My Reading of The Sky is Gray
Ernest J. Gaines' "The Sky is Gray" in Madison Smartt Bell, Narrative Design: Gaines is an established novelist, "The Sky is Gray" a story copyrighted in 1976. The first thing I notice about this story, every time, are those numbered parts. Bell'sanalysis of them on page 199 helps to explain why Gaines might number his sections.This is a device more common in poetry. I think the numbers enhance the developmentalnature of the story. As James and his mother get closer and closer to that goal they neverquite reach before the story's over, the numbers increase from 1 to 13 (probablysymbolically significant of their overall bad luck). They suggest progress in a story inwhich progress does not seem possible. With James as its narrator, the story has to be told the way that James would talk. So it'stold in dialect. This is a very risky thing for a writer to do. Bell is right in his note (#7) onpage 200 when he says that altering the spelling too much makes dialect difficult to read.Some nineteenth century stories that are written in dialect make difficult demands ontwentieth century readers. Dialect can also come across as classist and/or racist. (It isespecially dangerous for a middle-class white writer to
It reinforces the responsibility of thesystem for the family's poverty. Bell is right that the conversationforetells the Civil Rights Movement. Recently I got a comment from an editor I trust: the pointof view was working against a situation in which my reader learns more about mycharacter early on than she realizes about herself. Pretty well placed, isn't it, recalling as it does thegeneral idea of the argument between the preacher and the young man with the book inthe dentist's office. " I told a friend of mine, whostudied with Crews at the University of Florida, that because of this detail I read AChildhood as the greatest cock and bull story I'd seen in a long time. I want clothes like that and I want to keep abook with me too. Flashbacks continue, to explainthe lengths to which James' mother will go to feed her family, the harshness that resultsfrom that kind of poverty. 2) Formally the first-person may not work for theplots of some of these stories. Another is in first person but shifts from one character to another, for a total of 5characters. This response is importantbecause of the insight James has while he and his mother are waiting for the dentist: "Theboy looks up at her [the lady who sets up the discussion about relativity that reinforces thetitle of the story: it's better to believe that the wind is pink and the grass is black than tobelieve what people tell you without thinking for yourself] and looks in his book again. When the bus comes the story runs more or less linearly, chronologically all the way tothe end, using the structure of the trip--except for the time spent sitting in the dentist'soffice--to orient the plot. The one exception to this linear progress is that brief flashbackof M. What spurs him to doit is an olderbrother--8 or 9--nagging him, "You better get yourself some. Without this insight in the story it would end without any hope that thefuture might be better for James and his family.
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Acceptance Essays
