Universal Themes In Ernest James Gaines's Life

All individuals are not just flesh and bones; important in every person is a system of values and beliefs. The philosophies that constitute an author’s creations are frequently devised from major elements of his or her own life. Ernest James Gaines, the author of numerous remarkable books in today’s literature, is a great example of a writer that parallels his life with his work. Specifically, Gaines chooses to focus on his depiction of Southern society back then (and now) to express his beliefs. In addition, his viewpoint of his African American community and background also allows him to communicate deeply universal themes of faith, courage, and dignity with his words. Therefore, Ernest James Gaines is the author he is today due to his early

Gaines was born in Oscar, Louisiana on January 15, 1933 amid the Great Depression. Adrienne Gaines, his mother, moved to California when Gaines was only a few years old and left his aunt, Augusteen Jefferson, to care for the young boy. Growing up on the River Lake Plantation until he was fifteen, Gaines worked in the cotton and sugarcane fields to support his family, like the other schoolchildren in his African American community. Consequently, he was always surrounded by the past slave quarters and the fact that his ancestors had labored on the same exact fields, except under more strenuous pressure from the white society. Indeed, while growing up, Gaines could sense the oppression of his people, ranging from the adults to his classmates and even himself. In succeeding years, due to the impact of his early adolescence, Gaines truly believed that the betterment of lives for his people would not come quickly; instead, the change had to be slow, and this observation on the unjustly treated African Americans did motivate his desire to write about the rural South and the racist society within it (Fiero) (“Ernest J.

Throughout his childhood and over the course of his development into an adult, Gaines’s education, literary influences, and writing career all profoundly shaped his values and beliefs. His view of the South, its history, and its people to a great extent solidified his yearning to recognize the struggle of blacks in the past and even in today’s culture. As a result, through his efforts (and the efforts of others), traces of racism have been slowly but persistently