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
People sentenced to death row have the right to an appeal, but the state of Alabama doesn’t provide any information about the process. The state also makes it as difficult as possible for evidence to be revisited in appeals. In addition, in Alabama, judges are often elected based on how many people they send to death row. Over the first several weeks at Holman, Ray tries to contact Perhacs, particularly because he keeps reading about robberies in Birmingham that are similar to the incidents for which he was convicted.
Ray exposes yet another bias in the criminal justice system: those without education or resources are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to the appeals process. Ray knows nothing about the deadlines or how the process might work, hindering his ability to prove his innocence and allowing for further miscarriages of justice.
Themes
Ray’s mom visits after his 90-day probation period is over. She tells him that God will fix what has happened, but Ray no longer believes in God. Ray’s mom also explains that she’s been sending letters to Perhacs, asking the lawyer to protect Ray. She shows Ray letters from Perhacs: he writes that he will do everything he can to protect Ray but the appeals process will probably take a few years.
At the time, Ray doesn’t know that his mom is also sending $25 with each letter, begging for Perhacs’ help. Ray wonders in retrospect if Perhacs laughed at those money orders—Perhacs doesn’t know what it means to be poor. After the first visit, Ray’s mom returns every week along with Lester, making a seven hour round-trip drive each Friday.
Ray contrasts the support he feels from his mother and Lester with the lack of empathy he feels from Perhacs. His mother and Lester represent people who believe in him and buoy his spirits, while Perhacs doesn’t even try to understand his situation or put effort into reversing it.
Themes
Ray is full of rage in the early months of his imprisonment, continuing to imagine how he would kill McGregor. He tries to figure out ways he might escape, and wonders if it would be better to be killed while trying to flee than in the electric chair. The only thing that stops Ray from doing this is that he still wants to prove his innocence. Still, he worries that he’s becoming a monster.
This passage illustrates the severe effect that Ray’s hopelessness is having on him. Not only does he think about putting himself in a situation that would cause his death, but he also starts to have violent thoughts, only corroborating the state’s worst assumptions about him.
Themes
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Every day, Ray eats breakfast at 3:00 a.m., lunch at 10:00 a.m., and dinner at 2:00 p.m. The food is terrible and every night he is hungry—not only physically hungry, but hungry for his dignity and freedom. He’s Anthony Ray Hinton, not inmate Z468. He worries that he’s not going to survive and becomes desperate to escape in some way.
Ray underscores how death row makes a person’s life feel completely worthless. Not only has Ray lost his freedom, but he has also lost his humanity and dignity in being reduced to a number—which only adds to his hopelessness.
Themes
Perhacs files a motion for a new trial, but the motion is denied on July 31, 1987—two years to the day after Ray was arrested. Ray finds out the next steps for his appeal process by listening to other inmates talk about their own appeals. They constantly talk about a man named Bryan Stevenson, who sends lawyers to help many of the inmates, but Ray largely ignores their discussion because he already has a lawyer.
Here Ray hints at the benefit of the community on death row, as the other inmates’ discussion helps Ray understand his own situation. He also foreshadows Bryan Stevenson’s involvement in his own life, and the fact that Stevenson and his team of lawyers are a supportive community unto themselves.
Themes
The inmates shower every other day at random times. They have no privacy, with two guys showering at once and two guards watching. They have to shower in under two minutes—Ray feels like a farm animal being hosed off in a barn. And once a day, for 15 minutes, the inmates are allowed to walk around in the yard. Ray always takes this opportunity, especially because he is constantly looking for a way out. He notices rats and roaches crawling around and thinks that if they can get out, so can he.
Ray again illustrates how the dehumanization of the death penalty goes beyond his execution. Ray and the other inmates are also treated as though their lives don’t matter in the prison, given no privacy or care whatsoever, and many—including Ray—are haunted by the knowledge that they are going to die.
Themes
Every night on death row, men scream and cry. Ray tries to block out the sound, but he has trouble sleeping. There are ghosts everywhere: both of people who died in the electric chair and people who chose to kill themselves. It is hard to hang yourself but easy to bash your head against the cement wall. Ray thinks that Holman is the real hell on earth.
Ray relays just how dire the inmates’ hopelessness can become: in many cases, it causes them to take their own lives. Even though he doesn’t choose to take this drastic action at this time, Ray clearly understands that it is a possibility for him.
Themes
In 1988, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirms Ray’s conviction, disagreeing with Perhacs’s assessment that the three cases shouldn’t have been combined, that Ray was unconnected to the first two murders, and that they should have been allowed to submit the polygraph test. Perhacs sends Ray a letter in April 1989, explaining that he’s appealing to the Alabama Supreme Court but that they will likely need a new ballistics expert. If that fails, they will take an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but Ray would need to find someone to finance that appeal.
Perhacs continues to put up an inadequate defense for Ray—as Ray notes soon after, Perhacs doesn’t mention that Ray is innocent in his appeal. Corruption could play a part in Perhacs’s actions: if the state denies the appeal and it goes to the Supreme Court, Perhacs has a better chance of making more money, potentially exploiting Ray’s defenselessness.
Themes
Ray hopes that the Alabama Supreme Court will order a new trial, because he has no money for an appeal to U.S. Supreme Court. He’s also frustrated with Perhacs, annoyed that the appeal didn’t say anything about the fact that Ray is innocent. He’s desperate to find a way to escape, and he still isn’t ready to take his own life.
Ray understands Perhacs’s ineffectiveness, and the fact that Perhacs doesn’t argue that Ray is innocent also makes him feel unsupported by the man. With this lack of empathy, Ray grows more and more desperate and distraught.
Themes
