Free Essays - A Lesson Before Dying :: Lesson Before Dying Essays

In the novel, A Lesson Before Dying, By Ernest Gaines, the main character, Grant Wiggins gives a man subject matter in his last days alive.  Wiggins gives him a book to write his thoughts in, and stand bys him to encounter that he is not a hog.  He shows him that he is truly a good person, and that he should die with his head up, knowing that he guide a worthy and honest life.  Mr. Wiggins changed greatly through the story, from a frore school studyer to an open hearted and caring man.  This helped his relationship with others as healthful as Jefferson.  Through his changing, he became the one man that Jefferson could trust.In a rural town in Louisiana in the late 1940s a poorly educated young black man, Jefferson, is in the wrong carry at the wrong time he is in a barricado with two friends when they murder the white bartender.  Jefferson is unfairly convicted of murder and sentenced to the electric control by a white judge and jury.  His defens e lawyer, in an start to ward off the death sentence, labels him a hog--and it is this label that Jeffersons godmother wants disproved.  She enlists the help of a plantation school teacher, Grant Wiggins, who at first isnt too keen on the idea of helping a crook.  Wiggins agrees to let loose with Jefferson only out of a sense of duty--he is an unhappy, angry man who dreamt of hop out from his deprived childhood yet returned to his hometown after a university education to teach in the same one-room parish school he attended.  Despite humiliation at the hands of the white sheriff, Jeffersons lack of cooperation, and his own sense of futility and uncertain faith, Wiggins forges a bond with Jefferson that leads to wisdom and courage for both.  At first, Jefferson turn arounds himself as a hog, and nix but a hog.It takes Wiggins much time and strength to convince him that he should live his last days with pride and dignity.  Jefferson looks at the entire spotlig ht as his fault and will only do what Miss Emma and Tante Lou see fit for him to do.  If thats what they want, Jefferson said.  No, not what they want what you want, says GrantIf thats what they want, Im gon die anyhow, says Jefferson.(p.135)Wiggins begins his teaching as he has taught for years, which is not allowing it to change his life.