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In The Sun Does Shine, the sun symbolizes Ray’s persistent hope for a better life—a life where he is proven innocent and released from prison. Ray first introduces the sun when he and the other death-row inmates in his book club discuss Go Tell It on the Mountain. In a key passage, the main character of the book discusses how “the sun refused to shine” because of the oppression he faced from white people—an idea that Ray refutes. In maintaining that the sun will never refuse to shine for him, Ray implies that he will always keep up hope, even in his darkest days, because that hope is critical for his survival on death row. In other words, Ray chooses to see the sun shining. It is this sense of hope that prevents Ray from taking his own life while on death row (something many inmates end up doing), encourages him to find a better lawyer (Bryan Stevenson) who is committed to advocating for him, and leads him to form deep and satisfying friendships with the other inmates.
The sun’s symbolic significance as a beacon of hope is particularly apt because Ray often cannot actually see the sun in his own life. For the first 2 years of his 30-year imprisonment, he is allowed to take a 15-minute walk around the prison yard (an opportunity he eagerly takes), but his next 28 years are spent on death row, where he is completely denied the opportunity to see the sun. Even though he may not be able to literally see the sun in prison, he holds out hope that he will be able to walk free one day and feel the sun on his skin once more. It’s fitting that when Ray finally does get out of prison, his first words to the press are, “the sun does shine.” Knowing that the men on death row will be watching the news of his release, Ray makes this statement as a way to encourage them to cultivate and nurture the same sense of hope that he felt. Only by keeping up hope—by believing that the sun does shine—is Ray able to literally and metaphorically see the sunshine again.
The Sun Quotes in The Sun Does Shine
The The Sun Does Shine quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Sun. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 3
Quotes
Some days, I would go up to Maine to eat lobster drenched in warm butter, and other days, I would go swimming in Key West, Florida. In my mind, I would travel anywhere but into that black, dark pit where every breath was full of float dust that brought coal and rock and dirt into your lungs where it settled in and took root as if to punish you for disturbing it in the first place.
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Chapter 19
Quotes
This isn’t your time to die, son. It’s not. You have work to do. You have to prove to them that my baby is no killer. You have to show them. You are a beacon. You are the light. Don’t you listen to that fool devil telling you to give up. I didn’t raise no child of mine to give up when things get tough. Your life isn’t your life to take. It belongs to God. You have work to do. Hard work. I’m going to talk at you all night long if I have to and all day and all night again, and I will never stop until you know who you are. You were not born to die in this cell. God has a purpose for you. He has a purpose for all of us. I’ve served my purpose.
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Chapter 23
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I felt a flash of fear, and then I thought about the guys on the row. They would be watching the news. They would be seeing my release. […]
I closed my eyes, and I lifted my face to the sky. I said a prayer for my mama. I thanked God. I opened my eyes, and I looked at the cameras. There had been so much darkness for so long. So many dark days and dark nights. But no more. I had lived in a place where the sun refused to shine. Not anymore. Not ever again.
“The sun does shine,” I said, and then I looked at both Lester and Bryan—two men who had saved me—each in their own way. “The sun does shine,” I said again.
And then the tears began to fall.
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Get the entire The Sun Does Shine LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Sun Symbol Timeline in The Sun Does Shine
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Sun appears in The Sun Does Shine. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3
...for another five years. Then, when he’s 24, he wakes up late, sees the beautiful sun, and decides that he just can’t go down into the mine any longer and quits...
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Chapter 8
...misses Sylvia, wishing that he could smell her skin one more time and feel the sun on his face. He wants his freedom, he wants justice, and he wants to kill...
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Chapter 15
...for things they have not done. John can try to change the world until “the sun refused to shine,” but white people will never let him enter their world. Ray knows...
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...with the passage: he says that the world belongs to everyone, and he knows the sun will never refuse to shine. As Ray sees the guard returning to tell them that...
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Chapter 23
...praising God. After they settle down, everyone gets silent, waiting for Ray to speak. “The sun does shine,” he says. He looks at Lester and Bryan, the two men who saved...
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