A lesson before dying who is the narrator

She takes care of her grandson, Bok, who is insane but too benign to be institutionalized. A tall mulatto bricklayer. Grant brawls with him after hearing Griffin insult Jefferson to his friends at the Rainbow Club.

A worker that Jefferson remembers from his childhood, who would blaspheme God after getting drunk. His business is located in Bayonne. Another prisoner at the county jail, Murphy shaves Jefferson before his execution because Deputy Paul does not want to do it.

A hulking, mentally disabled young man from the quarter. Raised by his grandmother, Miss Rita, he is too benign to be institutionalized but is deeply distrustful of strangers. His most prized possession is his set of marbles, which he carries everywhere with him. The Question and Answer section for A Lesson Before Dying is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel. A Lesson Before Dying. In the opening section of A Lesson Before Dying , Gaines establishes the environment of extreme segregation and prejudice in which his characters live.

He offers a detailed description of Bayonne and its businesses, driving home the extent to which Why do you think Grant cries at the end of the novel? Has his outlook changed.

I think Grant is vinally showing vulnerability. He is breaking down the hard walls he has created between himself and the world, especially the children in his class. What most inspired Miss Emma to ask Grant to teach Jefferson that he was as a much a man as anyone ese? Gaines, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. 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. In the end, the two men forge a bond as they come to understand the simple heroism of resisting—and defying—the expected. In a story whose eloquence, thematic richness, and moral resonance have called forth comparisons to the work of Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and William Faulkner, Gaines summons the reader to confront the entire bitter history of black people in the South—and, by extension, America as a whole.

A Lesson Before Dying is about the ways in which people declare the value of their lives in a time and place in which those lives seemingly count for nothing. It is about the ways in which the imprisoned may find freedom even in the moment of their death.

The world into which Ernest James Gaines was born—on January 15, —is essentially the world which he has distilled into the dense and complex world of his six novels and his stories.

The black community in which Gaines grew up became "the quarter" of this novel, as well as providing the setting and social matrix of his previous works. As Gaines has said: "Though the places in my stories and novels are imaginary ones, they are based pretty much on the place where I grew up and the surrounding areas where I worked, went to school and traveled as a child. My characters speak the way the people speak in that area. They do the work that the people do there.

Since most of my writing is about rural Louisiana, my characters are closely attached to the land. Comparisons have also been made between Gaines and other Southern writers. Gaines has insisted, however, that his presentation of his characters owes much more to Tolstoy, Turgenev, and the other great nineteenth-century Russian writers.

Gaines also has drawn considerably on the mores of black culture and the storytelling traditions of rural Louisiana. The result is a prose that is at once exact, idiomatic, stately, and true to the spoken language of actual people. MacArthur Foundation fellow , Mr.

Gaines has steadily been recognized for his achievement as a master of the novel and short story. In addition, one of his novels, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman , has become an undisputed classic of twentieth-century American literature and gave rise to the immensely popular, award-winning TV-movie adaptation starring Cicely Tyson.

What is the pattern of point of view and focus from chapter to chapter? Is there a correspondence or symmetry among the chapters or among groups of chapters? Does this presentation predispose us to accept what follows in a specific way? In several instances, as at the beginning of Chapter 13, the narrative jumps ahead in time and Grant relates events or episodes in flashback. Why are these events and episodes not presented directly as part of the ongoing narrative?

Is the time sequence of the novel—from late October to early April two weeks after Easter —of particular significance? Why is there a jump of two months, from just before Christmas to late February, between Chapters 19 and 20? Does the novel consist of two groups of chapters: Chapters culminating in the Christmas season; Chapters culminating in the Easter season? What are the implications of such a structure?

Are these questions ever answered? If so, are they answered in ways that are anticipated or unanticipated? In Chapter 26, Vivian confronts Grant with a series of questions. What are the context and import of these questions? In Chapter 28, Jefferson asks Grant a series of questions. Do these questions have any answers? What does Grant learn—and with what effect on his outlook and sense of himself—about himself and others, about his community, about the nature of belief, and about the possibilities for change and improvement?

What ironies are implicit in the fact that the uneducated, deprived, barely literate, condemned victim becomes the focus of the dreams, aspirations, and desires of all the other characters? Does more than one lesson emerge in the course of the novel? Why is the title of the book not "Lessons Before Dying"? Character and Conflict 1. What does each of these relationships reveal about Grant and about the racially structured society in which he lives? Is there a protocol that requires the black characters to address certain requests to white women and others to white men?

Guidry of all that she has done for their families over the years? Can this chapter be seen as a summing up of the main themes and the main action of the novel? Do Tante Lou, Miss Emma, and Vivian represent positive qualities that are exclusive to the black women of the quarter?

Do any black men in the novel share these qualities? Why do Miss Emma and Tante Lou insist that Grant visit Jefferson in the parish jail and teach him how to die like a man? Does his treatment of them change in the course of the novel? At the end of Chapter 12, Vivian offers to Grant an explanation of his not "running away. What does her explanation reveal about her and about her understanding of Grant and of his situation?

What conflicts are at work in the novel? How do they provide a context for, or shape the decisions and actions of, the characters? What are the terms and implications of the conflict between what Jefferson wants before he dies and what each of the others wants for and of him?

In Chapter 27, what does the conversation between Reverend Ambrose and Grant reveal about each and about the lives of their people? Is he justified in lying to his congregation, as he admits he has done over the years? What levels of meaning and import are established in this dialogue? Setting and Society 1. What details does Gaines provide to establish the identity and significance of the quarter and its history, the plantation, Bayonne, and the surrounding county?

What details reveal white expectations concerning blacks, black expectations concerning whites, and the resulting behavior of individuals in each group? Citing specific characters or groups of characters as illustrations, can you map the society of the novel?

How is the social world of the novel structured? What and who determines that structure? How do various blacks and whites claim, sanction, and enforce these social strata? In Chapter 6, why does Pichot keep Grant waiting for "nearly two and a half hours"? Why does Grant wait? What does this scene reveal about the relationships among blacks and whites in Louisiana, the South, and the nation in the late s? Casting about for a model, Grant sees none.

He rejects himself as a proper example, believing his conformity a form of cowardice. Reverend Ambrose seems similarly guilty of following the direction of white people. Grant has to see beyond surface elements before he learns to detect levels of sacrifice and achievement. And he will discover the meaning of manhood and heroism in giving of oneself.

Eventually Grant expresses both confidence and faith in Jefferson, believing that he can prove the lie of racial mythology. Jefferson is the only one who can prove the lie precisely because he appears so typical. Seemingly slow, barely literate, docile, and expendable, Jefferson summarizes multitudes of dispossessed and disenfranchised Americans. Mute and powerless, Jefferson has adopted a purely deterministic view of life, where nothing he does matters.

Believing himself without importance, Jefferson at first appears another example of racial inferiority. From all appearances, then, Jefferson is a sure bet—at least until Grant discovers a means of reaching him. They will work to purchase a Christmas gift for Jefferson, and they will continue to remember him through gifts of pecans and peanuts, gifts of the land linking the children to Jefferson.

The radio, too, provides a necessary connection not only because it imports the outside world but also because the community insists upon participating in this purchase. As the community, including Grant, comes to recognize itself in Jefferson, it also begins to respect his value. Bayonne has been a community for which Grant has little hope because it has seemed impervious to change.

Early in the novel, Grant will describe Bayonne as a town of six thousand, almost evenly divided between blacks and whites. Multiple instances in this novel will indicate a willful blindness on the part of whites, who choose not to see the very people who stand before them. This segregated coexistence seems both normal and desirable to white residents. But as he usually does in his fiction, Gaines dramatizes the difference between public and private social dynamics, illustrating the mutual dependence of both races and within this context the potential for change.

Deliberately fingering a vein of guilt by reminding the Pichots of all she has given them, Emma demands—and receives—some recompense for her lifetime of service.

Resentful of racially imposed limits, Grant detects no changes in his community until he remains in place long enough to experience slight shifts. As he frequently does, Gaines shows his protagonist modifying his perception and direction. His ultimate conclusion suggests a personal progression from denial to acceptance, a changed perspective from exclusion to inclusion. This pattern is reiterated in his changing attitude toward his students and Jefferson and in his tentative friendship with Paul Bonin, a white deputy.

These changes occur only after Grant sheds his anger and self-contempt. Like a child, he cannot resolve the paradox that their spoken and unspoken demands, driving him to perform services he would rather avoid, grow from their love.

All along, Grant has known that Aunt Lou and Miss Emma want someone to be proud of, someone to compensate for the missing men in their lives. But he believes himself unable to shoulder the burden of three hundred years of failure. At this point, Grant consciously decides to shoulder the burden of personal responsibility and reconcile the advantages of his community with its disadvantages.

Unlike many writers, however, Gaines will call special attention to what his characters fail to see. Making fun of its limitations, they almost ignore the natural beauty of the landscape. Grant has indulged in a form of willed blindness, but he will learn to appreciate the subtle indications of meaning. His answer appears in a singularly beautiful image, a butterfly alighting on bull grass. The juxtaposition of something so lovely in the middle of weeds strikes Grant. In his mind, the butterfly image, a classic literary symbol of life, the soul, or rebirth, is clearly linked to Jefferson Cirlot, Thus, following its flight out of sight, Grant believes the long wait is over for Jefferson.

Underscoring this image of rebirth is the subsequent exchange Grant has with Paul Bonin. Setting his novel between late fall and spring, Gaines reinforces his theme of death and rebirth.

This classic literary scheme is emphasized by multiple references to the Christian calendar and to Christ. The state of Louisiana seems quite conscious of the Christian calendar. Another inescapable comparison occurs during the school nativity play. Her comment reminds readers of the humble origins of Christ and the sacrifical nature of his life and death.

That Jefferson has risen to be a hero to his community is signaled by their insistence on paying their respect both in the form of visits before he dies and in their refusal to work on the day of execution. This last gesture ensures that the white community, which might prefer to ignore the execution, feels its impact. September 23, Ernest Gaines at his home library in Oscar, Louisianna.

Paul Kieu, The Advertiser. Since its emergence as a critical lens in the s, feminist literary criticism has developed in a variety of ways mentioned in the alternative reading of Catherine Carmier. To all outward appearances, they conform to sexual and racial stereotypes as nurturing, submissive female figures. Both will claim a hearing in inescapable terms. Still, their characters appear largely secondary in the construction of the novel.

The seeds of revolution have been planted in Grant as ideas. Lou insists that Grant learn everything he can from Matthew Antoine and promises him other, presumably more knowlegeable, teachers. In short, she raises Grant not simply as someone to break racial stereotypes but someone who challenges it by his very presence in the community.

Emma and Lou also act in concert to make Grant visit Jefferson, and they keep him at it, playing on the sense of duty they instilled. Most of their coercion is quiet, but Aunt Lou remains adamant that Grant will visit Jefferson, teach Jefferson his value as a man, and not quit until the very end. Grant will try to argue, sulk, and avoid contact with both women, but he cannot escape them.

Nor can he convince Vivian to simply run away with him from the weight of his responsibility. Women do not typically write divorce law, especially not in Louisiana, which based its laws on Napoleonic code. The implication of his condition is that if Grant wants to marry her, they must stay in the community. But she has other reasons for staying, not the least of which is her being the sole support of her two children.

Choosing family exile over racism, Vivian demonstrates the strength of her morality. And she further demonstrates it by encouraging Grant to visit Jefferson.

Like Aunt Lou, Vivian wants a man to stand up for himself and for others, she wants a man brave enough to give his best, and she is strong enough to show the way. Thus, her presence in the novel is more propelling than merely supportive. One historic measure of manhood has always been sexual prowess.

Gaines will employ this metaphor throughout A Lesson Before Dying , and he will imbue it with a different meaning. Grant would like to believe his physical engagement with Vivian is evidence of his love and commitment. When his sexual performance falters after frustrating sessions with Jefferson, Grant is embarrassed, expressing his sensitivity by saying that things had not been going well lately. His belief that his manhood and sexuality are one and the same is directly contradicted by Vivian in their climactic argument.

These values clash directly with those of the white establishment, particularly with reference to its treatment of black citizens. Taking them into account is something whites simply refused to do. These characters say they know what happened, and they are convinced of their rightness. He does this by embracing the feminine. Rather than reverse the meaning of heroism, though, Grant co-opts it and gives it a more sustaining quality.

Thus, A Lesson Before Dying works to redefine manhood in terms of personal commitment and sacrifice.