Gaines's "In My Father's House" and the Changing Times

Unfortunately, Gaines's 1978 novel In My Father's House is not one of his works that gets read very often in the classroom. In light of recent events throughout our country from Ferguson to Baltimore, In My Father's House should be read with an eye reflecting back on what happened during the Civil Rights Movement and with an eye towards what has occurred since then. The novel focuses on the "generational gaps" between fathers and sons created by the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and racial oppression in the United States over that past four hundred years. This is something Gaines mentions throughout his oeuvre, and it shows up in A Lesson Before Dying when Matthew Antoine talks to Grant about teaching the children in the quarters: "You'll see that it'll take more than five and a half months to wipe away--peel--scrape away the blanket of ignorance that has been plastered and replastered over those brains in the past 300 years" (64).

In My Father's House begin with Etienne/Robert X returning to St. Adrienne to confront his absent father turned Civil Rights leader Philip Martin. Initially, the narrative focuses on the mysterious character of Etienne who arrives in town on a rainy night during the winter. Once there, his behavior causes the community to question who he is, why he is there, and why he acts the way he does. They find out that his appearance in St. Adrienne has to do with Philip Martin. Martin is Etienne's father, in name only. Etienne comes to St. Adrienne to kill Martin because he feels that Martin has neglected him, his siblings, and his mother. After this revelation, the narrative shifts to focus on Martin and his struggles to mend the gap between Etienne and himself as he struggles to confront his past and maintain his leadership of the movement in St. Adrienne. While this is only a brief summary of the novel, it provides you with an indication of the novel's focus on mending the gaps created by the abominable institution of slavery in this country.

The novel shows, as does other post-Civil Rights novels by Gaines, that the strides made during the mid-twentieth century in regards to voting rights and other actions caused a shift in the forms of subjugation from legally sanctioned Jim Crow to other forms of containment. Billy, a young man that Martin picks up while driving around Baton Rouge, expresses these thoughts in his discussions with Martin. Billy explains that even though strides have been made in regards to Civil Rights things remain the same, if not worse. Speaking on this, he tells Martin,

Niggers can vote. Vote for what? Voting can't fill your belly when you hungry. Another nigger sit up there in the capital. Doing what? Another one go up to Washington. For what? They put another couple on television to broadcast news--them the changes you talking about? I'm talking about changes that keep white men from coming into South Baton Rouge and shooting down our people. If it happen, we pick up guns, we pick up torches, and we hit back. That's the changes I want to see. (163-164)

Billy embodies the feelings, I would argue, of the Black Power and Black Arts Movements. Even with strides in regards to things like voting rights, the situation remained the same. According to Billy, there may be some "token" African Americans in government and on television, but that does not accomplish anything according to Billy. He goes on to speak about the changes occurring in regards to agriculture and how those changes affect the people's relationship with the hegemonic system that works to keep them down. He says, "Go over all this place--empty fields, empty houses, empty roads. Where the people used to be--nothing. Machines. Every time they build another machine that takes work from the people, they hire another hundred cops to keep the people quiet" (168). Since they cannot work the land, the African American population Billy speaks of either left or remained struggled to find employment. While the sharecropping system worked to maintain control of the community, with that gone, what remained? For Billy, "cops" became the system's answer to maintaining "quiet."

Billy vocally espouses his beliefs, but in A Gathering of Old Men, the same ideas provide an undercurrent at the end of the novel. As the men wait at Marshall Plantation for Fix to arrive and lynch someone, the old men do not get the opportunity to stand up to him. Instead, they confront Luke Will, a new representation of racism and subjugation that contrasts with Gil and Cal in the novel. Discussing the anticlimactic nature of the novel, Gaines told Mary Ellen Doyle in 1983, "So Fix's kind of vigilante vengeance is dying out, but there will be the new Luke Will type. The Luke Wills are in the police department. Fix is seventy or eighty and can't shoot straight, but Luke will do it for him" (168-169). The "separate but equal" segregation of Fix and Jim Crow may not exist anymore, and because of this, Luke Will's form of subjugation does.

I could not help but think about recent events while reading In My Father's House, specifically when reading Billy and Philip's conversation in the car. Gaines's post-Civil Rights novels deals with these issues, sometimes subtly and sometimes overtly. In light of the incidents that have been occurring throughout the nation, we need to read Gaines in conversation with them because he provides us with insight into how the events in northern, urban cities affect people in southern, rural places like St. Raphael Parish. What are your thoughts? What are other aspects of Gaines are relevant to recent events? Share in the comments below and make sure you check out and add to the Baltimore Syllabus for resources regarding the events in Baltimore.

Doyle, Mary Ellen, S.C.N. "A MELUS Interview: Ernest J. Gaines--'Other Things to Write About.'" Conversations withe Ernest Gaines. Ed. John Lowe. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1995. 149-171. Print.
Gaines, Ernest J. In My Father's House. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1978. Print.