A Lesson Before Dying: Literary Essay

The Broad Communities and What They Represent
Jefferson and Grant must take a spiritual, intellectual, and emotional journey to
discover what role they are meant to play in life. Throughout their journeys, they are
accompanied by communities, large and small, of people who either help or hinder them as
they move toward their destination. The major communities are rural Louisiana’s white and
black communities in the 1940s. The two communities are antagonistic to each other, and the
tensions between them are representative of the racial tensions that rocked the nation at the
time. On the one hand, the white community represents the dominant group that controls
important aspects of society, including the economy and the school system. As an illustration
of the white community’s grip on the local economy, Jefferson’s woes start when Alcee
Grope, an old storekeeper, is shot and killed in a robbery incident in which Jefferson is
innocently implicated (Gaines). The white community also controls the local education
system. Grant, a black male teacher, says that he teaches what the white folks in the small
town tell him to teach, mostly reading, writing, and arithmetic. In addition to controlling
important aspects of society, the white community considers itself superior to the black
community and cannot stand blacks being considered equals. They propagate a myth that
blacks are lesser humans to accomplish this end. This is a myth that grant, a university-
educated black man, is quite familiar with. He is so familiar with the myth that he introduces
Jefferson to it.
On the other hand, the black community represents the lesser racial group that must
be subservient to the whims and interests of the white community. In the words of Grant,
because of their interest in maintaining the myth of their superiority over blacks, the white
community does everything to keep the black man from thinking, standing, and showing the
humanity that is common to all human beings (Gaines). For example, to ensure a steady
supply of free cheap labor on their sugarcane plantations, white plantation owners see to it
that blacks receive little to no formal education. As testified, any formal education blacks on
the plantation received was limited to reading, writing, and arithmetic. Apart from education,
another system the white community has designed to propagate their myth of racial
superiority and subjugate the black community is the judicial system. The judicial system is
fully white-controlled; everyone in it, from the sheriff to the prosecution, to the judge to the
jury, is white. Ironically, even Jefferson’s court-appointed attorney is white. It is little wonder
then that he does such a shoddy job of defending his client if what he does can be considered
defending. So superficial and biased against the black community is the justice system that
blacks have grown cynical of it and come to know what to expect of cases such as Jefferson’s.
For instance, at the beginning of the novel, Grant says that he did not go to the trial. Nor did
he hear the verdict because he knew what the verdict would be.
Smaller Communities That Influence Characters’ Journey
Within these two larger communities are smaller, close-knit communities that either
support or hinder Jefferson’s and Grant’s journeys. For Jefferson, a small, close-knit, family-
like community supports his journey toward rebuilding what the author calls his “manhood,”

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which has been destroyed in the courtroom. It is all-black and comprises Miss Emma,
Jefferson’s godmother, and parent figure; Grant; Tante Lou, Grant’s aunt; and Reverend Mose
Ambrose, the pastor of the plantation church. Of these, Miss Emma and Grant are the most
important, and so their roles in the journey of rebuilding Jefferson’s manhood are discussed
below. On the other hand are the courtroom actors, a small community who together have
destroyed Jefferson’s manhood. They have destroyed his sense of being man enough, with
intellectual, emotional, and spiritual capabilities, just like the white men who condemned him
to death for a crime he did not commit.
The Role of Miss Emma in Supporting Jefferson’s Journey
Of the characters who help Jefferson on his journey, Miss Emma is decidedly the
most important. Now in her early to mid-seventies, Miss Emma (officially Emma Glenn) has
occupied an important place in Jefferson’s whole life. All his life, Jefferson has grown up
without his parents. They dropped him when he was nothing, and even now that he has been
sentenced to death, they still do not know where he is (Gaines). Miss Emma stepped in to fill
the void left by his parents. She is, therefore, not only his godmother but also a parental
figure. Miss Emma bears the pain of not only watching her godson sentenced to death
without the opportunity of defending himself but also being dehumanized before the whole
court by being called a hog by his own court-appointed white attorney. Now that her godson
is set to die, she makes it her mission to see to it that he approaches his death like the man she
knows he is and not the vile creature the courtroom has painted him to be (Gaines). In other
words, Jefferson must face death with his head held high. To accomplish her mission, she
turns to Tante Lou, Grant’s aunt and her age mate and friend, whom she confides in very
closely, for help. Together, the two large women convince (or almost force) a reluctant Grant
to routinely visit Jefferson in his prison cell and spend time with him.
The Role of Grant in Supporting Jefferson’s Journey
Having accepted his assignment, though reluctantly, Grant figures out that the best
starting point is to have a conversation with Jefferson about heroism and the white supremacy
myth that lingered in the plantation community, a conversation that likely helps incite
courage in Jefferson. Grant defines a hero as someone who does something remarkable for
other people without expecting a reward (Gaines). He acknowledges that he lacks the
qualities of a hero but believes Jefferson could be one. While introducing Jefferson to the
myth, Grant is also very honest about how the world views black men. Because he wants
Jefferson to understand what he is talking about clearly, Grant starts by defining a myth as an
old lie that people believe. He then tells Jefferson that white people are superior to other
human beings and that that is a myth. Grant knows all the odds against black people in their
society, but in Jefferson, he sees the potential for change. He tells Jefferson that he wants him
to stand and chip away at the myth.
The Courtroom: A Hindrance to Jefferson’s Journey
Acting together, the all-white court actors can be said to have cut short Jefferson’s life
by sentencing him to death for a crime he did not commit. They also destroyed his manhood
by dehumanizing him in the court and reducing him to a hog. Of these actors, Jefferson’s
court-appointed white attorney leads. Rather than defending his “client” by arguing for his
innocence given the circumstances under which his “client” was found at the crime scene, he
serves to expedite the jury’s decision and the judge’s sentence. He wastes no time trying to
convince the jury that a boy like him is not capable of committing the heinous crime he has
been charged with. His delivery is far from endearing. His “strategy” consists in
dehumanizing and truly bringing down Jefferson by variously describing him as a thing, a

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boy, a fool devoid of a modicum of intelligence, and a hog (Gaines). He also tries to depict
him as a mere farmhand who is intellectually incapable of pulling together such a serious
crime. This is his idea of how best to get the jury to find sympathy for his “client.” Rather
than win sympathy for Jefferson, the attorney’s “defense” has the contrary effect of speeding
up the verdict. The whole case is heard and decided in just a day, and the sentence passed the
next court day.
Supporters of Grant’s Journey.
The whole novel is centered on Grant’s view of the whole situation, and it is certainly
a negative outlook for most of the novel. Grant has such a negative outlook despite the fact
that, unlike Jefferson, who has only a few months to live, he probably has forty or more years
to live. Also, apart from his personal struggles, there is no one hindering his journey. Initially,
Grant is dispatched to teach Jefferson about manhood in the few months he has to live
(Gaines). In the end, however, it appears that it is Jefferson who, through his nine-page diary
recorded in Chapter 29 of the novel, teaches Grant and the world a lesson. Thus, “A Lesson
Before Dying” might as well be rewritten as “A Lesson for Living.” Yet, Grant’s learning
journey may not have been possible without the support of many people, even though it is
unlikely that Grant views these people’s interventions as “support.” Indeed, many people have
to force Grant not only to journey with Jefferson but also to find a purpose in that journey.
Apart from Miss Emma and Tante Lou, these people include Reverend Mose Ambrose. The
main reason Grant is so reluctant to journey with Jefferson is that he is himself an angry man
with many personal struggles, struggles that at times take center stage and overshadow
Jefferson’s story. He is angry because he feels stuck with the South. As a college-educated
man, he hates to be here and would rather be elsewhere, but at the same time, he seems
unable to leave.

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Work Cited

Gaines, Ernest J. A Lesson Before Dying. Vintage eBooks, 1993.