Analysis Of A Lesson Before Dying By Ernest J. Gaines

The fictional novel, A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest J. Gaines depicts the black community and their perilous plight in the face of an oppressive society through two colored individuals. 21-year-old Jefferson is wrongfully convicted of murder and theft and thereby sentenced to a gruesome death by electrocution. After he is publicly denounced as intellectually inferior in court, his godmother turns to the town’s black teacher, Grant Wiggins, to transform her boy from uncivilized hog to dignified man. While the two are initially off to a rocky start, Grant gradually guides the young imprisoned adult on the path of education, and in turn, Jefferson himself helps the jaded, disconnected Wiggins to confront his own personal demons. Through the

With the opening line, “I was not there, yet I was there. No, I did not go to the trial, I did not hear the verdict, because I know all the time what it would be,” Grant openly expresses his exasperation at the justice system of his society; he doesn’t need to attend court as he is aware that the outcome was already predetermined simply based on the color of Jefferson’s skin and there’s nothing anyone can do to change it. This system of racism is alluded to throughout the novel, particularly when Miss Emma, Tante Lou, and Grant pay a visit to the plantation of their former employer, the wealthy (and white) Henri Pichot. As the two women enter the house, Grant begrudgingly follows “them into the inner yard, up the stairs to the back door” (Gaines 18). The back door is symbolic of the centuries-long suffering of black people: that they will never be seen as equal to those with light skin. Pichot makes the deliberate point that he holds little respect and consideration for the lives of people of color, using the back door to establish superiority as a white man and prop himself up higher on the racial hierarchy. The very act of entering through the back door is Miss Emma and Tante Lou’s subconscious acceptance of and submission to their subordinate position in life and society. As an educated man, Grant’s refusal to enter demonstrates his self-awareness at the terrible things the back door represents; in a way, he is trying to challenge his people’s oppression. In the end, however, he must put aside his beliefs not just to appease his maternal figures, but to also cater to the white man, thus continuing this cycle of racial microaggressions that subjugate the black