46 pages • 1 hour read
The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row
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Themes
The Power and Peril of Imagination
Throughout his prison stay, Hinton relies on his imagination to help him survive. He recounts a private visit with the Queen of England, a marriage to Halle Berry, and a second to Sandra Bullock. In his mind, he won Wimbledon, and is being recruited by the Yankees. At one point he even pretends, over the phone, to be somebody else. He makes it clear that his imaginings have been a source of escape for him. While other inmates suffered from boredom, repetition, and fear of the inevitable, Hinton writes: “I traveled in my mind. I had a whole, full life in my imagination, and so I didn’t always ache for what was missing” (225).
In fact, Hinton starts the book club so other inmates can have a means of mental escape; otherwise, they spend all their time thinking about their approaching executions. He convinces the warden that allowing the inmates to read would keep them manageable; he adds, “But really I knew it [allowing inmates to read] would set them free. If the guys had books, they could travel the world” (144). Ultimately, the book club is a success. Hinton is pleased: “Bring in the books, I thought. Let every man on the row have a week away, inside the world of a book.” The books serve not only as an escape, but for an opportunity to intellectually and emotionally grow. The most notable example is Henry Hays, a KKK member who, through reading and discussion with black inmates, is able to recognize and confront the hatred that had been ingrained in him since childhood. He can’t escape his past, but he can escape the present, and give himself hope for the future.
There are occasions, however, where Hinton’s imagination, unchecked, serves no purpose other than to make him angry or frightened. He fantasizes, in detail, about strangling Bob McGregor, the prosecuting attorney: “I imagined it. I held my hands in the night air and imagined his neck between my fingers” (79). At this early stage in the book, Hinton is still bitter. He claims he would become a murderer if that were why he was imprisoned.
Staying at his friend’s house on Hinton's first night of his freedom, his imagination continues to work in overdrive. He believes he can still hear the noises of the prison and smell the smells. In his mind, he is back on death row. This is clearly not an escapist fantasy; these nightmarish images will, for a while, be out of his control.
Shifting Definitions of Family
Because of his morbid circumstances, and possibly because he is close to only one biological family member—his mother—throughout the text, Hinton questions the traditional meaning of family. During the early stages of his incarceration, Hinton's brother refuses to lend him money for legal expenses. He also has sisters, but they never visit him; he has never met his father. Many of his fellow inmates—and even members of the correctional staff—are in similar situations. As such, they come to rely on each other for emotional support. Hinton articulates this theme: “I missed my family […] But sometimes you have to make family where you find family, or you die in isolation” (118).
In another example, Henry Hays—raised in a family affiliated with the KKK—disassociates himself from his father. His father dies soon after, but he still has family on death row, Hinton notes, “In Alabama, when someone dies, you bring food to the family” (146). He and the other inmates, mostly black, treat Henry like family, sharing their food. The guards participate in the ritual, assisting in making certain that Henry is fed: “We were all beginning to learn that you can make a family out of anyone” (147). Additionally, once Hays’s execution date is set, Hinton supposes that he “felt more love from the black men on death row than he ever did at a KKK meeting or from his own mother and father” (161). Hinton frequently explores this theme of unlikely compassion, coupled with the irony of even the executioners being like family.
Finding Humor in Unlikely Circumstances
Hinton relies on humor to keep himself entertained early in life; he is aware of ironies, and laughs about them. Once in prison, his ability to find amusing ironies becomes something of a psychological self-defense. Eventually, he understands that not only is humor necessary for his survival, but he can also use it to entertain, calm, and even manipulate—for the common good—those around him. Hinton amuses the reader with his observations, so that they might—if at first wary of him—let down possible defenses.
In the Foreword, Stevenson notes that he and Hinton could be seen “bowled over with laughter in the visitation room at Holman State Prison” (xi). Hinton also jokingly notes, early in his narrative, that his beloved mother “wore hats taller than the pope’s” when she meant business (2). Even upon his release after 30 years on death row, and with all the strange new pressures upon him, he tells Stevenson to bring him a suit: “I can’t be walking out of this jail naked” (232). These particular instances demonstrate Hinton's use of humor to entertain and make the best of dire circumstances.
Eventually Hinton discovers he can use humor as a tactic—not only as a means of psychic healing, but as a means to a more practical end. During an unbearable heat wave, he kiddingly asks one of the guards if he can borrow his truck so that he can cool off in a nearby swimming hole; he even suggests that the two of them go together. The guard “started laughing and shaking his head […] And just like that, he was smiling at me” (140-41). Hinton then asks this guard for a favor: He would like to see the warden. The guard obliges.
During his meeting with the warden, hoping to get permission to start a book club, Hinton teases about a recent appearance by Geraldo Rivera, who had spent a night there on death row to film a documentary piece. The warden asks Hinton why he did not speak to Rivera. Hinton responds he would gladly have spoken on camera to Rivera if only the warden had agreed to put Hinton on a flight to New York: ostensibly, he jokes, so that he could enjoy “some of those little peanuts I hear are so good” (143). The warden laughs and approves the book club.
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