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A Lesson Before Dying (Oprah's Book Club)
by: Ernest J. Gaines |
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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54 EAN: 9780375702709 Edition: 1 ISBN: 0375702709 Label: Vintage Manufacturer: Vintage Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 256 Publication Date: 1994-09 Publisher: Vintage Release Date: September 28, 1997 Studio: Vintage Features:
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  - A Lesson Before Dying~ Time and Place: 1940's in Bayonne Louisiana A young unintelligent black man named Jefferson, is present at a shop burglary of a white owned store. Two other black men and the white shop owner end up in a gun fight, and the three men end up dead. Jefferson is scared and confused as to what to do next. He grabs a bottle of liquor off the shelf, gulps down some whiskey, grabs some money out of the open register and runs. He was on his way out of the store with the bottle of whiskey and a pocket full of cash, when two white men catch him. At the trial, the prosecutor stated that Jefferson along with the other two black men had intentionally gone to that store together and had planned the robbery together. The defense stated that Jefferson had simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time. There was absolutely no proof that there was any pre-planning with the other two black men. After all the shop owner only shot the other two men. He said that Jefferson, took the booze to calm his nerves and he took the money out of need and stupidity. That didn't make him a murderer. The defense attorney also asked the jury to look at Jefferson, and see that he was not really a man (yes he was 21) but not really a man. He asked them to look at the shape of his skull, his flat face, his empty eyes; he asked them if he looked like he had enough intelligence to plan anything, let alone a burglary. His argument was that this black man who knew of nothing more than plowing a field was not capable of such a crime, therefore to find him guilty and sentence him to death, would be like putting a hog in the electric chair. The twelve white men that sat on the jury found Jefferson guilty of robbery and murder in the first degree. Jefferson was sentenced to death by electrocution. Jefferson's godmother, Miss Emma asks Grant Wiggins, the young twenty-something college educated black teacher to help Jefferson die with dignity, like a man; not like a hog. This was a great novel. It is books like this one, that are full of ideas, themes, and symbols, that leave me wishing I was a member of a book club, because after you are done, you just want to talk about it with somebody else that recently read it. If you are thinking about reading this book, think no more...just read it! Rating: - Heart-Breaking and Soul-StirringIt's suprising the things that humans can do. In Ernest Haine's novel "A Lesson Before Dying", told beautifully with the lyricism and poetry of a true artist, we are haunted by reality, death, racism, and the never-ending struggle between finding God and finding ourselves in the process. Mr. Wiggins, the teacher of reading, writing and arithmetic, helps Jefferson find the strength within himself to face the electric chair and in the process learns a little more about the world then he expected. Discover, in these pages, the lessons people can learn before dying. Rating: - Powerfully affecting without being overwrought or overly sentimentalThis is an excellent novel that works on a number of levels. It's a novel about race relations in America, reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird, but it focuses more specifically on the impact that slavery, segregation, and racism has had on black men and how this has affected their communities. A Lesson Before Dying, unlike novels like Mockingbird, is told from the perspective of a black man. The novel also addresses issues of alienation felt by educated black men in their own communities. Grant Wiggins, the novel's protagonist, is the only college educated man in town and the only person who lacks religious conviction. This isolates him a little in a community of uneducated devote Christians. The novel is about the pending execution of a black man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and finds himself on death row. During the young man's trial, his lawyer in an attempt to avoid a death penalty from the all-white jury suggests that to execute his client would be akin to executing a hog. The comment has a huge emotional impact on the young man, who finds himself on death row anyway and feeling that he is less than human. Grant Wiggins is pressured by his aunt to meet with the young man and convince him to face his death with his head held high and walking tall, like a man. I especially liked that Grant Wiggins is a deeply flawed character - selfish and bitter at times. The novel manages to be powerfully affecting without being overwrought and melodramatic and without being overly sentimental. Gaines writing is lean and effectively conveys the humiliation of "small r" racism, the kind of everyday, seemingly minor degradations that erode a persons' sense of worth. This is a very good novel on par with To Kill a Mockingbird. Highly recommended. 4 1/2 stars. Rating: - A Small Gem of a NovelI recently read A LESSON BEFORE DYING as part of the National Endowment of the Arts "Big Read" program, which is designed to revitalize the role of literature in the United States. This short novel, which was published in 1993, is a really great book at a lot of different levels. A LESSON BEFORE DYING is a book about race relationships in America, much in the tradition of books like TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. It essentially deals with an execution of a black man in a deeply prejudiced Louisana community after World War II. Unlike most novels of this nature, this books is told entirely from the perspective of the African-American community. It bears mentioning that the author himself is African-American, and grew up in the segregated South in the 1940s and 1950s. So this novel has a compelling ring of authenticity, since it is largely based on his own personal experiences. Gaines writes A LESSON BEFORE DYING in a very stark style, but he gets his point across very clearly. All the scenes that deal with everyday racism, and the humiliating psychological consequences of such racism, are very powerfully executed. But Gaines is a sophisticated enough author to deal with other psychological issues as well. The main character of Grant Wiggins is the only college-educated black in his hometown, and the novel does a fine job of revealing his sense of alienation. For example, Wiggins is not particuarly religious, which makes it difficult for him to relate to his own family, all of whom are strong Christian believers. The resulting conflicts are quite fascinating to read about, as Gaines explores territory that I have never before seen in a work of literature. While this novel probably isn't in the same class as TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, its a powerfully written work that deals with some important themes and ideas. I felt like I learned quite a bit from it on both a historical and emotional level. As a result, A LESSON BEFORE DYING is very much worth your time. Rating: - After effects of prisonOne of the reasons I love using this book in the classroom is because so many have been affected by relatives in prison. Our society does not talk enough about or examine the after effects of prison. Why aren't there support groups like ALANON, but for family members of prisoners? Before reading the book, I ask my students (anonymously) to write down every family member they know of who has been in prison or jail (not write the names, but the relationship -- for example: grandfather, aunt, brother etc.). It was eye-opening the first time I looked at the results. The vast majority of students in my urban high school had several relatives with prison records. Tapping into this prior experience, or background, helps them connect more with this book than anything else that I teach. |
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