A Lesson Before Dying Analysis

Literature offers insight on different interpretations of how death can be perceived depending on the environment one is raised in. Perceptions of death depend on where and when you grow up, and your social standing in society. This is conveyed in literature by not only by the time period of the piece of literature, but from the point of view of the reader. Literature reveals different types of scenarios in which death is perceived differently, including questions of racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination.
The literatures A Lesson Before Dying, Let the Great World Spin, and A Spool of Blue Thread dialogue with each other by all involving death and the way the people and their environment react. The valuability of the sources depend

Grant, as well as Jefferson, is “misplaced” in society due to his lack of religion. “it look like the lord just work for wite folks cause ever sens i wasn nothin but a litle boy i been on my on haulin water to the fiel on that ol water cart wit all them dime bukets an that dipper just hittin an old dorthy just trottin and trottin an me up their hittin her wit that rope...” (Gaines 227). In this quote, Gaines reiterates a few of Grant's complaints about religion. Be that as it may, Jefferson's dialect and constrained capacity to think fundamentally loan the complaint strength. Both men discover Christianity problematic on account of the profoundly uncalled for conditions to which African-Americans are subjected by white people. Though slavery had been abolished for years, slavery truly never died. "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." (Gaines 21.86) This statement made by Grant demonstrates the profound impacts that the historical backdrop of bondage can have on family structures and sexual orientation connections for a whole race. Despite the fact that slavery had finished nearly a hundred years prior, its legacy still limits opportunities for black men in the South. A Lesson Before Dying depicts a supremacist society in 1940s Louisiana.

When Celie left her husband, that she was forced to marry, he said, "Your black, your poor, your ugly, your a women, you cant do anything at all." Celie, as well as Grant, Jefferson, and others in each novel, are victims of racism and live with the struggle and pain of a lack of equal opportunity each day. Miss Emma is unable to turn Jefferson into a man herself, considering she is a black woman and it is not her place in society. "[. . . B]ut 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. Because if he did not, she knows that she will never get another chance to see a black man stand for her." (Gaines 21.86) Miss Emma's yearning is constrained by her environment and her race. She never at any point longs for a method for liberating or safeguarding Jefferson from the electric chair considering it is entirely outside of her control as a black woman living in a racist society. Rather, she just trusts that he will by one means or another be saved from the prejudice that has restricted his own origination of himself. Everyone has a hero, though it may take time to figure out who yours is. Grant is Jefferson’s hero, as he saves him by turning him into a man so he may die with pride.“A hero does for others. He would do anything for people he loves, because he knows it would make their