A Lesson Before Dying
- HOPELESSNESS- A feeling of hopelessness pervades the opening chapters, an appropriate tone for a story where someone is sentenced to death in the first chapter. Discuss where all you hear this tone of hopelessness behind just from Jefferson. Do you think that adequately expresses the African-American feeling in America at this time, or do you see glimmers of hope in the next, or can you think of the glimmers that were there historically?
During the conversation with Tante Lou and Miss Emma, Grant seemed to have lost hope in Jefferson. When Grant was told that together with his aunt and Miss Emma, they should go and see Henry Pichot, whose brother-in-law was the sheriff, he said that Jefferson was already dead. According to Grant, it was just a matter of some time, and Jefferson would be dead. Grant said, “He’s dead now. And I can’t raise the dead” (Gaines, 20019). During the prison visits, Miss Emma felt hopeless because each of the three times Grant, and she visited Jefferson in the cell, Jefferson would rarely talk to them. Also, Jefferson would not eat the food that Emma was carrying. Jefferson showed no interest in neither Emma nor Grant because he was either looking at the ceiling or facing the wall and this frustrated Emma, and she always left the cell crying. Also, Grant felt hopeless when he came to realize that Miss Emma had worked with the whites to humiliate Grant. Miss Emma said to Grant, “I’m sorry, Mr. Grant, I’m helping them white people to humiliate you” (Gaines, 2009). Grant figured out the hours he spent in Pichot’s house while Pichot and his visitors had and drunk without recognizing the presence of Grant. Grant also remembered going to jail only to be searched as if he was a kind of a common criminal, and such reflections made Grant hopeless.
- PRISON VISITS- These scenes will repeat throughout the novel. Just note the pattern of what happens from the time Grant arrives at the prison. How do you think he feels?
Whenever Grant arrived at the prison, the food that Miss Emma was always carrying was searched, Grant would be asked to take everything out of his pocket, and then ordered to return everything to his pockets. WIJANNARKO (2017), states that Miss Emma and Grant would then be led down the corridor, and they would pass through open office doors where the whites continued with their daily chores. The deputy was always ahead of them, and Miss Emma would then follow him directly while Grant walked beside Miss Emma. After reaching the end of the corridor, the trio would then climb the steps to the first landing. There the deputy had to stop to allow Miss Emma to take a breath, and then they would proceed to the next floor and then pass through the heavy steel door to reach the cellblock. Whenever the prisoners heard them, they would stand at the cell doors and stretch their hands between the bars. Miss Emma always promised the prisoners that they would have the food that Jefferson did not manage to eat. As usual, Grant would give them the change in his pockets, which he said that it was always less than a dollar. Miss Emma, Grant, and the deputy would then head to the last cell where they found Jefferson lying on the bunk, either looking at the ceiling of facing the walls. The deputy would open the door and lock them inside. Jefferson rarely spoke to Miss Emma and Grant. After spending an hour in the court cell, Miss Emma and Grant would be let out, and each time Miss Emma would leave the cell crying (WIJANNARKO, 2017). Each time of the three visits to the prison, Emma told the deputy to dish out the food to the other prisoners. Grant did not enjoy prison visits.
References
WIJANNARKO, M. A. (2017). INTERNALIZED RACISM AS EXPERIENCED BY JEFFERSON IN ERNEST J. GAINES’A LESSON BEFORE DYING (Doctoral dissertation, Universitas Airlangga).
Gaines, E. J. (2009). A Lesson Before Dying: Hauptbd../Annot. by Hartmut K. Selke. Ernst Klett Sprachen.