A Gathering of Old Men | From Sons to Fathers: Ernest Gaines' A Gathering of Old Men
In the following essay, Harper discusses the transformation of men into respected elders in Gaines's novel.
In A Gathering of Old Men, Ernest Gaines again returns to the Louisiana plantation, where he focuses on the black elders of a community who collectively are challenged to rise above their individual turmoil to confront an oppressive society—a group of men who develop from benign "men-children" to respected "fathers" and role models of the community.
As the novel opens, Beau Boutan, a Cajun farmer and boss of leased Marshall Plantation land, has been killed in the Quarters in front of Mathu's cabin. Determined to protect Mathu, the eighty-plus-year-old black man who helped...
[The entire page is 3140 words long]
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