a lesson before dying grant essay

A Lesson Before Dying

By ernest j. gaines, a lesson before dying essay questions.

Does the behavior of Reverend Ambrose reflect well or poorly on Christianity as a whole? Explain your reasoning.

Like the other characters in the novel, Reverend Ambrose sometimes makes mistakes and behaves immaturely. However, he ultimately possesses a kind of strength that Grant lacks, and is a demonstration of how religion can help people survive adverse circumstances. Ambrose's vindictive condemnations of Grant's agnosticism make him seem immature at times, an impression that is compounded by his jealousy of Grant's early success with Jefferson. However, he is able to do the right thing when Grant is not, bringing news of Jefferson's execution date to Miss Emma, and witnessing the execution while Grant teaches school. As Grant says at the end of the novel, religion can give strength to people in need even if one disagrees with its tenets.

Discuss the style of Jefferson's diary. Why does Gaines make Jefferson's writing style so different from Grant's?

Jefferson's writing style, rife with misspellings and grammatical errors, reveals his lack of education and also his emotional stress. Unlike Grant, who understands most of what he sees, Jefferson often does not grasp the meaning of what is going on around him. This emphasizes Jefferson's innocence and the injustice of his cruel treatment.

How are mulattos portrayed in the novel? Why does Grant take the time to explain the prejudices mulattos have against full African-Americans?

Mulatto men, such as Matthew Antoine and the bricklayers with whom Grant brawls, are portrayed as bitter and prejudiced against full-blooded blacks. However, Vivian is also mulatto and she is kind, beautiful, and well-liked by people of every race. Their portrayal in the novel suggests that anyone can be racist, even those who are victims of racism itself, and there are good and bad people of ethnicity.

Is Grant a good teacher? How do his teaching strategies reflect his character development?

At the beginning of the novel, Grant is a very apathetic teacher who believes that he cannot make any difference in his students' miserable lives. He often leaves his classroom in the care of older students or Irene Cole, the student teacher. Vivian, who is also a teacher, encourages Grant to become more active in his students' lives, and he holds a Christmas pageant for them and becomes outraged at their lack of textbooks. At the end of the novel, he is much more dedicated to his job, overcoming the emotional moment of Jefferson's death to try to help the next generation avoid the same fate.

Discuss the role of food in A Lesson Before Dying .

Many detailed descriptions of Cajun cuisine appear in the novel. Gaines describes the meals Miss Emma makes for Jefferson in great detail, and Grant frequently dines with Vivian at the Rainbow Club. Food, then, is a symbol of love and friendship, and it reflects the essential role that these play in the lives of the characters. Food also serves as an indicator of Jefferson's maturity, when he changes his mind and requests Miss Emma's cooking instead of a gallon of ice cream for his last meal. The descriptions of food also showcase the local culture, something Grant worries will be lost due to prejudice and black people abandoning their regional mannerisms.

How does Grant's self-image change over the course of the novel?

At the beginning of the novel, Grant holds himself aloof from the people in the quarter because he is more educated than they are, and longs to move to the North with Vivian. However, Jefferson teaches him that dignity is intrinsic and not tied to education. After teaching Jefferson, Grant knows that his job as a schoolteacher is vital and important, and his self-esteem is based on that rather than his college degree.

What is the significance of Jefferson's attorney's statement that Jefferson is a "hog" and too stupid to plan a murder?

Although Jefferson's lawyer believes that this argument will acquit him, it does not save him from execution, and it destroys his dignity. In prison, Jefferson constantly repeats that he is a hog and behaves like one. In order to impart strength and dignity to Jefferson, Grant must convince him first that he is a human, which he does by teaching him empathy.

What is the significance of the digression about the Joyce short story, "Ivy Day in the Committee Room"?

Although Grant does not initially understand the relevance of the story to African-Americans, he later interprets it to be about how much people value their heroes. The inclusion of the Joyce story adds a literary dimension to Grant's discussion of the sports heroes Jackie Robinson and Joe Louis. The story helps Grant come to the conclusion that a true hero must show empathy and consideration for others, and this is the lesson he imparts to Jefferson.

How does Gaines complicate Henri Pichot's character? How does he develop over the course of the novel?

Initially, the wealthy plantation owner Henri Pichot seems like more of a caricature than Gaines's other characters. However, it becomes clear that despite his coldness and heavy drinking, he usually does the right thing when Miss Emma asks him for help with Jefferson. At the end of the novel, it is apparent that even his brief interaction with Jefferson has left him a changed man; he is kind to Jefferson at the end of the novel and gives him his pocket knife as a gift.

Why does Grant believe the women in the quarter are so possessive? Does Gaines seem to endorse this view, or does the novel undercut it?

Grant believes that the women from the quarter are possessive because Southern black men have only two options: to lose their dignity at the hands of white men, or to flee the region and live in the North. According to Grant, women are waiting for a black man who can retain his dignity while also being a good husband and father in the South. He seems to believe that men bear the brunt of racism's effects, while women escape the worst suffering and still expect men to provide for them. However, Gaines undercuts this worldview with numerous examples of strong, self-sufficient women, such as Tante Lou, who works hard so Grant can attend college, and Vivian, who has her own job and lives independently of her husband and family.

A Lesson Before Dying Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for A Lesson Before Dying is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Grant’s girlfriend is a light skin Catholic mother of two who is not get divorced. How do these differences create tension in the relationship?

The color of Vivian's skin creates tensions because of their biracial relationship, which is not accepted during this time period. The fact that Vivian is still married means that her relationship with Grant could cause her to lose custody of her...

Lessons before dying Chapter 29,30,31 *NEEDED*

Does the chair, and the truck (it’s black) serve as some form of symbolism?

When it arrives in a large black truck, the chair in which Jefferson must die represents many different reactions from people in the town. The truck itself is black: the...

Gaines uses the first person point of view to tell the story of Grant Wiggins. That is, Wiggins tells the story himself as the events affect him. By using his voice, Gaines can easily portray the intense emotions that Wiggins feels in relationship...

Study Guide for A Lesson Before Dying

A Lesson Before Dying study guide contains a biography of Ernest J. Gaines, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About A Lesson Before Dying
• A Lesson Before Dying Summary
• Character List

Essays for A Lesson Before Dying

A Lesson Before Dying literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines.

• Belief and Teachings
• The Art of Storytelling: Gaines's Authorial Talents in 'A Lesson Before Dying'
• The Psychological Events of Jefferson

Lesson Plan for A Lesson Before Dying

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to A Lesson Before Dying
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• A Lesson Before Dying Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for A Lesson Before Dying

• Introduction

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A Lesson Before Dying

Ernest gaines.

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

Dozens of times in A Lesson Before Dying , we hear Emma and Tante Lou say that Grant must teach Jefferson to die “like a man, not a hog.” This suggests that A Lesson Before Dying is about how a man should die, and more importantly, what a man should be. This raises the question: what’s Gaines’s idea of what a woman should be? More to the point, how should a woman live?

Especially in the first half of the novel, Gaines shows us how women live in 1940s Louisiana. Black women like Emma and Lou selflessly care for their family members. Even though Jefferson and Grant aren’t their maternal children, they treat them like their children, cooking for them, sheltering them, working to pay for them, and, in Lou’s case, paying for their education. Edna Guidry , the sheriff’s wife, sympathizes with Miss Emma ’s pain after Jefferson is sentenced to death, and convinces her husband to let Emma, Lou, Grant and Reverend Ambrose visit Jefferson in the dayroom. Edna is white, but her sympathy for Jefferson seems closely tied to her understanding of his grandmother’s pain and anguish. This suggests that gender, for women, while not overcoming racial allegiance, at least creates bridges across it. Vivian cares for her schoolchildren far more than Grant cares for his. There are many times when Grant is willing to move away from his home, taking Vivian with him, and Vivian convinces him to stay for the sake of their students. Though we never see Vivian with her children, we know that she has continued taking care of them after her husband left her, and wants to continue caring for them after she finalizes her divorce. Taken together, these examples of feminine behavior fit Grant’s definition of heroism: Emma, Lou, Vivian, and Edna sacrifice their own happiness for the sake of others. Women seem to be more in touch with the innate human instinct to help others than the men in the novel.

But it’s not enough to classify women’s behavior as heroic; while it certainly is, their behavior is motivated both by the desire to help specific people and by the more abstract desire to keep their communities stable. At one point in the novel, as Grant sits with Vivian at the Rainbow Club, he tells her that women are terrified that the men in their lives—their husbands, boyfriends, children, and grandchildren—will leave them for a new life somewhere else. We see ample evidence of this in A Lesson Before Dying : Vivian’s husband leaves her, Emma’s husband leaves her, Jefferson’s father leaves him, etc. Thus, it becomes extremely important for women to take care of those who remain behind: they’re trying to ensure that their communities won’t be fractured any more than they already have been. When Grant explains this to Vivian, he’s being dismissive of women—he finds it obnoxious and suffocating that they’re trying to keep him and other men from moving away. But he gains more respect for women when he learns that Tante Lou, who’s raised him since he was a child, actually injured herself working extra hours to pay for his food and college education, but never complained to him about her pain.

What Grant comes to understand, and what A Lesson Before Dying portrays, is the way that women sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others without even the promise of being recognized as a hero, or at all. In this way, the heroism of women in the novel is revealed as truly selfless, truly heroic.

Women and Femininity ThemeTracker

Women and Femininity Quotes in A Lesson Before Dying

“He don’t have to do it,” Miss Emma said ...

Edna turned back to me. “Grant, please tell Emma how sorry I am about Jefferson. I would do it myself, but I’m just too broken up over this matter. I ran into Madame Gropé just the other day; Lord, how sad she looks. Just dragging along. Poor old thing. I had to put my arms round her.” Edna drank from her glass.

“Everything you sent me to school for, you’re stripping me of it,” I told my aunt. They were looking at the fire, and I stood behind them with the bag of food. “The humiliation I had to go through, going into that man’s kitchen. The hours I had to wait while they ate and drank and socialized before they would even see me. Now going up to that jail. To watch them put their dirty hands on that food. To search my body each time as if I’m some kind of common criminal. Maybe today they’ll want to look into my mouth, or my nostrils, or make me strip. Anything to humiliate me. All the things you wanted me to escape by going to school. Years ago, Professor Antoine told me that if I stayed here, they were going to break me down to the nigger I was born to be. But he didn’t tell me that my aunt would help them do it.”

“I’m not doing any good up there, Vivian,” I said. “Nothing’s changing.” “Something is,” she said.

“We black men have failed to protect our women since the time of slavery. We stay here in the South and are broken, or we run away and leave them alone to look after the children and themselves. So each time a male child is born, they hope he will be the one to change this vicious circle—which he never does … What she wants is for him, Jefferson, and me to change everything that has been going on for three hundred years. She wants it to happen so in case she ever gets out of her bed again, she can go to that little church there in the quarter and say proudly, ‘You see, I told you—I told you he was a man.’

I went to the front door and jerked it open, and there was the screen. And through the screen I could see outside into the darkness, and I didn’t want to go out there. There was nothing outside this house that I cared for. Not school, not home, not my aunt, not the quarter, not anything else in the world. I don’t know how long I stood there looking out into the darkness—a couple of minutes, I suppose —then I went back into the kitchen. I knelt down and buried my face in her lap ...

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