“Injustice is like a desert and justice is like an oasis of water” (Martin Luther King Jr.). Grant Wiggins, Paul Edgecomb, and Joan of Arc are heros of injustice. Jefferson from A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines, had been at the wrong place at the wrong time. He was offered a ride, but ended up in the crossfire of a robbery of a liquor store. He was blamed because he was the last one left and had a drink to calm his nerves, but, it looked like he had shot three white people Brother, Bear, and Mr. Grope, and drank to ‘celebrate’. This is not true, but he was an African American living in the 1930’s and the last person standing in a gunfight. The jury said “Guilty of robbery and murder in the first degree” (Gaines 8). Jefferson’s lawyer tried to defend him by calling him a ‘hog’ and stupid, even though everyone knew how it was going to end. Now Grant Wiggins, the teacher, must try to teach Jefferson that he is a man because Jefferson's godmother, Miss Emma, wants a man to go in the chair, not a hog. …show more content…
But all of the White people in town believe he had killed Mr. Grope, Brother, and Bear because he was African American. When Grant goes to visit Jefferson at the prison the deputy Clark says, “He killed Mr. Grope. Let him stay right there in that last cell. Till that last day” (Gaines 134). Grant must make Jefferson believe that it was he is innocent and a man before he is executed. Finally when it gets close to Jefferson's execution, he writes in his journal, “ Messin wit po ol foks who aint never done nothin” (Gaines 227). This means ‘ Messing with poor old folks who have never done anything’. Jefferson finally admitted that he was innocent but God was blaming him anyway. Grant had finally completed his goal because when Jefferson went to that chair he was a man. This makes Grant a hero of injustice because he managed to make Jefferson a man and make him admit he didn't do anything wrong. Grant Wiggins is a hero of injustice because he taught Jefferson to be a man when he faced injustice. John Coffey from The Green Mile directed by Frank Darabont was at the wrong place at the wrong time. He was found in the woods sitting with two dead little girls. John had actually been trying to heal them. But of course from the people who found him side of view it looked like he was a rogue African American who had killed two little girls. The scene starts out showing Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks) sitting outside the jail reading the transcript of John Coffey’s trial. Then it flashes back to show a group of people running through a field of cotton with guns and pitchforks at dusk. They are shouting indistinctly and the field ends and the enter a thick forest. Suddenly they all stop at a clearing and see John Coffey two dead little girls. The father of the two girls pushes through the crowd of people and sees John holding his two girls. He screams and lashes out but the people hold him back. John is crying and saying it wasn't his fault it was all just an accident, but the people didn't listen to him or his case because he was African American. This is injustice because they didn't really give him a chance to explain or just listen to him, but Paul Edgecomb, a prison guard at Cold Mountain Penitentiary, sees John and gives him a chance to explain what happened instead of just assuming he was guilty. Furthermore another prisoner comes into their prison, “Wild Bill” Wharton. Wild Bill is first introduced in a insane asylum where he appears to be brain dead. Instead of asking the nurses if he actually was brain dead, they just assume so and don't take extra precautions. When they reach the prison Wild Bill stops his act and fights back because he wasn't under any restraint. He almost escapes until another security guard beats him. Then when John is walking next to the cells to go somewhere, Wild Bill grabs his arm and John sees something. Paul then asks John what's wrong? what did you see? John then replies let me show you. John showed Paul how Wild Bill kidnapped and murdered the two little girls that John is blamed for. Paul tries to convince the Warden Hal Moores that JOhn is innocent and that this was a case of injustice. Paul Edgecomb is a hero of injustice because he gave John a chance to tell his story and listen to him, then trying to free him from the case because Wild Bill is actually the killer. Heros of injustice are people doing what they believe is right in a situation they know is wrong.
Joan of Arc helped France take back their land from the English, the at the age of 19 she was executed for her crimes against England, but what she did was right. After the execution french people were calling her saint and then some English people began realizing that she was actually was a saint. including the Secretary to the King of England, Jean Tressard, said "We are all ruined, for a good and holy person was burned" (Tressard). This was a case of injustice because Joan was just doing what was right but was wrongfully blamed. To continue at Joan’s trial Jean Brehal the Inquisitor stated that the court was being run with “...manifest malice against the Roman Catholic Church, and indeed heresy” (Brehal). This finally got Joan justice but after she was executed. Joan had faced injustice in her life but still is a hero for it because she did what was
right. Grant Wiggins, Paul Edgecomb, and Joan of Arc are all heros of injustice. Grant Wiggins is a hero of injustice because he showed Jefferson a wrongly accused man that he was a man and did not deserve this. Paul Edgecomb gave a man justice by listening to his story even though John was executed in t the end. Joan of Arc was executed because she did what she believed what was right and had an unfair trial and was not not given justice until after she died. In the desert of injustice Grant, Paul, and Joan, all helped find the oasis of water.
In Ernest J. Gaines novel A Lesson Before Dying, a young African-American man named Jefferson is caught in the middle of a liquor shootout, and, as the only survivor, is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. During Jefferson’s trial, the defense attorney had called him an uneducated hog as an effort to have him released, but the jury ignored this and sentenced him to death by electrocution anyways. Appalled by this, Jefferson’s godmother, Miss Emma, asks the sheriff if visitations by her and the local school teacher, Grant Wiggins, would be possible to help Jefferson become a man before he dies. The sheriff agrees, and Miss Emma and Mr. Wiggins begin visiting Jefferson in his jail cell. Throughout the book, Jefferson has two seemingly opposite choices in front of him; become a man, and make his godmother and other relatives proud by dying with dignity, or, remain in the state of a hog with the mentality that nothing matters because he will die regardless of his actions. The choices Jefferson is faced with, and the choice he makes, highlights the book’s idea of having dignity ...
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines depicts a young man convicted of a crime he did not commit. In a vain attempt to defend Jefferson, his attorney callously referred to him as a ‘hog’ and a ‘brainless animal’, which had an effect on Jefferson that the novel goes on to describe. But the judge and jury declared Jefferson guilty and sentenced him to death by electric chair. Knowing that nothing more could be done to save his life, Jefferson’s mother recruits a school teacher in hopes of returning Jefferson’s dignity to him before his death. Whether this plan succeeds or not is up to Jefferson himself. Throughout the book, Jefferson’s character
"They sentence you to death because you were at the wrong place at the wrong time, with no proof that you had anything at all to do with the crime other than being there when it happened. Yet six months later they come and unlock your cage and tell you, We, us, white folks all, have decided it’s time for you to die, because this is the convenient date and time" (158). Ernest J. Gaines shows the internal conflicts going through the mind of Mr. Wiggins in his novel A Lesson Before Dying (1933). Mr. Wiggins is struggling through life and can’t find his way until he is called upon against his own will to help an innocent man, Jefferson. The help is not that of freeing him at all. Jefferson will get the death penalty no matter what. It is that of making him a man. When Jefferson’s defender tried to get him off the death penalty he called Jefferson a stupid hog, not even a boy. Mr. Wiggins wants to leave the town and everyone in it except for Vivian, his girlfriend, behind, but he can’t or won’t. Everything is hanging in the balance of what happens to Jefferson. Mr. Wiggins is characterized through a series of changes with the help of one man, Jefferson, throughout A Lesson Before Dying mainly shown in spoken quotes.
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines takes place in Louisiana in the 1940’s. When a young African American man named Jefferson is unfairly sentenced to death, school teacher Grant Wiggins is sent to try to make Jefferson a man before he dies. Throughout the novel, racial injustice is shown in both Jefferson and Grant’s lives in the way other people view them.
A Lesson Before Dying explains the tale of the wrongful conviction of Jefferson, an ignorant colored man who was an accessory to a liquor store shooting where a white man was killed. At Jefferson’s trial a lawyer calls him a hog. At the end of the trial, Jefferson is sentenced to death by electrocution.
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others.”-MLK Jr. In the book A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest J. Gaines explores the relationship between a student and a teacher in Bayonne, Louisiana, in the 1940s, and how their actions affect the society they are living in. Jefferson, a young black man, is accused of a murder, and is sentenced to death because of his race. Miss Emma, Jefferson’s godmother, wants Grant Wiggins, an educated black teacher to “make him a man” before Jefferson dies. Even though Grant was reluctant that it would amount to anything, but he gave his word that he would try, and soon after a couple of visits to the jail, Grant starts to develop a bond with Jefferson. As the book progresses, Jefferson learns that you need to take responsibility for your own actions, you should always be humble, one should never submit their dignity no matter the circumstances, and always remember that even heroes are not perfect.
African-American life in pre-Civil War America and life in pre-African-American Civil Rights Movement have many comparisons and also many differences. Some comparisons are the ideas of racism and segregation and some of the differences include the education during these two times and freedoms. These comparisons and differences are related to the novels Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass which is written by himself and A Lesson Before Dying written by Ernest Gaines. These two texts will compare and contrast how life was being an African American during these different periods of time.
The most important conflict in the story A Lesson Before Dying, written by Ernest J. Gaines is the person vs society conflict . This conflict is essential for the story’s themes of racism, ignorance and inequality. As well as the black man vs a racist society conflict is the entire reason for the events in the story to take place, and ties into many of the other conflicts in the book. A quote that demonstrates this type of conflict is this quote said by Professor Antoine : “Don't be a damned fool. I am superior to you. I am superior to any man blacker than me” (Gaines 65).
Though Grant may have had some advantages compared with Jefferson, his position in life was not significantly better than Jefferson’s. Grant knows that if he had been the black man sitting in the courtroom, he too would have been convicted. In his powerful opening to the novel, Grant says, "I was not there yet I was there...
Real-life heroes these days are firemen, police officers, emergency room medics. However, there are many stories of everyday people who end up hailed as heroes. In the novel A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines, the main characters do not follow any of the typical ‘hero’ professions. In a small American community, Jefferson, a young black man, has just been sentenced to death for a crime he never committed by an all-white jury. His former schoolteacher Grant Wiggins is forced to visit him by his aunt Tante Lou, who hopes that Grant can teach Jefferson some dignity before he faces the electric chair. Through the actions of Jefferson and Grant we can determine whether or not they are heroes to the African-American community which, after years of suppression and apartheid, is so in need of strong idols to look up to.
Over the years education has been one of the challenges in the African American Community, in the novel A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines time period focused on education; which was very involved in work and labor instead of education. Learning in the south due to segregation became terrible for African Americans to afford education however the north in urban communities also experience the lack of education. Why does the south have little to no education more than the north in black communities? Education in the south has been inferior to the north due to the lack of funds, discrimination and social differences which is shown in graduation rates.
Young black boy, Jefferson, was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was in a bar with two friends when they murdered the white bartender. Jefferson was unfairly convicted of murder and sentenced to the electric chair by a white judge and jury. His defense lawyer, in an attempt to avoid the death sentence, labeled him a "hog”. It was this label that Jefferson's godmother wants disproved. She enlisted the help of a school teacher, Grant Wiggins, who at first wasn’t too kind for the idea of helping a crook. Grant agrees to talk with Jefferson only out of a sense of duty. Due to all the humiliation at the hands of the white sheriff, Jefferson's lack of cooperation, and his own sense of unsure faith, Grant forges a bond with Jefferson that leads to wisdom and courage for both. At first, Jefferson saw himself as a hog, and nothing but a hog.
The novel A Lesson Before Dying is about a young, college-educated man and a convict, Grant Wiggins and Jefferson. Grant is asked to make a man out of Jefferson who is convicted of killing a white man during a robbery in which he got dragged along to. Grant is asked by Emma Lou to make a man out of Jefferson, so if anything, Jefferson can die with dignity. Something that he was striped of when he was tried and his attorney used the defence that he is a hog. While trying to get through to Jefferson, Grant struggles because he is so far and separated from his own community. He holds resentment toward the white man and wants to get away from his town which he thinks is an on-going vicious cycle of misery. The novel A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines depicts the social and racial injustices faced by African Americans in the South in the late 40...
Jefferson decided to react wrongfully during the situation which in the long run modified the result of his future by getting a capital punishment. The setting of this novel takes place during the post civil war and pre civil rights era which shows how hard it is to escape history and tradition before then. Prejudice was still everywhere and blacks had practically zero rights or equity. Very much aware of his circumstances Jefferson knew what was best for him to do yet he choose to do the complete opposite. If he had got out of harm’s way by leaving the crime scene he would not have to face death for a murder he did not commit. Since Jefferson decided to utilize his freewill negatively his outcome was reflected from it. The subject of unrestrained choice is basically an issue of organization, of who is in control as many experience life settling on a wide range of
Life is short and it is up to you to make the most out of it. The most important lesson that everyone should follow and apply to everyday life is “never give up”. In the novel, “A Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest J. Gaines, the important lesson can be shown in the characters Jefferson, Miss Emma and Grant Wiggins.