Grant helps with this process by telling Jefferson, “‘I want you—yes, you—to call them liars. I want you to show them that you are as much as a man—more a man than they can ever be.’” (Gaines, 192). Grant is trying to aid Jefferson in defying what people expect of him and proving that he is a man and not an animal. Grant praises this because it is something that he was never able to do. Fortunately, Jefferson evolves; he no longer has the mindset that he is useless. He is not ashamed of who he is and realizes that what others expected from him was not true. He becomes his true self and dies as an honorable man who is at peace with …show more content…
Paul’s own father was a coal miner and Paul even grew up in a community where almost everyone was a coal miner. Therefore, Paul was destined to become a coal miner himself but instead he held a different opinion because from a young age he saw, “The colliers were walking home in a stream. The boy went near the wall, self-consciously. He knew many of the men, but could not recognise them in their dirt. And this was a new torture for him.” (D.H. Lawrence, 80). Paul’s desire to go against what was predetermined for him by society emerged because he saw that coal miners would change for the worst. They would become drinkers and they would leave work dirty and unidentified. This dirt symbolizes obscenity, which represents the negative way Paul views this occupation and explains why Paul made the decision not comply to societal