“My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.” -Aristotle. The novel by Ernest J. Gaines titled A Lesson Before Dying is about the life of Jefferson, an uneducated black field worker in the late 1940s who is unfairly convicted and sentenced to death by electrocution. With regards to the accident, another man by the name of Grant Wiggins is obligated by both his aunt and Jefferson’s godmother to convince Jefferson that he is more than what he thinks he is before the day of his death. The theme of the novel is (relationships between the occurring characters as evidenced by the ongoing hatred of Grant given from Jefferson in the beginning, the equalness thought by Paul, and the complicated relationship between Grant
