Grant Wiggins was introduced to the reader as an apathetic school teacher with few emotional ties to anything or anyone. He blazes through life without any thought. However, this changes as he begins to develop a genuine interest for Jefferson’s mental well-being. As Grant’s hardened heart begins to thaw in the presence of simple-minded Jefferson, I begin to resent him less. When Grant buys Jefferson a radio out of his own pocket-albeit with a few donations from other people- this clearly shows how far Wiggins come on his path towards finding meaning in his life. This is the man that yelled at his students for wasting precious chalk that came out of his own pocket. In my eyes, this puts Grant on the path to redemption. This seemingly simple gesture is a monumental step. It is the first major step on the road to emotional bonding for both Jefferson and Wiggins. At the beginning, this radio seemed insignificant. It was a nice gesture. However, this little contraption causes much change in the plot of the story. This tiny box gives Jefferson another reason to believe he is a man. My ...
The author of the article “A Call to Service in Ernest Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying” is Beatrice McKinsey. In McKinsey’s introduction, she stated her thesis statement: “whatever one’s social class, race, or education maybe, we have a purpose or a call to service. Ernest Gaines uses the main characters, Grant and Jefferson, to demonstrate how men can achieve manliness through service” (McKinsey 77). By stating this thesis statement, McKinsey shows her audience that she will be discussing the main characters, as well as their journey to becoming manly. Overall, this is seen as the purpose for her article.
After he went and obtained a college degree, Grant Wiggins goes back to live with his grandmother. Being that he is a very educated person, Grant was elected by his grandmother to try and get Jefferson to realize that he was a man and not an animal like the white people had led him to believe. Throughout the entire novel, Grant is battling this idea in his head because he doesn’t feel that even he knows what it is to be a man. He doesn’t believe that he is the right person to talk to Jefferson. But by the end of the novel, he figures out what it is to be a man.
In the novel A Lesson Before Dying, Grant and Jefferson are black men in the era of a racist society; but they have struggles with a greater dilemma, obligation and commitment. They have obligations to their families and to the town they are part of. They lived in a town were everybody knew everybody else and took care of each other. "Living and teaching on a plantation, you got to know the occupants of every house, and you knew who was home and who was not.... I could look at the smoke rising from each chimney or I could look at the rusted tin roof of each house, and I could tell the lives that went on in each one of them." [pp. 37-38] Just by Grant’s words you can tell that that is a community that is very devoted to each other.
Adolph Myers, a kind and gentle man "[ is] meant by nature to be a teacher of youth"(215), however, the towns' people can not understand that the male school teacher - a not so common phenomenon at the time--spoke soothingly with his hands and voice only to "carry a dream into the young minds" (215) of his students. The young school teacher was wrongfully accused of doing "unspeakable things" to his students, and as a result was beaten and run out of town without being given a chance to explain the his love for the children was pure, and that he had done nothing wrong. Therefore, as young Adolph Myers, whose only crime is of being a good and caring person runs out of Pennsylvania, old Wing Biddlebaum, the lonely and confused victim of a close-minded society walks into Winesburg Ohio.
...At first, Grant was not very concerned about Jefferson. He just wanted to pass the time he had to spend with him. Before long, he began to think of what it would feel like to be a dead man, and what he could do to make the time Jefferson had left be the best it could for him. This was the greatest achievement Grant accomplished in the entire book. After the point in which he discussed the ice cream and the radio with Jefferson and Jefferson admitted for the first time that he was more than a hog, Grant truly cared. Grant developed greatly during the course of this story, along with other characters featured in the story. Vivian met new people and increased the quality of her relationship with Grant, Miss Emma finally got to see someone stand for her, Tante Lou learned that she had a decent nephew after all, and Jefferson got off of his four legs and stood.
...kes a negative attitude throughout the article. He simply states the facts, supports them, and moves on to his next point. Jefferson never appears to be angry and does not point out anything that distracts the reader from the message that he is trying to convey. He keeps a serious tone throughout that keeps the reader drawn into what he is saying the entire time. The reader feels a sense that Jefferson is serious about what he is saying and he is not to be taken lightly at all.
Over the years education has been one of the challenges in the African American Community, in the novel A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines time period focused on education; which was very involved in work and labor instead of education. Learning in the south due to segregation became terrible for African Americans to afford education however the north in urban communities also experience the lack of education. Why does the south have little to no education more than the north in black communities? Education in the south has been inferior to the north due to the lack of funds, discrimination and social differences which is shown in graduation rates.
Life is short and it is up to you to make the most out of it. The most important lesson that everyone should follow and apply to everyday life is “never give up”. In the novel, “A Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest J. Gaines, the important lesson can be shown in the characters Jefferson, Miss Emma and Grant Wiggins.
Throughout the hundreds of years, individuals have pondered the impact of heavenly or insidious force, environment, hereditary qualities, even excitement, as deciding how free any individual is in settling on good decisions. Fate, a result of the past, is often described as the advancement of occasions out of man 's control, dictated by an extraordinary force. In any case that someone may utilize their freewill can reflect upon their outcomes, decided upon a supreme force, whether they are positive or negative. In the novels “A Lesson Before Dying,” Ernest Gaines and “The Grapes of Wrath,” John Steinbeck, the authors explore the trials and tribulations of self influenced fate controlled by an higher force.
...h and help Jefferson. Jefferson writes in the notebook as if writing a letter to Grant, which suggests that Jefferson looks to Grant for guidance even when alone in his cell. In addition, the notebook symbolizes hope for future collaboration not just between blacks, but between blacks and whites—for Paul, the white deputy, delivers the book to Grant and asks to shake Grant’s hand. “Paul stuck out his hand. ‘Allow me to be your friend, Grant Wiggins...’” (Gaines, 255). This conversation suggests the reconnection between blacks and whites in the future. Therefore, the notebook symbolizes reconnections with society itself, reconnections of friends and of different races.
At first things didn’t look to bright for Carver’s future, he tried to enlist into the school in Diamond Grove, but was turned down because of racism. They told Carver that African American’s were not permitted to attend the school. With the news of this, George left home on his own, to attend a color school in the community of Neosho. He had to find someone who ...
According to his biography, Ernest J. Gaines grew up in Oscar, Louisiana on a plantation in the 1930s. He worked picking potatoes for 50 cents a day, and in turn used his experiences to write six books, including A Lesson Before Dying. While the novel is fictional, it is based on the hardships faced by blacks in a post Civil War South, under Jim Crow and 'de jure' segregation. In A Lesson Before Dying, the main story line is a sad tale in which a young black man named Jefferson, is wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins, a teacher, is persuaded by Jefferson's grandmother Miss Emma to help Jefferson become a man before his execution. The struggle for Grant to get Jefferson to cooperate, and Grant's own internal development are the main plot-points; however, the background commentary on systems of racism is the main theme.
Ernest Gaines was born during the middle of the Great Depression on January 15, 1933. He was the oldest of twelve children. At the age of nine Gaines worked as an errand boy on the River Lake Plantation, the same plantation his book A Lesson Before Dying was set in. Gaines was raised by his Aunt Augusteen Jefferson, much like Grant, the protagonist in the novel, was raised by his Aunt Tante Lou. At the age of fifteen Gaines rejoined his immediate family in Vallejo, California because there were no high schools for him to attend in Louisiana. Gaines also wanted to enter a public library which was illegal for people of color to use. At this time in U.S. History, books about colored people were scarce and so Gaines decided to try and write his own novel. The desire to write led him to San Francisco State and Stanford University where he took creative writing courses. His first book, Catherine Carmier, was published in 1964. He finished his most famous novel, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, in 1971. The success of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman prompted Gaines to write more about the black communities of southern Louisiana. The most successful book dealing with the colored people of southern Louisiana, A Lesson Before Dying, was penned in 1993 (“About Ernest Gaines” 1).
Conflicts are the backbone of any novel, without conflict stories would not be nearly as interesting! Conflicts can be caused by many things, in this novel the main problem is racism. A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines is a novel based off of many internal conflicts between the characters, causing the characters to make different decisions and actions; this is important because the story is circled around racism causing many conflicts.
Grant and Jefferson are on a journey. Though they have vastly different educational backgrounds, their commonality of being black men who have lost hope brings them together in the search for the meaning of their lives. In the 1940’s small Cajun town of Bayonne, Louisiana, blacks may have legally been emancipated, but they were still enslaved by the antebellum myth of the place of black people in society. Customs established during the years of slavery negated the laws meant to give black people equal rights and the chains of tradition prevailed leaving both Grant and Jefferson trapped in mental slavery in their communities.