Grant Wiggins A Lesson Before Dying

Imagine you were a black man in the 1940’s. You are expected to become a criminal at eighteen or be murdered by one. You break the cycle, you are successful, you have a life. Now you must step up and provide for your family, but you do not know how. How do you take on challenges you do not know how to accomplish? This is the story of Grant Wiggin’s life. There seemed to be a never ending cycle among the black community of Bayonne, Louisiana in A Lesson Before Dying. The racial differences never changed and neither did the gender roles. Grant Wiggins' story was living proof that the vicious cycle was far from over. In this essay, I will be using the feminist lens to examine the gender roles throughout the book, and the effect it has on the main

With no male role model in Grant’s life, he became a very angry person who was never able to figure out how to become a man himself. If you look at Vivian and her situation, you will see that her father wanted no part in his kids’ lives until he found out that she was seeing Grant. Even Grant has no interest in Vivian’s children and even asks her if she can just call Dora and have her watch the kids, so that Vivian can meet Grant at the Rainbow Club. All in all, if the men were around they did not show much interest in helping raise the children, so the cycle just keeps repeating itself. Grant is proof that there is no escaping the circle if you do not run away while you have the chance. Grant thinks he will run away with Vivian someday, but he never will and deep down he knows that. He cares too much for Miss Emma, Tante Lou, Vivian, his students, and his hometown to ever leave and not come back. His old teacher told him not to be the man who never leaves, but the second he took the teaching job in Bayonne, he was stuck. Grant will forever be the teacher who may become the unpresent father, just like Vivian will always be a single mother with too much on her

In the 1940’s (when A Lesson Before Dying took place) segregation and Jim Crow laws were no stranger and neither were specific roles for each gender. For white people, men were expected to work and pay the bills, while women took care of house chores and the children. This was not the case for the African American community, and the book clearly shows it. In chapter 8, Grant describes what his old teacher was like and the lessons he tried to teach his students. He kept telling them to run away and find freedom, because if they do not, then they will end up in the circle. Black men were expected to end up murdered or in prison, and it was uncommon for them to live a long life that was free of trouble, and away from their hometown. Jefferson is the man who ended up in prison, and Grant is the man who stayed in his hometown. The women in the black community described in the book seemed to do everything. Since the men were not usually around, the women became the men of the household. They cooked, cleaned, took care of the kids, and worked, they did it