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Ernest Gaines A Lesson Before Dying

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//Need to finish Intro.
Ernest Gaines, a Twentieth Century novelist and short story writer, uses the influences of stories, values, and customs from his childhood in Pointe Coupee Parish community to write stories using “old-fashioned” modernism.
Ernest Gaines was born in the bayous of Pointe Coupee Parish near Oscar, Louisiana on January 15, 1933. His parents, Manuel and Adrienne J. Gaines, sharecropped at a local plantation, so Gaines and his twelve younger siblings were raised by his aunt, Augusteen Jefferson, while his parents worked (Gaines 1 1). Augusteen Jefferson was severely handicapped and Gaines often used her as a model for several strong, self-sacrificing, religious, older women in his writing. Gaines based his work on his experience …show more content…

The novel opens in late October, during the sugarcane harvest, and concludes soon after Easter, with the beginning of planting season. The six month time period contains the academic school year for the children at the Pichot Plantation where Grant teaches at. This also suggests the half measures of institutionalized education and justice accorded to African Americans. Gaines divided the novel into three distinct parts told from three different perspectives. The first twenty-eight chapters and the final chapter are in Grant Wiggin’s point of view, the twenty-ninth chapter consists of Jefferson’s prison diary during his final weeks in life, and the thirtieth chapter contains several narrative perspectives of the community members as the feel the impact of Jefferson’s execution. These strategic shifts create a more comprehensive view than a single narrative angle. Gaines is able to detail Grant’s frustration and his reluctance to be involved which adds to Grant’s reliability as a narrator because the readers will realize that Grant’s actions are out of honesty and not from personal interest. The final chapter is written mainly in the third person omniscient point of view and narrates Jefferson’s execution day through the Bayonne community’s impressions and actions. Gaines is able to maintain the novel’s integrity without resorting to farewell speeches or melodramatic action. He also includes authentic information in rather simple prose, and Gaines’s verbal restraint generates unexpected emotions (Carmean

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