A Gathering Of Old Men (setting)

In A Gathering of Old Men, Ernest Gaines creates a very specific, and extremely fitting setting for the story. He does such a great job of involving the setting with the characters that he even goes to an extent where he starts to develop it AS a character. This is shown when Tucker says, "Everything was quiet-the weeds, the fields, the swamps-everything was quiet, quiet. Waiting for him to go on" (96). The way he describes the silence he makes it seem as if even the fields, weeds, and swamps were waiting for him in silence. This is also shown when Johnny Paul thinks about past, "He was just thinking out loud, the way a man talk to himself plowing the field by himself or hunting in the swamps with nothing but a gun, not even a dog" (90). This shows how when he was thinking of his past greatest memories, he didn't even have any people with him. It was just him and the environment, and he still loved it. The setting plays a huge role in this book because all the the characters have a strong connection to it in some way, and if the setting had been different, the story wouldn't even be close to being the same. Ernest Gaines realized this and worked the setting to perfection, developing it in such detail and meaning that it was developed even like a character.