Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Sun Does Shine, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Discrimination and the Criminal Justice System
Optimism, Faith, and Choice
The Death Penalty
Suffering, Community, and Support
The Power of Stories
Summary
Analysis
On February 23, 1985, John Davidson, the assistant manager of Mrs. Winner’s Chicken and Biscuits restaurant, is shot and killed in a robbery. The Birmingham Post Herald reports the story a few days later. Ray writes that he doesn’t know where he was that night because he doesn’t spend his days creating alibis for himself, but he has never eaten at that restaurant in Birmingham. There are no fingerprints or eyewitnesses at the scene—anyone could have done it. That person left with $2,200 and got away with murder.
Here, Ray sets up the crimes that will ultimately land him on death row. Because the book begins with Ray’s conviction, Ray hints at the fact that the lack of evidence tying him to the crime will become irrelevant because of the bias against him. In noting that the murderer got away with the crime, Ray also emphasizes the potential cost of the kind of injustice that he’s faced—the murderer continues to walk the streets, able to kill again.
Themes
In June, Ray turns 29 and he quits his job at the furniture store because he doesn’t want to work Saturdays. He wants to be able to take the day to help out his church and spend time with his mom, so he gets a job with a company called Manpower, which provides temporary labor to businesses around Birmingham. All he wants is to make a living, buy a car, and find a nice woman to fall in love with and marry. He thinks that the job at Manpower will allow him to figure out something else he might want to do—he even considers opening a restaurant.
Ray’s simple and universal desires—to be able to make a living, spend time with his family, and fall in love—show how important faith and community are to him. They also highlight the ultimate cost of his unjust conviction. In sentencing him to death row, the state of Alabama robs him of the ability to do all of these things.
Themes
On July 2, a gunman shoots and kills Thomas Wayne Vason in a robbery of a Captain D’s restaurant in Woodlawn. The homicide investigator notes similarities between this case and Davidson’s murder in February. Two days later, Ray celebrates the Fourth of July with his mom and Lester. He notes that the holiday is the biggest in Alabama, with parade floats, games, races, and strangers inviting each other in for food. Ray is happy—he has just started seeing a new girl named Sylvia—and he remarks to Lester that he feels like “anything is possible.”
Jumping back and forth between the serial murders at fast food restaurants and Ray’s carefree celebration creates a sense of foreboding in the narrative. Ray’s statement that “anything is possible” again reinforces his optimistic outlook, but there is also dramatic irony in that readers know how the possibilities in Ray’s life will be completely cut short by the outcome of the murder investigations.
Themes
On the night of July 25, Ray clocks into Bruno’s warehouse at 11:57 p.m. Like all the temporary workers, Ray checks in through a guard shack outside. Ray drives the forklift for about 10 minutes, and then he cleans the bathroom. He finishes this task around 2:00 a.m. and then takes a break for 15 minutes. After that, he works outside separating broken pallets from good ones, has his lunch at 4:00 a.m., cleans under a dumpster, and clocks out around 6:00 a.m.
Though Ray doesn’t remember where he was on the nights of the other robbery-murders, on this night he has a clear alibi. Going through each of the tasks he completed, and showing that he could not have gotten in and out of the place without checking in at the guard shack, provides a strong alibi for Ray.
Themes
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That same evening, at a Quincy’s Family Steak House in Bessemer, a gunman shoots the assistant manager Sidney Smotherman in the head. However, Smotherman survives his wounds and reports what happened to the police. He describes his assailant as Black, 5-foot-11, 190 pounds with a mustache. The homicide detective in the Captain D’s case is working with the detective from Bessemer.
Even though the previous passage set up a rock solid alibi for Ray, Smotherman’s description of the murder sets the stage for the bias against Ray. The primary identifying factor for the robber is that he is a large Black man, prompting the judgments and discrimination against any large Black man—like Ray.
Themes
On July 31, 1985, Ray is mowing the lawn in his front yard before church when two white policemen arrive on his back porch. Ray doesn’t run or resist them as they pat him down and cuff him—he knows he hasn’t done anything wrong. He quickly tells his mom that he’s going to jail, but he assures her that he didn’t do anything. The police then search his car and bedroom while Ray’s mother starts crying. He assures her that everything is going to be okay.
Here, Ray establishes his initial faith in the system and his optimism that the policemen’s mistakes will quickly be corrected. He knows that he hasn’t done anything wrong, but he doesn’t yet recognize the bias in the system that is causing him to be arrested, or the fact that that bias could lead to the conviction of an innocent man.
Themes
On August 2nd, an article appears in the Birmingham Post Herald describing how Ray has been charged in the Bessemer robbery and shooting. Smotherman identified Ray as the man who shot him, and police recovered a .38-caliber pistol from Ray’s home that matched the bullets. The article reports that Ray has also been connected to the other two robbery-murders and that Ray has been transferred from the Bessemer City Jail to the Jefferson County Jail.
The bias in the press adds to the bias in the criminal justice system. Even before Ray is assigned a trial or a jury, the news is reporting biased information from the police, only cementing the idea that Ray committed the crimes for people who may very well become Ray’s jurors.
Themes
