colonial entanglements was stronger than the ties that bound African countries to their colonial powers, and the move toward home rule was unstoppable. That though there are grave issues of race and class and poverty that Gaines used an "innocent"black child and an old white woman to bring hope and lovea very touching, emotional and humbling story. The Sky Is Gray portraits both the ugly and beautiful experiences that James and his mother get on their way to the dentist. On the other hand, the student maintains a defensible position, but his egotistical stance exposes his feelings of alienation from his community. Jamess absent father is serving the country, which expects its African-American citizens to fight for freedom abroad while it denies them those same freedoms at home. 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. The Sky Is Gray by Ernest J. Gaines is a poignant and thought-provoking short story about a young African American boy named James, who lives in rural Louisiana with his mother and grandmother during the mid-20th century. With all of these facets, why would Gaines end the story with this quest unfinished? Set in Louisiana, Octavia is forced to raise her family by herself when her husband is sent off to war. View Cart . Although her primary goal is to project a model of strength for James through her own actions, her inability to make her sense of the world comprehensible to him leaves James vulnerable to the very forces from which she would shield him. On the other, he is one of only two sympathetic white characters in Gainess story (Helena is the other). The first volume contains stories about.- A lonely woman who works part-time, and who has crippling social anxiety that leads to misunderstandings.- Words, he says, mean nothing. He states that Gaines was shockingly underrated at the beginning of his career. In the microcosm of black society represented by the dentists office that morning, he offers an indictment of religion and of its opiate-like effect on the downtrodden that Gaines himself seems to share. kayeeaugust17. missing from the current crop of responses to Gaines is a moral reading, one that doesnt look for causes and effects in a two-dimensional equation of character and color, but rather, in the quality of the characters thoughts and actions, regarding the characters not as caricatures of different types, but as fully formed people with their ownto borrow a phrase from Joyceindividuating rhythms. If Gaines is indeed an imaginative writer of canonical status, his works will reward such readings. She feels her first duty to her children is to toughen them up and show them how to live and survive. The student, or the boy, is somewhat out of place in this story, but was certainly not out of place at the time the story was written. (55) 7.4 46min 1980 13+. The overarching theme in this story is change and transformation. 964 Likes, 78 Comments - Juha (@rough_curiosity) on Instagram: " when the sky is gray cold wind blow and raindrops play you bring sunshine in my day" The sky is gray. From henceforth, Jamess own long day will be comprised of this struggle between black blood and white blood within a cerebral sky of graya terrifying and chilling confrontation with ones own senses and sensibilities. The purpose of the heart is to pump blood throughout the body, and nothing else.. By forcing James to sublimate his emotions and accept them as signs of human weakness, she fails to provide him with a means of dealing with the emotional responses of others in a way consistent with her philosophy. Shortly thereafter the nurse enters the room and announces that the doctor will not treat anyone until one oclock. Based on the story of the same title by Ernest Gaines, about a young Black farmboy's dawning of awareness about himself and society. It is not possible, within the scope of this essay, to survey all of Gainess works, or to make more than a cursory pass through The Sky is Gray. It is also not possible, in a discussion of what Im calling moral readings, to avoid some necessary oversimplifications of the complex issues surrounding and clouding the idea of race. From a larger, more global viewpoint . Author Biography Set during a time of segregation and racial inequality, the story explores themes of poverty, family, identity, and the . Random Word. the-sky-is-gray-ernest-gaines-pdf 1/9 map index pdf The Sky Is Gray Ernest Gaines Pdf Thank you totally much for downloading the sky is gray ernest gaines pdf.Most likely you have knowledge that, people have see numerous times for their favorite books taking into consideration this the sky is gray ernest gaines pdf, but stop up in harmful . Octavias skepticism and self-imposed isolation place her in a similarly antagonistic stance toward the community. The Sky Is Gray Analysis. 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. But what the narrative loses from one hand it gains in the other. 28 terms. The title of the piece hints to the general dreariness which lingers throughout the story. "California Dreamin'" is a song written by John Phillips and Michelle Phillips and first recorded by Barry McGuire. 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. [Chorus 2] 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) If I didn't tell her (If I didn't tell her) I could leave today (I could leave today) California dreamin' (California dreamin') On such a winter's day (California dreamin') On such a winter's day, (California . Doing. Other awards he has received include the Joseph Henry Jackson Literary Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Study Award, a Rockefeller Foundation Grant-in-Aid, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacArthur Fellowship, and honorary doctorates from Denison University, Brown University, Bard College, Whittier College, and Louisiana State University. Get help and learn more about the design. But the question remains whether or not in this blending of black and white into The Sky Is Gray there still may be too great a personal pain and sense of loss or self-betrayal for black youth or artist ever to transcend Gunnar Myrdals penetrating observation: The colored peoples are excluded from assimilation.. He is the oldest of all the children. 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. After graduating from high school, Gaines attended Vallejo Junior College, did a stint in the Army, and then returned to the Bay Area to take a degree from San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University). The purpose of the heart is to pump blood throughout the body, and nothing else. kui. His feelings of isolation are clearly illustrated in his conversation with a woman who attempts to take his side in the disagreement. The only way that James can truly understand his world is by authoritarian explanationthe tongue and ear forming the eye: Auntie and Monsieur Bayonne talked to me and made me see (italics mine). The reader only sees a small part of this process, a few hours one morning, a few more that afternoon, but these hours are important: they form some of the bedrock upon which the foundation of Jamess manhoodhis sense of personal dignity and worth, as well as courage and silence in difficultywill be built. [Instrumental Bridge] [Verse 3] I've got a bad feeling. He could have told it through the eyes of Jamess mother Octavia, or Val; he could have told it in epistolary form (as a letter) from Jamess mother to his father; or from an omniscient perspective, one that allowed him to describe the sensory and sentient world from all of these vantage points in turn. Their meal finished, James and his mother thank the woman for her hospitality. 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 storys protagonist, or main character, James is a young boy of about eight who lives with his mother, aunt, and their immediate family in the outskirts of Bayonne, Louisiana. However, his indirect discovery that the community is no longer capable of defining his individual responsibility to his family is potentially important both for him and for Sonny. Monsieur Bayonne at the storys beginning is the superstitious complement to the preacher in the middle section. . He hears his mother complainWe the wrong colorand he sees for himself the relative comfort of the white people eating in a nearby cafe. His father, were told, is dead, and his mother is in a charity ward with a serious illness. Roll the dice and learn a new word now! The advantages of episodic form, when relating the experiences of a young boy, are obvious, and have been used with great success in works as different as Mark Twains Huckleberry Finn and Rudyard Kiplings Kim. His father is deployed to fight in World War II, so his mother; Octavia is forced to take . New & Pre-owned (11) from $4.90 + $3.99 shipping. You a man. While this is the nature of Octavias world, it does not completely define the contours of the world with which James must come to terms. Estes, David C., editor. I've got a real bad feeling. "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. James lives with his other siblings, his aun. James seems like anything but a childhood, his mind is plagued with worries and concerns that often belong in the adult realm. "The Sky Is Gray" is a story narrated by eight year old James which tells the events of a Louisiana morning in which James and his mother, Octavia, take a bus to Bayonne to have a dentist take a look at James' ailing tooth. On one side is a heretical young black student who has not only renounced his religious beliefs but argues that words like Freedom, Liberty, God, White, Colored are meaningless. The Sky Is Gray Photos View All Photos Movie Info. In both cases, the situation is presented as a puzzle to the young who must attempt to resolve the conflicts that come about as a result of this realization. If ones analysis of this scene stops here in attempting to understand this odd end point for the story, the reading which suggests itself is quite straightforward, something like, external appearance is essential because Jamess person will always be identified and understood first by his external blackness, then, perhaps, if he is lucky, by his innate character by the world in which he lives, a world in which the white gaze is the most significant threat a black man faces. This reading is reinforced by other stations in the text, and indeed, most critics have read James and Octavia as Ive suggested. 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. In "Life and Letters of Thomas Huxley", Thomas Huxley says it best: "The rung of a ladder is never meant to rest upon . Rather than explaining his position to her in such a way that she will be able to understand it, he raises his argument to a metaphysical level and alienates her: You really dont believe in God? the lady says. 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. Furthermore, the story implies that the community can continue to provide the individual with emotional support in his efforts to fulfill his individual needs. The Sky Is Gray stream The Sky Is Gray online for free | Watch online movies through best free 1080p HD videos on desktop, laptop, notebook, tablet, iPhone, iPad, Mac Pro and more. 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. Hills Like White Elephants. Why does he later say that grass is black? Of course, the reader doesnt follow James all the way from childhood into adulthood, but the central premise of bildungsroman is that the reader watches the protagonist go from innocence to experiencein this case, from being a child whose primary interest is in staying warm and well-fed to a youth who has the first glimmerings of pride in himself and awareness of an important and external reality: that others will judge him not by what he is, but by how he appears to be. Though the events in this story take place well before what is commonly called the Civil Rights era, one cannot read The Sky is Gray without a keen awareness that the writer is writing at the historical moment during which the Civil Rights movement exploded onto the national stage and that, surprisingly, given this context, the story somehow manages to describe but not to overplay the protagonists suffering in terms of prejudice and inequality. 01 Mar 2023 12:32:41 He just reads in his book. . 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. But the American consciousness was jolted away from these events by Kennedys assassination on November 22, 1963, and by events abroad, principal among these being the escalation of what would become the Viet Nam war. Set during the 1940s, "The Sky is Gray" is narrated by James, an eight-year-old boy with a horrible toothache; the story focuses on the cold winter's journey he and his mother Octavia make to see the dentist in town. Style 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. Houston Community College English 1301 Professor Hinchen-Bryan "The Sky is Gray" Discussion Questions Directions: Type your answer to the following questions on this sheet in a different color and submit it canvas by Saturday, October 30, 2021 by 11:59 p.m. 1. 2324- 2333. As they ride in the back of the bus reserved for blacks and walk the streets of Bayonne, James, the first-person narrator, acutely evokes his almost unbearable feelings of pain, cold, and hunger: Only his love and respect for his mother prevent him from complaining. The symbolic significance of the gray sky is the key to an understanding of the complexity of the issue raised in the story. The source of Jamess isolation is his mother Octavia, who moves through the world of the story with a calm and control which always seem on the verge of eruption. A black boy comes of age in Louisiana during the 1940's and learns of racism and poverty firsthand. As a result, she has made protecting James from becoming vulnerable her primary goal in life. Only now, in the narrative present, as an almost eight year-old boy, can James understand why she forced him to do this. Written during the most turbulent years of the Civil Rights movement, the stories in Bloodline describe a less turbulent but perhaps even more racially raw period: Louisiana in the late 1930s and early 1940s. It is through Jamess eyes that the story is told; consequently, the story is heavily filtered through his sensibilities. 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. Put another way, if Gainess stories were set in the India of 1946, two years before partition, if the primary groups described were Muslim and Hindu, rather than black and white, would the stories still merit reading? It is important to recall that the Civil Rights era coincided with the casting off of imperial control by a series of African countries. Lowe, John., editor. But the counter to this argument is that one should, if Gaines is successful, be able to see how James will turn out, that the creation of a characterization sufficient to demonstrate that the child is father of the man is a demonstration of a naturalism like Zolas, and worthy of similar respect. Yeah, the sky . Indeed, the tooth with the aching root here is Jamess own Afro-American tongue and earthe dilemma of finding that his deepest roots are at odds with hypervisual America. Though he would no doubt take issue with the South being described as a singular place and would certainly argue that it is many places, each different, each having unique gifts of nature and people, each facing unique challenges, he would just as surely agree with W. E. B. 18, No. James tries to keep silent about his tooth not out of fear, but because he knows how expensive it will be to have a dentist pull it. James also lets it be known that "the sky is gray" and that there isn't much grass. During the exchange between the men, the minister exposes the weakness of his position when he becomes frustrated and strikes the student. It also involves the problem of integrating the individual and the community in a mutually rewarding relationship in the face of dehumanizing individualistic forces. 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, racism, hunger, cold and money. 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. With Olivia Cole, James Bond III, Margaret Avery, Cleavon Little. And the sky is gray, the sky is gray Ah, hah But that don't mean little brother that you Have to feel the same way Look the sky is cryin' see the Tear rollin' down on the ground Down on the ground Ah, hah but that don't mean little brother That your life can't turn around Cover up your body but the cold Steady rubbin' on your skin Rubbin' on . In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. 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