An Analysis Of Earnest J. Gaines A Lesson Before Dying

Earnest J. Gaines novel, a Lesson before Dying, is set in a small Cajun community in the late 1940’s, where a horrible incident occurs convicting a presumed innocent man, to death. No one quite knows how long Jefferson has, however, in the time he does have, he must learn the most important lesson of all, and that is how to be human. There are many characters in the story that learn this lesson alongside, or even because of, Jefferson, such as Grant and his girlfriend Vivian. The entire community has been effected by Jefferson’s sentence, and every character will learn a lesson while they await the dreaded end to his sentence, and watch as ‘hog’, is turned into a man.
Grant Wiggins is the protagonist of the novel, and is given the task of …show more content…
Vivian has had her fair bit of hardships throughout her life, one of the main ones being that she is no longer in contact with her family. Her family stopped contacting her when she met and married a dark-skinned boy when she went away to university. Even after she had a child they still refused to properly acknowledge her. “Everything turned out just as she had feared. Her family had nothing to say to her husband and hardly anything to say to her/ No one held the child or gave it a present or any attention/ she had not been home since, not even when the second child was born, not even when she separated from her husband.” (Gaines, 112). This demonstrates how Vivian knows that she is human, because even though she knew how her family would react, she went ahead and married the man she loves, because she knows that she is entitled to the things that make her happy just as much as anyone else. Also, Vivian shows her humanity through embracing her heritage, and not being afraid to be who she is, as well as helping her student s learn this too. An example of this is how she teaches her students to read and write in French, and by doing so, is embracing her Creole heritage. She is also teaching her …show more content…
In the novel A Lesson before Dying, they mention a few of these lessons. However, the most important lesson one must learn before they die, is how to be human. This is demonstrated in the novel by the characters Grant Wiggins, the protagonist, Vivian Baptiste, Grant’s girlfriend, and Jefferson, the innocent “hog” convicted of murder and sentenced to death. It is through these character that we most clearly see what it means to be human, and why it is such an important lesson to learn. However, maybe it isn’t so much learning to be human, but making others see it too. “Yes, I’m youmans, Mr. Wiggins. But nobody didn’t know that ‘fore now.” (Gaines,