SOURCE: Rowell, Charles H. “The Quarters: Ernest Gaines and the Sense of Place.” Southern Review 21, no. 3 (summer 1985): 733-50.

In the following essay, Rowell explores the symbolic geography of Gaines's fiction, highlighting the physical, social, and political significance of the “quarters” where African Americans in Louisiana traditionally lived.

Beyond the trees was the road that led you down into the quarters. At the mouth of the road was the main highway, heading toward Bayonne, and just on the other side of the highway was the St. Charles River. A light breeze had just risen up from the river, and I caught a faint odor from the sweet-olive bush which stood in the far right corner of the garden.

—A Gathering of Old Men

If you drive west out of Baton Rouge on U.S. 190, you eventually cross the Mississippi River, Mechesebe, “Father of Waters.” If you by-pass Port Allen...