A Lesson Before Dying Summary

In “A Call to Service in Earnest Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying,” a critical analysis by Beatrice McKinsey, the writer expresses how every individual has a specific service in life and how that service can be used for men to achieve manliness. This article also gives us great insight on the lessons Grant learned and how he developed himself into a man while facing this great challenge of transforming Jefferson from a hog to a man.
The author asserts that Grant needed to realize that education was more than math, reading, and writing. He must be able to teach the life lessons needed for people to succeed in life. He must also realize what his true purpose in life is. For example, Tante Lou and Miss Emma have given Grant the challenge of turning Jefferson into a man because they feel Grant has the necessary education to do so and because he failed to teach Jefferson the required life tools while he was his teacher. Mckinsey supports her assertions by using a quote from the autobiography of Miss Pittman. “He didn’t know who he was—and that’s the worst thing in the world that can happen to a man” (The Big Read).

Teachers must realize that no matter what environment you teach in you must teach students more than the necessary requirements. Mckinsey uses Jefferson as an example because he was one of the kids who Grant thought was not going to be anything but a field worker so he did not pay as much attention to him. Because Grant saw very little in him and that they could not teach the normal requirements it was easy for them to forget about him which led to Grant not teaching this young student important life lessons. Due to the fact that Grant did not see his purpose in life he let a valuable asset slip through the cracks into a hard