|
A
Lesson Before Dying
Ernest J. Gaines has written a very important little
book here. Oprah put it on her list, so it's destined for a wide
readership. In this case, hurrah for Oprah.
The novel is set in the backwoods of
Louisiana in the 1940's. It is written through the eyes of Grant,
a young, black schoolteacher who grew up in the "quarter"
near fictional Bayonne, LA. Grant is asked by his aunt to help
a local convicted murderer to meet his maker at the electric
chair with his head held high like a man. Jefferson, the convict,
has been called a hog by his own white lawyer at the trial. As
the story begins, that is exactly how he see's himself, a lowly,
grunting hog.
Grant wants nothing to do with this project.
In fact he would just as soon high tail it out of this community.
Despite his college education he is constantly reminded of his
station in life. His aunt is Jefferson's Nannan's best friend,
and she's a strong black woman. Grant is gonna get his ass in
that jail and teach that boy a lesson in manhood. Period.
Grant is of good stock, so of course
he will do it. But he doesn't have to like it. So off to jail
he goes. But Jefferson behaves like a hog, and thus we have the
set up for the rest of the book.
But the book isn't really about these
two characters, but the burdens of black manhood:
|
We black men have failed to protect our women since
the time of slavery. We stay here in the South and are broken,
or we run away and leave them alone to look after the children
and themselves. So each time a male child is born, they hope
we will be the one to change this vicious circle -- which he
never does.... (I)t is too heavy a burden because of all the
others who have run away and left their burdens behind.... What
she (Nannan) wants is for him, Jefferson, and me to change everything
that has been going on for three hundred years. She wants it
to happen so in case she ever gets out of her bed again, she
can go to that little church there in the quarter and say proudly,
'You see, I told you -- I told you he was a man.' And if she
dies an hour after that, all right; but what she wants to hear
first is that he did not crawl to that white man, that he stood
at that last moment and walked. |
Grant's inner dilemma
is played out through Jefferson. Gaines is a first class story
teller. You know what the underlying theme is, but he tells it
through his three dimensional characters.You want to know these
people. In fact, I want to know what happens to Grant in the
rest of his life. I hope he writes a follow-up book.
I'm writing this review as I ride through
rural Georgia. Tom and I just stopped at a Philips 66. In the
shop was pickaninney advertisements from the 1940's. Yes, there
are still sometimes blunt reminders that the legacy of slavery
lives on.
Breaking out of our vicious circles.... |