Words In A Lesson Before Dying

Nathaniel Hawthorne once said, “Words—so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them” (Brockway). In the novel A Lesson Before Dying the author Ernest J. Gaines portrays the damage that words can do to a person, as well as the redemption they can bring upon someone. In the novel, a young man named Jefferson is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. His defense lawyer claims that he is nothing more than a hog, which negatively impacts his self-esteem. His aunt, Miss Emma, sends a teacher, Grant Wiggins, to encourage him before his death. Similarly, in the book Go Set a Watchman, author Harper Lee depicts the lasting effects

In Go Set a Watchman, Jean Louise visits Calpurnia and attempts to have a difficult and painful conversation with her. Calpurnia refused to speak, leaving Jean Louise angry and upset (Lee). Jean Louise was desperate to talk to Calpurnia, and for her, hurtful words would’ve been better than silence. The silence told Jean Louise that Calpurnia did not care about her enough to carry on a painful conversation. Calpurnia’s silence was cold and depicted her lack of compassion stronger than speaking would have done. Gaines portrays the same concept of someone wanting a conversation while the other stays silent, thus creating pain. Miss Emma, Jefferson’s godmother, visited Jefferson many times in jail. Most of the time he would not answer her questions or talk to her, resulting in her crying (Gaines). Miss Emma missed her godson and needed to hear from him to help her grieve him being on death row. Every silent response from him contributed to her pain; each moment he sat and stared told her that he didn’t love her enough to speak to her. Lee and Gaines share the belief through their writing that the absence of words can be just as upsetting as words themselves, if not