Racism In A Lesson Before Dying

In the book, A Lesson before Dying, Gaines portrays the physiological effect of discrimination using the African Americans community. Throughout the book, there are many examples of segregation such as the living quarters of the blacks were much worse than that of the whites. Not only is their housing bad, but also the schooling for the blacks were much worse than that of the whites. There were also verbal abuse of the blacks. For example, Jefferson was called a hog and id made Jefferson feel as though that he was an animal. Because of all the abuse, some characters became depressed. One of the characters who became depressed is Jefferson.
Throughout the book, there are many examples of segregation between the whites and the African Americans. …show more content…
For example, when Grant goes to see Mr. Pichot, he had him wait for more than two hours in the kitchen just so he could meet him and once he had seen him, he treated him very poorly. Throughout the story, when the African Americans were speaking, they had to speak politely and when the whites where speaking the African Americans were not allowed to look at them. If they did not talk to them like this then, usually, they would be whipped. This is why the African Americans had feared the whites. The biggest example of this is when Jefferson is sent to jail for a crime that he did not commit and then killed for it. A white man said that Jefferson did it, so everyone believed him because he was …show more content…
For example, when Jefferson was starting to become depressed. Because of his up and coming execution, he had become more and more depressed. When Miss Emma came to talk to Jefferson about how he is feeling. He treats them in silence and hostility. He didn’t was to think about his execution. The first time she came to visit he acted like that. Over time he became more open with her and less depressed. Many of the characters were very sad and depressed during this time because of Jefferson’s death sentence. Jefferson had to come in term with himself because he was going to die soon. Miss Emma had to accept the fact that his grandson was going to die soon. Tante Lou’s had to accept that Miss Emma is going to be sad for a long time. Also she was scared for Grant because he didn’t want to go to church and she thought that something bad was going to happen to him because of it. Grant’s problem was that he wanted to marry Vivian, but was not able to. All of Jefferson’s friend and relatives said that they wanted him to find faith and strength to get through this. They also wanted him to do this because he was all that Miss Emma had left. Although Grant was depressed before because he was a raciest for most of his life, once he started to have actual relationships with people, he became much more