"You a man, James"

Final page of
"The Big Gray Sky"

"'You not a bum,' she says. 'You a man'" (117). These words conclude the second short story in Gaines' Bloodline. As Octavia and James get ready to leave Bayonne for their return trip home, and as the air becomes chilly, with sleet falling and the wind howling, James turns his collar up to try to maintain some warmth. However, his mother quickly tells him to turn the collar down because, as she says, "You a man," not a bum. In the early drafts of the story, this final line does not appear. Instead, Octavia only says, "You not a bum." What does the addition of "You a man" add to our understanding of "The Sky is Gray"? Does it add anything? Would the story have the same impact if those words never made it into the final version?



I would argue that those three words," You a man," serve as the focal point of the story. Throughout, Octavia strives to teach James how to become a man, what he needs to do to survive. At the outset, James flashes back to a time when he struggled to kill two small birds that he and his brother caught. He didn't want anything to do with killing them, even if it means that the family will have food. Octavia berated him and hit him while his Aunt pleaded for Octavia to "[e]xplain to him. Just don't beat him. Explain to him" (90). Eventually, James understands why he must kill the birds. Even though he isn't much older than eight, James sees that the others are proud of him for killing, cleaning, and cooking the birds. He must learn how to do these things now because if he doesn't he may not survive if his mother goes away like his father did.

After the lesson with the birds, James begins to act more like a man. While his teeth continually hurt him throughout the story, he bears the pain for his mother. He wants to prove he is a man, or at least in the process of becoming one. While waiting on the bus to take him and his mother to Bayonne, James ruminates on what constitutes a man. The passage is worth quoting at length:

I look at my mama and I love my mama. She's wearing that black coat and that black hat and she's looking sad. I love my mama and I want to put my arm round her and tell her. But I'm not supposed to do that. She say that's weakness and that's crybaby stuff, and she don't want no crybaby round her.She don't want you to be scared, either. 'Cause Ty's scared of ghosts and she's always whipping him. I'm scared of the dark, too, but I make 'tend I ain't. I make 'tend I ain't 'cause I'm the oldest, and I got to set a good sample for the rest. I can't ever be scared and I can't ever cry. And that's why I never said nothing 'bout my teeth. It's been hurting me close to a month now, but I never said it. I didn't say it 'cause I didn't want act like a crybaby, and 'cause I know we didn't have enough money to go have it pulled. But, Lord, it been hurting me. And look like it wouldn't start till at night when you was trying to get yourself little sleep. Then soon 's you shut your eyes--ummm-ummm, Lord, look like it go right down to your heartstring. (84)   

James' desire to show he is a man stems partly from the fact that he has to display his manhood in order to help those who cares about to survive if anything happens to the adults. Octavia spends the entirety of the story teaching the eight-year-old James how to navigate a racist society and how to survive in a cruel landscape. During their time in Bayonne, Octavia provides James with mini-lessons on how to navigate the area, telling him to keep his eyes forward. At one point, James even thinks about the lessons he may be missing in school, remembering when he learned about Poe's "Annabel Lee."

In the comments below, tell me what you think about the last line of the story. Does the power of that line change if you take out "You a man"? Also, two of the original titles of the story were "A Little Southern Town" and "The Big Gray Sky." Would the story be any different one of these was the title?

Gaines, Ernest J. "The Sky is Gray." Bloodline. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1976. 83-117. Print.