Character Clues
Character Analysis
Direct Characterization
With A Gathering of Old Men, Gaines is shooting for a combination of fictional literature with newspaper-style reporting. One of the ways he gives us that hot-off-the-presses feeling is through direct characterization. In other words, he just straight-up lets us know what kind of people certain characters are. It's not enough, for example, that Russ tells Fix and his clan that Luke Will and his kind are only interested in trouble, and that old Luke is "no friend" (12.105). We've got to find out firsthand from Tee Jack just how awful Luke Will and his pals are. In a similar kind of way, when Gaines wants us to understand how awful Fix was, or how tough Mathu is, we get stories and statements from characters that make all of that crystal clear.
Actions
If there's one thing that carries some serious weight in A Gathering of Old Men, it's what characters do—and sometimes what they don't do. It should come as no surprise, then, that actions speak louder than words in terms of what they tell us about a specific character. When we first meet the owner and operator of the illustrious Marshall Plantation, Major Jack Marshall, he's passed out drunk on a porch swing. It should be pretty obvious, then, that he's not all that his money and reputation make him out to be.
On the opposite end of things, just think back to our old pal Dirty Red. Now, it's pretty clear that pretty much every character in the book thinks that Red—and his whole family, for that matter—are shiftless, worthless, and totally lazy. Yet not only does Red stick it out with the others and fight off Luke Will and his boys, but, when he and Charlie are in the thick of it together, he proudly shares a smoke or two with the guy (not that we condone smoking). Seeing this, Charlie lets him know that he's no loser anymore. As far as Charlie Biggs is concerned, old Red's "got it" (19.30). So… what's he got? Well, he's got the guts to take a stand, fight back, and demand respect. And the fact that Red is on his belly firing shots off at a gang of redneck terrorists is proof of that. In the world Gaines creates for us, what you do counts for a whole heck of a lot.
Physical Appearance
Always remember—and we know that we've said it more than once—that Gaines is shooting for a text that is like part novel, part hard-boiled news story. This is why we don't get a whole lot in the way of physical descriptions of this character or that character but, when we do, it usually counts for something.
Of all the characters we come across in A Gathering of Old Men, Sully is probably the best source for stuff like this. We personally love what he has to say about Sheriff Mapes: "He was one of those great big guys, exactly what the people up North and in Hollywood thought a small town sheriff would look like" (10.59). The fact that Mapes looks like a tired old stereotype is meant to reinforce the idea that Mapes is exactly that—a representation of a bygone time that has no business being a part of the twentieth century. These Hollywood sheriffs are usually pretty mean, too, and we've already seen Mapes smack around a bunch of innocent old men.
Then, of course, it's Sully who's the first to introduce us to Fix, and he gives us a real eyeful:
Fix was a short man with a big head, broad shoulders, thick chest, and big hands. He had practically no neck at all, and his big head set on his shoulders the way a volleyball sits on a bench. He must have just come from the barbershop, because his gray hair was cut close to the sides, brushed straight back on top, and I could smell as well as see the oil in his hair. He had probably gone to the barber to get himself all prettied up for the big game the next day. (12.19)
More than just a simple description of the guy that everybody seems afraid of, we get a lot in this little passage. We learn that Fix, even if he is tiny, is a pretty massive and brawny guy, and this tells us that he's got some ferocious power. Not only that, but we find out that he's totally preoccupied with appearances and what people think, which is why he's gotten all "prettied up." This weird fascination with the opinions of others also feeds in to Fix's feeling that he has to go out riding and avenge his son's death; he has to do it because he feels like that's what others expect him to do.
We know they say you should never judge a book by its cover, but we'd add to that: unless they happen to be a character in between the covers of an actual book.
Thoughts and Opinions
In a novel that has to do with racism and everything that it messes up—which happens to be a lot—you had better believe that thoughts and opinions are going to tell us a lot about a character. Racism, after all, is partially a collection of incredibly flawed and wrong-headed opinions. So when we hear Tee Jack listing a series of racial slurs as easily as if he were reading items off of his grocery list, you know that he's one bad egg. On the other hand, when Gil is trying to talk Fix out of wreaking some kind of havoc, and tells his dad that the days "when you could just take the law into your own hands" are good and gone (12.142), that's an opinion that shows us that Gil is basically a good guy who has decided that he doesn't want to follow in his daddy's evil footsteps.