I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down Analysis

Improved Essays
In the two short stories, “Sugarbaby” and “I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down”, William Gay explores how decisions can lead to irreversible consequences. The characters Mr. Beasley in “Sugarbaby” and Meecham in “I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down” both cross over the threshold which causes irreparable damage. In William Gay’s short stories, he explores dilemmas concerning life choices. He expresses two variations which lead to failure: avoidance and overinvolvement.
In “Sugarbaby”, Mr. Beasley’s decision to avoid issues ultimately leads to his downfall. Mr. Beasley kills his wife’s dog, Sugarbaby. Mr. Beasley shoots Sugarbaby in the night, because he grew tired of the dog’s weeping. His wife packs her bags, leaves him, and soon after
…show more content…
Meecham is an elderly man who was recently sent to live in a nursing home. Meecham’s son leases his home to family named the Choats. Meecham attempts to seek revenge and take his home back. The actions and hate filled acts Meecham makes leads to his downfall. Gay displays Meecham’s defiant nature in that he acquires a dog just to get under Choat’s skin. Speaking with Choat’s daughter, Meecham finds out that barking dogs absolutely drive Mr. Choat insane. “He named the dog Nipper and set about immediately training it to bark at his command.” (Gay 16) Meecham believed that he is superior to the Choat’s. “White trash right down to the ground, the old man thought.” (Gay 16) The lack of respect Meecham displayed toward the Choats is evident in the manner he deals with them. Rather than pursuing legal action or allowing the lease to end, Meecham takes the law into his own hands. He tries to get rid of Choat in many ways; he even shot at his feet. Yet it was not until what Choat said after the shooting to Meecham. “You’ll regret this, Meecham. You’ll be sorry every day of your life you shot towards me.” (Gay 20), that Meecham went even further down the path. He views Choat’s words as a threat. So, Meecham conceives a plot. Meecham begins by trying to find an alibi and tells the neighbor, Chessor, “All I want you to do is just …show more content…
Mr. Beasley reaches this point through the avoidance and stubbornness. By killing his wife’s dog, Meecham receives the divorce papers. Though his avoidance of the court summons and the decisions that follow, Meecham changes his life forever. All this because he refused to handle his business. While in the woods Mr. Beasley realizes, what effect his decisions have on his life with the statement:
For the first time in his life he realized that sometimes in life you go through doors that only open one way. You can stand before them and think about whether you want to go through them or not. But when you do and the door closes behind you there is no way to go back. (Gay

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The Beauty of Nature in “I’ll Tell You How the Sun Rose” In 1862, American poet Emily Dickinson read an article in Atlantic Monthly by Thomas Wentworth Higginson entitled “Letter to a Young Contributor” that inspired her. “The article offered witty, practical advice to young writers, pointedly including women, and spoke of the glory of language and the power and mystery of the individual word—ideas that resonated with Dickinson’s own sense of craft” (Leiter 319). Dickinson personally connected with Higginson’s message because she felt that it directly related to her poetry. Additionally, she wrote to him and included her poem, “I’ll Tell You How the Sun Rose,” in which she describes picturesque details through descriptive observations.…

    • 466 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Teresa Loutfi Professor Gualtieri Humanities 20th Century 13 July 2017 Existentialism in Into the Wild Into the Wild based on the nonfictional novel by Jon Krakauer was adapted into a film by Sean Penn in the year 2007. The film focuses on the life of twenty-three-year-old Chris McCandless whom after graduating college rejects his family, wealthily upbringing, identity and potential of becoming a lawyer in order to travel across the United States in search for his identity. McCandless decided to go about this journey to self-discovery and truth in order to break away from his pervious lifestyle of domestic violence and suffocating control of his parent’s wealth (Mist). As he was growing…

    • 1134 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The narrator demonstrates his struggle of figuring out who he is through expressing his experience about his detachment…

    • 1155 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    It has been said that what we value can be determined only by what we sacrifice. This applies to several characters in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, especially Orleanna, Nathan, and their daughters. Through their sacrifices, characteristics and values become evident in these characters that would not be understood otherwise. The sacrifices made by these characters contribute to the novel as a whole by giving it depth and greater meaning, just as these sacrifices make each character’s intentions clear and presence throughout the novel more relevant. Orleanna made countless sacrifices throughout the novel for her husband.…

    • 1717 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    He had found meaning beyond what had been expected, he found truth beyond the deceptions of his parents, and he found himself beyond society as he travelled into the…

    • 1361 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Coming of age stories reveal the struggle of life in early age. The stories also demonstrate life lessons and life losses. “Even though you're growing up, you should never stop having fun”. -Nina Dobrev. Unfortunately, I disagree with this quote since there are times when you need to actually grow up and not have fun.…

    • 702 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Equality vs. Society “True independence and freedom can only exist in doing what’s good”(Young). This quote states that you need independence and individuality to be good, and that is exactly what Equality demonstrates. Anthem was written in 1938 by Ayn Rand, who is from Saint Petersburg, Russia. Many novels first words have a huge impact on the entire story, this is especially true in the novella Anthem. “It is a sin to write this.”…

    • 731 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the play “The Crucible” written by Arthur Miller we see many themes and lessons in the story. The main theme is focussed on deceit and lying and how lies can lead down a dark road which results in the ruin of many. The Crucible is a fictional play based on the Salem Witch Trials which occurred between February 1692 and May 1693 and resulted in over 150 people being accused of witchcraft and 20 executed. The story focusses on the story of John Proctor and Abigail Williams, his niece, and how lies, jealousy, revenge, and deep seated feuds caused a community to turn on each other in a vicious circle of accusations and misunderstandings. The characters in the play who lie significantly are Abigail, John Proctor, and Mary Warren…

    • 1210 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Certain dogs recognize that they are dissimilar to other canines on earth. This causes conflict, as some are more accepting to this reality than others. Atticus, the leader of the pack, wishes to remain instinctively canine and supress the new consciousness by “[living] like they were supposed to” (33) but Majnoun, a thoughtful black poodle, “embraced the new way of thinking” (39). This results in Atticus persuading four other dogs into killing Majnoun, which they attempt to do but fail. The malicious intent Atticus shows towards Majnoun for simply wanting to live with the intelligence clearly shows how the new consciousness makes Atticus act violently.…

    • 1624 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    “Battle Royal” is a short story written by Ralph Ellison in 1952. He was born in Oklahoma City. After the death of his father when he was three years old, his mother started to work as a servant. His mother used to bring him books and phonograph records from the house where she worked. Because of that he got interest in literature and music.…

    • 1561 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Strange Character of Meursault In what perhaps is Albert Camus’s most notable work, The Stranger, the main character Meursault can be considered as a vessel for the philosophy of existentialism, an idea prominent in the time period in which the novel was written. Though at first glance Meursault may come off as a simple, uncaring man, as the story progresses, the reader is able to see Meursault as a complex and intriguing person. While in the beginning of the book Meursault is focused only on completing his physical needs, when his ability to fulfill them is taken away from him in prison, he is forced to truly think about his life, becoming fully absurdist in his philosophy. From the very start of the story, the author…

    • 1053 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    While him and his partner, Bobby, never got their hopes up, equal rights, including marriage was always a dream of theirs. The chance to have children together, to have family visitation rights in hospitals, or any of the other 1,138 benefits that married couple all over the world get (“Gay Marriage”). They were beginning to realize that maybe their fate was changing. He noticed people taking a stand all over the world. Most specifically movie stars that were publically saying that they would not get married until anybody who wants to get married can, “ after all, change comes about when people who have rights, fight for rights for those who don 't”(Bobby).…

    • 1713 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Heather Ostman’s article “The Sun Also Rises” from the Encyclopedia of the American Novel begins with an explanation of the book’s title. The Sun also Rises gets its name from Ecclesiastes, which is also quoted at the beginning of the book along with a quote from Gertrude Stein about the Lost Generation. Ostman notes that the connection of Ecclesiastes hopefulness with Stein’s hopelessness sustain the feeling of meaninglessness and alienation of the characters of the book following the Great War. In The Sun Also Rises as well as other books from the time period, love seems to fail time and time again, as relationships cannot be sustained or produce children. Love seems futile in this era, Ostman points out in this work as well as in T. S. Eliot’s…

    • 803 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    "The Prisoners of War,” a relatively short poem by Tom Disch, written in 1972, is riddled with imagery and deeper meaning. Even in the opening line, Disch cuts to the point. “Their language disappeared a year or so after the landscape: so what can they do now but point?” (line 1-3).…

    • 898 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Keynote speaker, Clint Smith speaks on the “Dangers of Silence” through the reflection of his own failures to tell the basic, everyday truth. When we hear the word danger, we typically think straight of the actions committed by others that are grave and deadly. Mr. Smith, a writer, and teacher brought an entirely new meaning to the meaning of silence. Clint states that the pure act of silence being recognized as serene causes more danger than any good. He teaches the audience that when we are dealing with controversial issues that demand action from the public, we divert ourselves to keep hushed and automatically become muted in order to avoid the issue at hand.…

    • 869 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics