True Lesson in a Lesson

¶ … True Lesson in a Lesson Before Dying

In Ernest J. Gaines' a Lesson Before Dying, lessons come in traditional and recognizable forms as well as from very unlikely sources. The content of the lessons that appear throughout the book are equally variegated. There are lessons that appear to be more-or-less merely factual, and others that are very abstract and difficult to define. Some of the lessons are delivered explicitly, with one character telling another something that they ought to know or learn, or even with the narrator seeming to speak directly to the reader. The most important lessons in the novel, however, tend to be the implied lessons; the intricacies of the story and the development of the characters reveal important lessons about life and what it means to be human in a way far more powerful and successful than simply stating them would have been.

Because of the wide variety of lessons that appear in this novel, it can be difficult -- impossible, even -- to tell exactly what the lesson is that is referred to in the title. Even the "dying" referenced in the title does not have a clear object in the book; taken completely literally, the title refers to the fact that Grant Wiggins has been asked to teach Jefferson how to die lie a man before he is executed. On a deeper level, however, both the lesson and the death referenced in the title might belong more to Grant himself than to Jefferson, or to any number of the other characters in the novel. The title, rather than referring to any specific lessons Grant teaches Jefferson, seems more to refer to something every character in the novel -- and indeed, every reader, too -- ought to learn before dying. The lesson is about learning how to live with dignity, and how to die with it as well. But most importantly, the lesson is about what dignity means -- that is, what it means to lead a dignified human life. A Lesson Before Dying suggests that this cannot happen in solitude, but instead that others must aid us in achieving dignity.

There are many examples throughout the novel in which this lesson can be perceived, and yet it is not always immediately discernible. The opening chapter, in which Grant recalls the details of the crime that led to Jefferson's arrest and eventual conviction, seems to suggest that others are often at fault for helping us lose our dignity. Jefferson, after all, did not really commit the crime; it was the two men he was with that shot and killed the store clerk and then died in the shootout themselves. In this instance, then, the influence of others actually caused Jefferson to lose dignity rather than gain it. As the defense attorney says at Jefferson's trial, in this moment he was acting as "a thing that acts on command;" a hog, inherently without dignity (Gaines, 7). Jefferson is more of an animal than a man.

People cannot see any human dignity in Jefferson; instead, his own attorney, the jury, and much of the community sees him as a stupid and criminal black man, unworthy of any human pity or compassion. This is, of course, the explicit issue which Grant Wiggins is asked to address by Jefferson's godmother, Miss Emma. She knows that Jefferson has lived his life with very little dignity -- he is less intelligent than others, as is evidenced by his actions during the shootout in the store and the fact that "he had never dialed a telephone in his life" -- and to make matters worse, he is black (Gaines, 6). In the time and place in which Jefferson lives, this pretty much guarantees him a life devoid of any dignity, and with his conviction Miss Emma sees that he is likely to dies in the same state. In a sever twist of irony, then, it is the fact that he is condemned to die that allows him the opportunity to earn his dignity.

The workings of the court system are not really an essential element in the novel; Gaines uses them to move the plot forward, but it is the characters themselves and the unofficial prejudices and machinations of society that really make up the meat of the novel. Still, the fact that it is through the actions, however unjust and unwarranted, of official society -- as represented by the court and the jury's decision to convict Jefferson -- that gives him the chance to see himself as a dignified man rather than the Southern black fool he has been conditioned to believe himself to be is an important one. This fact shows that even in such an unfair and prejudiced society, and maybe even especially in such a type of society, that society's own structure can and must be used to show that it is wrong in robbing anyone of their dignity. To put it perhaps more clearly, Jefferson would have continued to live and die as an undignified animal had society not stepped in. The way in which society becomes officially involved in Jefferson's case is not ideal, but its involvement is essential.

Even more essential, however, is the black community of which Jefferson is a part. It is impossible to fairly examine this novel or the issues it contains without an examination of race; though a reading of the plot as a complete allegory for the struggle of African-Americans in the Southern United States would rob the book and the individual characters it contains of much of their power, there is also much validity to such a reading.

The black community as a society-within-a-society has been without dignity since the time of slavery, and Jefferson's dignity on his way to his execution ends up meaning as much to them as Jackie Robinson or Joe Louis (Gaines, 87-8).

Victory is meaningless in a vacuum. It is even arguable that victory cannot even exist in a vacuum; there is no victory if there is no one to win it for, and the only battle that really matters to a sole individual is one for survival itself. Jefferson has already lost that battle; there is no attempt in the book to prove Jefferson's innocence, nor does Gaines grant an unrealistic eleventh-hour reprieve to suddenly turn his novel saccharine. Jefferson is doomed to die, and he does die -- the victory he wins is not really for himself. Instead, like Jackie Robinson's breaking of the color barrier in professional baseball or Joe Louis heavyweight championships, especially his fight with the German boxer Max Schmeling during a time of heavy racism and Nazi eugenics propaganda, which is well remembered in the African-American community and literary canon (cf. Maya Angelou's autobiographical I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings), Jefferson's victory matters more to the people watching than it ultimately does to himself.

Surely these victories contain personal elements, as does Jefferson's, but that is not and was never where their true importance lay. These victories mattered far more to the African-American community at large than they ever could have to the individuals who actually made the accomplishments. In Jefferson's case, the community is limited to that which exists in his immediate vicinity rather than extending to the national scene as in the case of Jackie Robinson or even the international scene as with Joe Louis, but for the intents and purposes of the novel this community is the world -- much of Grant's preoccupation throughout the novel focuses on his inability to break free from Bayonne and the South altogether. The victory would have been utterly meaningless if not for this community's investment in it; Jefferson's dignity lasts him only for the few moments before his death, but the community has proven that even what was considered the poorest example among them was capable of dying with dignity. I a very real way, the dignity Jefferson achieved would not have existed without the community -- it would have fluttered and died along with Jefferson himself.

Grant the teacher is also one of the major lesson-learners of the novel. Just as Jefferson manages to finally earn his dignity and so become a symbol of hope for his community, Grant begins to understand how to accept his identity in that same community and find that both he and it have a dignity of their own that does not require either a bitter defensiveness nor a groveling and placating attitude. Grant has fights and disagreements with many established members of the African-American community throughout the novel, not the least of which occurs with Jefferson's godmother Miss Emma and his own aunt, Tante Lou. When he first discovers he will be making the trips to visit and "educate" Jefferson in his cell alone from now on, he becomes angry and sarcastic, and then reveals why: "Everything you sent me to school for, you're stripping me of it,' I told my aunt...'Years ago, Professor Antoine told me that if I stayed here, they were going to break me down to the nigger I was born to be. But he didn't tell me that my aunt would help them do it'" (Gaines, 79). Grant believes at this point that dignity is something he can only find -- and is supposed to find -- outside of his community and away from the relationships and ties that he has there, including his maternal bond to his aunt.

As the novel progresses, however, Grant begins to realize how necessary the community is to his own happiness, if not his very survival. This transformation is not complete by the end of the novel, but Grant has begun to change or at least question many of his beliefs, including his attitude towards God and religion, and certainly in his attitude, hopes, and feelings for Jefferson. Perhaps most telling in Grant's search for dignity and identity within his community is his relationship with Vivian. Though she is still married and the relationship is therefore quite clandestine as it would be morally unacceptable to the community, she is also what Grant credits for drawing him back into the community. It is interesting that even in this relationship, he is unable to truly define his own role -- Vivian's attachment to her children and her not-quite-ex-husband forces restraints and a certain lack of dignity even in the area of love. But Grant finally admits that the benefits he receives from Vivian's love more than outweigh the burdens it comes with. This mirrors his shifting attitude towards Jefferson.