Ernest J. Gaines was born on January 15, 1933 in Oscar, Louisiana. Many of his stories and characters are set in the swamps of Louisiana. Its target audience is young black Southerners; his goal is to give them a sense of pride in their heritage. Recently, Gaines attended the conference "Black and White Perspectives in the American South," which aimed to examine how the two races view themselves and their relationships with each other. In the book A Gathering of Old Men, there was a lot of symbolism in all the scenes. The book describes the transition from the old South to the new South, a South that depends on the coexistence of blacks and whites. For this to happen too, some old black men will have to fend for themselves when a white Cajun farmer named Beau is murdered. The old black men of the story will have to face a racist sheriff named Mapes. Beau Boutan's brother, Gil, who plays fullback for Louisiana State University and depends on a black running back, is growing tired of his family's violence. name. He returns home to confront his father Fix Boutan. In this way Gil represents a new way of the South. The man who killed Beau, Charlie, was a very large man. He had been running from his fears since he was a child, but on this fateful day everything would change. It was finally time for Charlie to become a man after so many years. In one of the scenes in the book A Gathering of Old Men, the old men gathered around Sheriff Mapes who symbolized white power with his gigantic size and authority. Mapes was trying to find out who killed Beau Boutan. All their stories came to the same conclusion as the next man's story. They were fed up with the Boutans' verbal and physical abuse. Mapes in all his years had never seen such a sight or better yet such boldness in the eyes and mouths of old black men. Even though he cursed and beat them to get the truth, the old black men maintained their story, that they were all guilty of Beau Boutan's murder. Before Mat left his house, one of the old black men, he and his wife started arguing. She didn't want him to be involved in what was going on. With tears of past pain streaming down his face, he told her how for many years he had helped the white man get richer and the black man get poorer. He told her he was going down there with... middle of paper ...... for writing some stories. He was criticized in his stories because he felt that poor whites would take exception to the new South, which is built on interracial cooperation, with some or no violent rejection (Summers 93). William Faulkner, a black author, said that Gaines fails to see the lingering tradition of the old South, which fails to see that whites will always be white (Vinson 93). But it seems to me that Faulkner also fails to see Candy's character. Even though she was on the old black men's side when they wanted to meet without her. He didn't comply with the request because he thought he was still the leader or boss. Mape's character also respected Mathu and Charlie, but at the same time referred to them at one point as "niggers". Gaine's story describes the coming of a south that will tolerate the coexistence of blacks and whites, but he was too far ahead of the chronology of this book, there would undoubtedly have been a lynching in those days (Wertheim123). In conclusion, Gaines touched well on all the attitudes and stereotypes of the Southern lifestyle and his objection to the coexistence of blacks and whites..