Lesson Before Dying Reflection

The positively inspirational novel entitled A Lesson Before Dying was writing by Ernest J. Gaines. A Lesson before Dying was originally published in 1993 and contains 256 pages. This fictional novel is set in the communities of Bayonne, Louisiana in the late 1940s prior to the Civil Rights Movement. This novel is about a 21-year-old black male named Jefferson who gets convicted of murder for being in the wrong place at the wrong time during the murder of Old Gropé, Brother and Bear. Jefferson is sentenced to death by electrocution. The narrator-Grant Wiggins, a teacher, is called to help Jefferson by his aunt Tante Lou for the grandmother and godmother of Jefferson Miss Emma. For her goal for Grant was to help Jefferson become a man before it is his time to die which was scheduled for the second Friday after Easter. Throughout the secessions with Grant we begin to see Jefferson’s transformation of his view of life, seeing that he is not living for himself anymore but for all unjustly treated black

Diction is the writing style of the author that gives life to the characters in a book. We see the difference of how educated Jefferson is compared to his aunt, ‘“I went, and he was all right”’ Grant said… ‘“You got more than that to say, Mr. Man,”… “Folks been setting here hours, waiting for you”’ Tante Lou said (pg. 98). Grant had been educated in the form of reading and writing, but not in the form of Religion as Reverend Ambrose had told him. Reverend Ambrose believed this because he feels Jefferson’s goal should have been to get closer to our Lord God and not just becoming an obeying man. An example of the diction of Jefferson would be, ‘”I ain’t hongry” (pg. 137). Neither did Jefferson, in the eyes of the reader and Grant, have proper and educated talk. I loved reading the different styles Mr. Gaines had presented through his writing of in how a character