Dr. Gaines 's A Lesson Before Dying

      "They sentence you to death because you were at the wrong place at the wrong time, with no proof that you had anything at all to do with the crime other than being there when it happened. Yet six months later they come and unlock your cage and tell you, We, us, white folks all, have decided it’s time for you to die, because this is the convenient date and time" (158). Ernest J. Gaines shows the internal conflicts going through the mind of Mr. Wiggins in his novel A Lesson Before Dying (1933). Mr. Wiggins is struggling through life and can’t find his way until he is called upon against his own will to help an innocent man, Jefferson. The help is not that of freeing him at all.

Throughout the history of man there has always existed a sort of rule pertaining to retribution for just and unjust acts. For the just came rewards, and for the unjust came punishments. This has been a law as old as time. One philosophy about the treatment of the unjust is most controversial in modern time and throughout our history; which is is the ethical decision of a death penalty. This controversial issue of punishment by death has been going on for centuries. It dates back to as early as 399 B.C.E., to when Socrates was forced to drink hemlock for his “corruption of the youth” and “impiety”.

The judge and jury were blind, they looked only to the fact that Tom Robinson was black and not the fact that he was innocent, as Atticus Finch once said to his children "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” If Tom were to be named innocent, it would matter to everyone because it would display true justice in a world filled with race

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

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

“You don’t get to choose how you’re going to die and when, you can only decide how you are going to live”. (Joan Baez). In the novel A Lesson Before Dying, written by Ernest J. Gaines, Jefferson doesn’t get to choose how and when he’s going to die, but he learns valuable lessons from Grant about how to live the rest of his life. This novel takes place in Bayonne, Louisiana, in the late 1940s. Jefferson is a twenty-one-year-old uneducated black man, who is accused of a robbery and murder that he did not commit. Unfortunately, the conviction led to his death by execution. While he is in jail, Jefferson’s grandmother wants him to die a hero, so she turns to Grant Wiggins, a black teacher at the local plantation school. During his time in

One of the many challenges associated with writing is that of writing style. It can help highlight the work when used effectively, or the opposite, if used ineffectively. Some have an intuitive grasp on matter while others struggle. In his book “A Lesson Before Dying”, author Ernest J. Gaines effectively conveys his story through his stylistic choices. He does this through Jefferson’s diary in chapter 29, Grant’s observations and thoughts throughout the story, and the “third-person" perspective of chapter 30. These things elevate the immersion of the story and gives further insight into what Gaines is trying to convey.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction –Newton’s third law. This law is just as accurate for human interactions; for every content dominant man, there is a sad submissive man. The symbolism used by Ernest Gaines, Henrik Ibsen, Ambrose Flack, and Isaac Asimov is used to show how control over others, leads to sadness for the inferior person in the relationship. These corrupt relationships are shown in A Lesson before Dying using the symbols, the broken books of the black children, the electric chair and Pichot’s kitchen, which help illustrate how groups in control, the whites, will hurt subservient groups, the blacks. Nora’s pet names, the children’s maid, and Krogstad’s letters are symbols found in Doll’s House and help show how one person who has control over another is detrimental for the controled party. Finally, in the short stories, “The Stranger That Came To Town” and “The Fun They Had”, symbols such as the soap bar that killed the fish, the amputations of the Duvitch family and the slot used on the robot teacher, help show how a dominant society harms individual in the minority.

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.

In Ernest J. Gaines novel A Lesson Before Dying, a young African-American, Jefferson, is caught in the middle of a liquor shootout, and as the only survivor is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. During Jefferson’s trial, his attorney calls him a hog in an effort to persuade the jury that he could not have possibly planned a crime like this. Having heard this, Jefferson’s godmother, Miss Emma, calls on the local school teacher, Grant Wiggins, to visit Jefferson in prison and help prove to the community, more importantly the white people, that Jefferson is indeed a man, not a hog. Throughout the book, Grant often contemplates why he is helping Miss Emma; he debates within himself whether he should stay and help Miss Emma and

The death penalty is one of the most controversial issues on American soil. Blacks are more likely to face the death penalty than whites in the commission of identical crimes(CNN, 2014). The history of capital punishment dates back to the days before Christ. The Old Testament adage 'an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,' has survived throughout the ages despite the New Testament's rendition of 'thou shall not kill'. Today's American victims endure a more demure of style of cruel and unusual punishment; death by lethal injection has replaced the barbaric traditions of the past.

Grant Wiggins is very conflicted and confused about many aspects of his life when he comes back to his home town. Despite his reluctance, he is eventually forced to overcome his defeatist attitude and accept the sense of responsibility that Tante Lou and Miss Emma are trying to instill in him. Grant is also haunted by his past having grown up in a very racist small town which he could never find a way to deal with.

In The Lesson Before Dying, Gaines creates an unexpected turn of events for both Jefferson and Grant. Jefferson is an innocent bystander that is bitter towards the world and people who wrongly put him in jail. Miss Emma, Tante Lou, and Grant’s aunt believed that Grant could help Jefferson by visiting him in jail. The book is filled with failed community responsibilities and perspectives, and Grant overcoming being a coward.

The setting in a book can affect how the reader views and understands the novel. The setting is a very important part of a book, whether it is important the setting stays the same in the book, or if the storyline is flexible enough that the setting can change. In the book “A Lesson Before Dying”, the setting is very important to the storyline. In this case, the storyline is not flexible enough to be set at any other time, than the 1940’s. It is very important it is set during this time because the views and understanding of race back then, makes a huge contribution to the understanding of the novel. The fact that Jefferson is treated differently and looked at differently

When Tom Robinson was convicted of a crime and sent to a trial that he had no chance at winning, he had lost any bit of innocence that he would ever get. In a time where the black community faced constant prejudice and discrimination, it was near impossible for any African American to be let off as innocent for any crime. And the sad part to it is that a lot of the blacks sent to trials and jail weren't even guilty of any crime at all, they were innocent. Tom Robinson was sent to a trial for the rape and beatings of Mayella Ewell. No one believed Tom on his innocence and when Atticus, his lawyer at the case, hands down proved his innocence, he was still going to be convicted as guilty. If it had come down to where they had to sit in front of another jury and do the same thing over and prove his innocence again, he still would probably be convicted as a guilty man. In the end Tom would be sentenced as guilty on not fact, or logic but by wrong prejudice ideas. With the broken judicial system and sideways beliefs of the time Tom Robinson lost any little hope he could ever wish for, he was completely stripped of his innocence.