A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
256 Pages
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This was my final reading for Lit class and I am glad I chose it. A Lesson Before Dying is the story of a teacher, Grant, and a young black guy, Jefferson. The story is set in the late 40s, Jefferson is sentenced to death while Grant is requested (by Jefferson's grandmother) to teach Jefferson how to be a man before he is killed. The passages I bookmarked were really long so I have screenshots this time instead of typed out selections. And because this review will be more in-depth than the usual charms post, they will be spread throughout the post.
Jefferson is wrongly convicted of murder which is why he's sentenced to death, and during his trial, his lawyer tries to prove his innocence, and how he was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time by calling him a hog. Jefferson has no intelligence, he is a fool. Killing him would mean nothing. That's the attorney's argument, which in the end doesn't work to save Jefferson, but it does affect Jefferson's grandmother. She knows she can't change the result now that the jury decided, so she wants Jefferson to at least die a man, not a hog as people made him out to be.
She requests the town's teacher, whose aunt she's friends with, to go see Jefferson and teach him how to be a man. Grant, who is the narrator of the story, tells us his thoughts, meetings, and the life in the town during the time period between Jefferson's conviction and death.
To start off, Grant is not a very likable narrator. He is honest and thus reliable with his narration, but that's about it as far as redeeming qualities go (at least in the beginning). As a person, he is annoying and whiny. The first question I wrote in my notes was, "Why do they think the teacher will be able to teach Jefferson to be a man when he himself isn't man? He is immature – is the reader supposed to feel this way about the narrator?"
Grant doesn't really want to take up the task of making Jefferson a man. He himself questions the decision for his selection.What does he know to make someone a man? In fact, in his narrative, his girlfriend, Vivian, is the reason he himself is a man. Vivian, provides the support and encouragement Grant needs to keep visiting Jefferson and not giving up too easily.
The reason that this book is good, despite the narrator, is because not only is it really well-written in terms of style and prose, but it's also a nice, nuanced narrative of black living in the US. And it's timeless in how some most of the problems presented in the book are still relevant (sadly).
These are some selections showing Grant's feelings towards being asked to visit Jefferson. Around this time, I thought that even though Grant starts out as a pessimistic miser, maybe the story will function in a way that he will grow together with Jefferson. While having a wise, more likable person go to see Jefferson seems like the more guaranteed way to go, sending someone that Jefferson can relate to, however surprisingly, might serve the story better. Or so I thought. But I never got that in the end. Does Jefferson learn how to be a man? Yes. Does Grant change marginally? Not so much. Sure, he has some character growth, but not enough to make the reader like him. I might have to do a second reading later because my Lit teacher said on later readings I would start to sympathize with Grant more. I am skeptical, but I will give it a chance.
[Warning for discussions of child abuse] This passage was important to me especially in shaping my view of the narrator. He lives in a small town and he teaches all the kids in the elementary school. He knows all their stories. He knows their families. He knows their living conditions. Yet, when he's angry or upset, he takes it out on the kids. He beats them and yells at them and he acknowledges that he is doing it out of his own anger and inability to control it. He is truly despicable in that sense, and even though we have discussed the time context of the story and how yes during that time and until quiet recently too teachers could beat up children in schools and it was totally fine doesn't mean that we can't hold these people to the same moral standards that we can hold any decent human being at any time in history. Just on a very scientific, evolutionary standpoint, even without religion or belief or any kind of mores, children are small and weak and usually ignite nurturing instincts in us. We want to protect them from harm, not inflict harm on them. The gist of the story is that I really hated Grant. But let's move on. [End warning.]
These passages highlight the racial nuances of the story and the conflicts black people face and have faced, both externally with other people, and internally within themselves. While I don't like Grant, I still appreciate what his character brings to the story. For example, examining how he approaches matters of pride and self-worth create interesting questions. He creates the gray area between the moral absolutes of right and wrong.
He's also important for exploring questions like what actually makes someone a man, or how does education play into what a man is? How does religion? Grant himself acts like academics are the pinnacle of human potential. Once you are educated, you are better than the rest of your kind. Knowing science and math is what matters, nothing else. Living in any other way than the way of the intellectually elite is barbarism. That kind of thing. He questions his own position as a man in teaching Jefferson, but he does make it clear that he thinks there is a distinction between the university-bred young man and the farm-worker. This is of course, not wrong, these are two different classes of people. But to take away from them all the other facets of their lives is rude and superficial. University education does not make a man, instead, as it's popularly known, manners maketh man. And Grant is of the opinion that his job as a teacher is to make "people like [Jefferson]" to keep
from going to jail, and while this might be true to some extent it's not
true in the way Grant thinks it is.
Now the interesting thing that I liked looking at was how Grant was perceived in his town. Because not only does he himself think that he is different due to his education, but so do his people. He has went outside and gotten an education. He is respectable. He is the pride of the community. He is "the Teacher." So, while he isn't the best person they have around in terms of character, Miss Emma, Jefferson's grandmother, chooses him to go and speak to Jefferson because he has that prestige.
This is yet another theme explored in the book. Religion and education and how they can exist together, if they can exist together. Grant went to university religious, but he came back an educated and a no longer religious man. This is just to further the notion that religion and faith are for simple, uneducated people, and those of us who are advanced intellectually could not possibly be religious. I actually recently gave a speech at my school's Baccalaureate about this, but basically, I think it is complete BS as an idea. However, its presence in the book and how it reflects on Grant's character development is important and despite how much it frustrated me I liked it in the story.
Overall, definitely a book I'd recommend, and a book worth re-reading.
Lots of quills,
~Belle