Seeing and Not Seeing: The Politics of Representing the Aged Body in Ernest Gaines’ A Gathering of Old Men
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This essay reads Ernest J. Gaines’ 1983 novel, A Gathering of Old Men, and considers how black male subjectivity is depicted via the “old men” of the title. The older generation (as well as the concept of “aging” and all that it entails) have often been disregarded in literary studies as they mostly occupy a minor position within the literary works themselves. Nevertheless, as Sandra G. Shannon observes, “old black men and women are interspersed throughout Gaines’ fiction” and this shows Gaines’ tendency to “incorporate into his work black personality types previously avoided by other authors” (195). Therefore, this essay aims to examine how the concepts of old age and aging complicates the notion of black male subjectivity; in particular, I consider how Gaines’ novel diversifies the representation of black masculinity by bringing together the various themes of aging, race, masculinity, and subjectivity. I concede that Gaines’ narrative, in some measures, prompts us to “see” these men by offering positive representations of the elderly blacks as dignified survivors of an oppressive racial system; still, even as this entourage of old men enriches previous representations of black masculinity, it is my contention that Gaines convinces us “not to see” how his work recycles and exacerbates, in part, damaging stereotypes of black/male/aged bodies.
Abstract
This essay reads Ernest J. Gaines’ 1983 novel, A Gathering of Old Men, and considers how black male subjectivity is depicted via the “old men” of the title. The older generation (as well as the concept of “aging” and all that it entails) have often been disregarded in literary studies as they mostly occupy a minor position within the literary works themselves. Nevertheless, as Sandra G. Shannon observes, “old black men and women are interspersed throughout Gaines’ fiction” and this shows Gaines’ tendency to “incorporate into his work black personality types previously avoided by other authors” (195). Therefore, this essay aims to examine how the concepts of old age and aging complicates the notion of black male subjectivity; in particular, I consider how Gaines’ novel diversifies the representation of black masculinity by bringing together the various themes of aging, race, masculinity, and subjectivity. I concede that Gaines’ narrative, in some measures, prompts us to “see” these men by offering positive representations of the elderly blacks as dignified survivors of an oppressive racial system; still, even as this entourage of old men enriches previous representations of black masculinity, it is my contention that Gaines convinces us “not to see” how his work recycles and exacerbates, in part, damaging stereotypes of black/male/aged bodies.
참고문헌 (19)
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- Clark, Keith, "Re-(W)righting Black Male Subjectivity: The Communal Poetics of Ernest Gaines’s A Gathering of Old Men", Callaloo, 22(1), pp.195~207 (1999)
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- 김민정, "Anxieties of Black Manhood: Race and Homosexual Masculinity in Ernest Gaines’ “Three Men”", 미국소설, 23(2), pp.85~109 (2016), 미국소설학회
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- Woodward, Kathleen M., "Figuring Age: Women, Bodies, Generations" (1999), Indiana UP
- Wyatt-Brown, Anne M., "Aging and Gender in Literature Studies in Creativity" (1993), U of Virginia P