Inner Conflict in Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying

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Inner Conflict in Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying

"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.

Mr. Wiggins stubborn attitude is shown very early when he says, " ‘Suppose I was allowed to visit him, and suppose I reached him and made him realize that he was as much a man as any other man; then what? He’s still going to die. . . So what will I have accomplished? What will I have done? Why not let the hog die without knowing anything?’ " (31). The way he uses hog is important in knowing that he doesn’t give a lick what happens to this kid. He was talki...

... middle of paper ...

...‘I saw the transformation, Grant Wiggins. . . He never could have done that. I saw the transformation. I’m a witness to that’ " (254). Paul did see the transformation of Jefferson right before he was executed by the electric chair. Jefferson was the only one in the room not scared and he took it like a man.

Mr. Wiggins is changed in this novel through many internal conflicts that he never could have accomplished without one brave man, Jefferson. The voice he uses is not obvious, but it is there. Mr. Wiggins finally learns that anyone could leave his small town behind; they just need a little help along the way. One final quote sums up all the pains and triumphs Grant has with Jefferson, "Yes, I told myself. It is finally over" (252).

Works Cited

Gaines, Ernest J. A Lesson Before Dying. New York: Vintage Books Division of Random House, Inc., 1994.

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