Character Analysis: A Lesson Before Dying By Ernest J. Gaines

In the book A Lesson before Dying colorism took place. I say that because it took place eighty years after the abolition of slavery, but the black characters still live as third-class citizens. They lived and worked on a planation. The blacks in the book are segregated from the whites such as the bathroom, and movie theaters. Black children wasn’t evaluated on their reading or math ability skills which in my honesty opinion they should have. They were evaluated on their physical fitness and dental health. Racism were also portrayed at the beginning of the novel when twelve white men says a black man must die and another white man sets the date and time without consulting with no black men. At the same time, the radical also suggests how the black characters in A Lesson before Dying absorbed the racist ideas of which they may suffered. The novel opens with a court scene, as the narrator later diagnosed as Grant Wiggins, a black teacher at the local plantation school recounts the trial of Jefferson, a twenty one year old uneducated black guy accused of robbery and

Authors in many instances use the main elements in the story such as setting and narrative to prove a point in the story. For example, writers often use characters, their actions, and their interaction with other characters to support or prove a theme. In the short story “Our Thirteenth Summer”, Barry Callaghan effectively uses characters to develop the theme that childhood is fragile and easily influenced. One of the ways that Callaghan makes effective use of characters to develop the theme is by describing the tension between Bobbie and his parents. This usage of characters supports the theme because Bobbie’s childhood is no longer free to do what he wishes, but has to bow down to his parents’

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Jimmy knows too well the agonies of abandonment. First, when his mother, Cecilia, ran away with Richard to pursue a better lifestyle. Then, due to his father’s, Damacio Baca, alcoholisms and violent behavior; he also had to leave Jimmy behind. In spite of the drawbacks from abandonment to being a maximum security prisoner in Arizona State Prison, Jimmy preserver’s the darkness of prison by overcoming his illiteracy. However Cecilia and Damacio is not as fortunate as their child; Cecilia is shot by Richard after confronting him for a divorce and Damacio chokes to death after he is released from the detox center(Baca 263). Therefore the most significant event in this section of the memoir, A Place to Stand by Jimmy Santiago Baca is the death of Jimmy’s parents.

From the very beginning, when Jefferson is convicted for a murder he did not commit, and all throughout the novel, prejudice is present. The most inherent racism in the trial comes from Jefferson’s defense attorney. While arguing for Jefferson’s release he states, “What you see here is a thing that acts on command. A thing to hold the handle of a plow, a thing to load your bales of cotton, a thing to dig your ditches, to chop your wood, to pull your corn”(Gaines 8). This description of Jefferson strongly resembles that of a slave. The attorney undoubtedly is racist and tries to defend Jefferson in the murder case by depicting him as incapable of planning a murder. He argues that Jefferson deserves mercy on the grounds that he is more similar to a hog than to a man. This statement not only shatters the bit of dignity Jefferson has but also devastates his godmother, Miss Emma. Grant agrees to Miss Emma’s request that he “educate” Jefferson because he wants Jefferson to the fight racism in their community. As Grant tells Jefferson, when

Throughout his trial, his defense attorney constantly disparaged him. Jefferson’s defense was based on the premise that he did not have the intelligence to commit such a serious crime. In an effort to portray him as an barbarian, Jefferson’s lawyer refused to refer him as a human being. He referred to him as “boy, fool and hog” and contented that these qualities were “inherited from his ancestors in the deepest jungles of Africa” (Gaines 7). This is what the majority of Whites thought of Jefferson and black people in general. Instead of giving him a genuine defense, Jefferson’s lawyer continued to dehumanize him throughout the trial. He even compared his execution to the killing of a hog. Fighting for his freedom by accepting that he is an ignoramus or expressing his humanity were the two difficult options Jefferson had.

In a white dominated community, African Americans are seen as meager and are restricted to this stereotype. Even if they manage to break free from this stereotype, they would still be associated with it. There is nothing that they can do to be perceived as an equivalent to the white men. Ed Piacentino mentions in “‘The Common Humanity That Is in Us All’: Toward Racial Reconciliation in Gaines’s A Lesson before Dying” that Jefferson’s trial is full of biased white men, “who [have] no respect for blacks and who [perpetuate] the belief of [their] white forebears that African Americans, as Grant puts it, are ‘only three-fifths human’”(1). Because of their perceptions of African Americans, the result has already been instilled in their mind from the beginning. Jefferson never had a chance of proving himself innocent because the way African Americans are conventionalized

I was pleased to have attended a lecture cosponsored by the Ethics Center, the Fresno State office of the president, the Fresno Bee and Valley PBS. The lecture began with Dr. Castro recognizing a few leaders on campus, including a past Fresno State president, Dr. John D. Welty and campus volunteer Mary Castro. Dr. Castro then mentioned a few things about Mr. Brooks stating that he is a columnist for the New York Times and an analyst for the PBS “News Hour” and NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Dr. Brooks also teaches at Yale University, one the finest university in the country. Dr. Castro continued by saying that he learned that Mr. Brooks office hours are from 9am to 1pm and how “cool” it sounded to him. I was surprised how many people attended the event. I was fortunate to find a seat. David Brooks mentioned how he has some remote roots in the Central Valley because his father grew in Chowchilla, CA but Mr. Brooks grew in New York.

In the novel A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines, racism and prejudice are clearly evident and talked about throughout the novel. The novel expresses the oppression of the blacks under a white-ruled society through the narrator, Grant. Grant is a well-educated black man who struggles to free himself from the oppression he has felt from the white community. Despite the fact that he is educated and a teacher, he initially lacks the vigor needed to take the first step against black discrimination. He has all this intellect, but does not realize until later on that it is not only intelligence he needs to overcome the oppression, but self-assertion, too. Education does not prove your intellectual worth in society; rather, it is what you do during difficult times that define your intelligence and strong character not just to yourself, but to the world.

Grant felt helpless and frustrated. Jefferson was accused of a crime that he did not commit it. In their society, it would not matter if he did it or not, just because he was black and he was in the place of the crime where white people were killed he will be found guilty. It would be impossible for any lawyer to convince the judge that this black man was innocent of what he was accused. As Grant said “No, I did not go to the trial, I did not hear the verdict, because I knew all the time what it would be.” (Page 1) Everyone knew what will happen to Jefferson just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They did not look for any evidence and they did not need it because their society was about white power and any black person involved in a white person’s death will be guilty.

The stance that is taken in the court to criminalize Jefferson is detrimental because they make Jefferson lose his dignity as a man. Jefferson is compared to something that is seen as a rodent, and taking such a stance makes Jefferson lose all the hope that he has. When the defense referred to Jefferson as a boy and not a man, jefferson was being talked down by the side that was supposed to be his own. “This a Man? No, not I. I would all it a boy and a fool” (Gaines 7). Jefferson is being talked to like a boy, a fool. It is implied that he is inexperienced and he didn’t know what he was doing as much as a toddler wouldn’t. While the defense was on his side, it referred to him as a fool because of the color of his skin. The defense is making out Jefferson to be an innocent bystander and in the process making jefferson seem to be a manchild. It is not only making Jefferson seem like he was too idiotic to move out of the way, he is also being dehumanized. “I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this” (Gaines ). When the defense compares Jefferson to a hog, he is saying that Jefferson is just as insignificant. It’s dehumanizing in that Jefferson is made out to be an insignificant low life. Jefferson’s defence is getting a point across, but it’s not the right one because “‘I don’t want them to kill no hog,’ she said. I want a man to go to that chair, on his own two feet.” (Gaines 13) In this quote Miss Emma wants Jefferson to know why he is

Throughout history and in literature, Black has always been portrayed as evil, whereas White has represented purity and light. These oversimplified stereotypes of something so abstract as skin color has plagued our culture with prejudice and hatred. Ernest E. Gaines, author of A Lesson Before Dying, tells the story of a young black boy named Jefferson who is set to die for essentially being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and a schoolteacher who is faced with the task of making him a “man”. The novel takes place in Bayonne, Louisiana in the 1940’s, a time when racism prospered. At this time in history people faced extreme prejudice based on the color of their skin. Though slavery had been abolished almost eighty years

What if you were sentenced to death for a crime you did not commit? What if you were then proclaimed to be a hog by a jury of your peers? What if you had 5 months to learn to grow from the hog you are said to be, to a man so that you are able to stand tall and walk to your death on your own two legs with your head held high? What would you learn? These questions are the central conflict of the novel A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines. This book takes place on a plantation in the deeply racist state of Louisiana in the 1940s, where a black man named Jefferson is sentenced to death by means of the electric chair by an all-white jury for a murder that he did not commit. Jefferson’s white lawyer’s only defense is that Jefferson, being a

The story starts off at Jefferson’s trial. Grant recalls what Jefferson did to be put on trial. Jefferson was going to a bar when two black men offered him a ride. When they got there the two men tried to pay for a drink with a credit, when that didn’t happen they pulled out guns. After the shootout the two men and the bar owner were dead, which left Jefferson, a black man, in the store by himself. Jefferson took some money and was about to run but then two white men walked into the store, thinking that Jefferson had intentions to steal the money and kill the owner. Jefferson was found guilty and the judge sentenced him to death by electrocution.

December 18, 1865, marked the end of African-American slavery in America, where-by black people gained more freedom in the land. However, a power imbalance between the black and white is still present. A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines gives readers insight to the immense abuse and hatred towards black people in the 1940s of America and furthers the reader's knowledge of black segregation and how the black people never gave up for their freedom and rights. The novel’s main plot follows Grant Wiggins, a young black man who was given the responsibility to make Jefferson, a black man who was unjustifiably accused of murder and sentenced to death by electrocution become truly a man and not a “hog” which is what the lawyer labeled Jefferson as. Throughout the novel, readers can recognize the great bond created as Grant encourages and aids Jefferson in becoming a man before his “judgment day”. Nevertheless, the novel was not only about Jefferson’s lesson before his death, but it was a lesson for many other characters in the novel. The most important lesson to learn before dying is the lesson of never give up, which can be seen through the actions of Jefferson, Miss Emma, and Grant.