SOURCE: Shelton, Frank W. “Ambiguous Manhood in Ernest J. Gaines's Bloodline.” CLA Journal 19, no. 2 (1975): 200-09.

In the following essay, Shelton examines the aesthetics and themes of Bloodline, focusing on the thematic recurrence of how the African American male attains manhood, what constitutes manhood, and its implications for the individual.

With the recent highly regarded television version of the novel, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Ernest J. Gaines's reputation and popularity have been enhanced substantially. His earlier works are consequently being reconsidered, but one of the curious facts of Gaines criticism is that his one volume of short stories, Bloodline, has been relatively neglected.¹ Certainly “The Sky Is Gray” is an extremely popular story—Gaines himself has noted that it “has been anthologized twelve to fifteen times.”² Considering his own opinion of his stories, about which he said, “I always knew my stories were better than anything else...