Manhood In A Lesson Before Dying

A Lesson Before Dying: An Analysis of the Definition of Manhood A Lesson Before Dying is a historical novel written by Ernest J. Gaines. The novel is set in the late 1940s on a plantation in Louisiana. A young, black man known as Jefferson is wrongly convicted for murdering two white men. The main character is Grant Wiggins, a teacher at a church school. Grant is being forced by Jefferson’s Godmother, Miss Emma, to convince Jefferson that he is a man. In A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest Gaines uses the concept of manhood to describe racial injustice. In this essay, I will describe how Grant Wiggins and Ernest Gaines define manhood. At the beginning of the novel, Jefferson and Grant have two different ways they define being a human.

The main conflict of the story is Grant convincing Jefferson that he is truly a man and that there is hope in the world. After Jefferson’s sentence is set, Jefferson doesn’t have hope for the world and thinks that he going to die anyways, so why care. Grant is teaching him that he can help others and that there is hope in the world and in the future. So, Grant is using character motivation to help Jefferson throughout the entire novel. The other literary term, diction, is repetition of a word to show its importance. Looking back at the quote, diction is used a couple of times. The word “hog” and “human” are repeated several different times. So, character motivation and diction are two important literary terms in A Lesson Before Dying. The main character of A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines, Grant Wiggins, believes that a man is someone who can think for himself and for others. The main conflict of the novel is Grant trying to teach Jefferson, a young black man on death row, that he is indeed a human. Two literary terms used throughout this novel are character motivation and diction. In conclusion, A Lesson Before Dying is an amazing novel that explores the definition of