A Lesson Before Dying (Oprah's Book Club) by Ernest J. Gaines
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Book Reviews of A Lesson Before Dying (Oprah's Book Club)
Book Review: A man
Summary: 5 Stars
What is a man?What is a Black man?
Could you die with dignity?
Die a man?
Wait for death to come to you, look it square in the eye and know that there was no escape. Sit with your life and say to Death: "I greet you, I face you?"
I both read this book and taped/watched the film. Honor, integrity of spirit is necessary to be alive here, to be real here, to be present in one's life.
Am I a man?
If I'm a Black man am I nothing but a hog as in this book the boy is accused of being? All his grandmother can dois ask Teacher to make him a man, to grow him in a hurry so that a child is not slain, a fool isn't hung but a man says, "I am. Now you may, may, kill this body. For I have been it and left it already."
I cried at the end of this book, barely finished the last few pages because it is both love story and testament to love of self, love of manhood, love of being a man beyond race. But how hard it is to be a Black man, how so hard. Perhaps our man and womanhood can only be faced and accounted for when death seems imminent.
If so, then a man was lead to the chair, to the tree, to the shooting post, for it matters that one dies but HOW one dies.
Read this book then go to Ellison, Wright, Hughes, Morrison, Baldwin, Faulkner, Mailer, Garcia-marquez, etc. al. Please.
Book Review: A Lesson Before Dying
Summary: 5 Stars
The story, A Lesson Before Dying, is one of the best stories that i have ever read. It shows many good, strong lessons. It's about a young black man, Jefferson, who is accused of murder and is convicted to be put to death by an electric chair. Jefferson has an unfair trial, with the whole jury being white and prejudiced. Also, if the unfair trial isn't enough, the defense attorney calls Jefferson a "hog", a "fool", a "boy", many names that are very disrespectful. Jefferson's god mother, Emma Glenn, wants to see Jefferson die with honor and pride, like the man she knows he is, not the "hog" they said he was. So she wants a teacher, Grant Wiggins, to try and get through to Jefferson and make him walk to the chair as a man. Grant is also in a prison himself, not as Jefferson is, but his life and work are his prison. Grant does not like his work and wants to run away with his girlfriend Vivian. Grant knows he must go on though, for Jefferson, Miss Emma, and also himself. The book has alot of imagery and it feels sometimes like you are in the cell with Jefferson. It has many very touching and emotional parts because of this. I highly reccommend this book to anyone, all ages. It shows that to be a strong man doesn't mean you have to do something physically, you just have to believe in yourself on the inside.Book Review: Hog or man?
Summary: 5 Stars
A Lesson Before Dying by Earnest Gaines is an excelent book! It takes place in the 1940s in a small town in Louisiana. A young black boy is convicted of shooting a killing a white store owner. He in fact did not do this; he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. His lawyer tried to get Jefferson off by telling the all white jurors that Jefferson could not think to do anything like that because he was not a man, he was a hog. Once the jurors convicted Jefferon and senteced him to die by exuction, Jefferson's nanna asked Grant for help. Grant was the plantation teacher for all the children living on the plantation. Grant was from the plantatation and moved back with his aunt when he graduated from college. Ms. Emma (Jefferson's nanna) asked Grant to teach Jefferson to be a man. She did not want a hog walking to the death chair; she wanted a man to walk there. Grant goes to Jefferson out of respect to his aunt and Ms. Emma; he really does not want to go there at first. During Grant's visits the relaionship between Grant and Jefferson grows. Everyone wants Grant to visit Jefferson for differnt reasons. The reverand, Ms. Emma, his aunt, and even his girlfrind Vivan all have their own reasons. This book brings forth many social issues we still deal with today.Book Review: A Lesson For Us All
Summary: 5 Stars
I have several opinions about this book, and the first is that it should be placed on the mandatory reading list of every high school student in the USA; it is destined to become a literary classic in the same vein as Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. The themes introduced throughout this book are designed to elicit discussion and shatter stereotypes. The transformation of the book's main character, Jefferson- a poor, uneducated, young, black man who has been convicted of a murder he didn't commit and whose life is compared to that of a hog by his own defense attorney in the worst closing argument to a jury ever atempted, is remarkable to watch unfold. Jefferson is reborn on death row with the help of his teacher, Grant Wiggins, the university educated, local black school teacher who reluctantly agrees to visit Jefferson in his cell at the request of Jefferson's aunt, Miss Emma, who wants Wiggins to make Jefferson know he "ain't no hog." This book will evoke emotions in most of us; you will feel yourself react as you read. It is so very well written. Of course, the question remains is whether the book's themes will make a difference to its readers. Ernest J. Gaines, the author, must think that they will; I think that the book could have been titled, a lesson for us all.Book Review: A Local Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
This story takes place in in 1940s Louisiana in a small Cajun town in which a black school teacher,(Grant Wiggins), is called upon to make a young, wrongly convicted black man,(Jefferson), go to his electric chair as a man rather than a "hog". This is an emotional and touching book that makes readers realize that any form of racism is unecessary under any circumstances. It shows that sometimes people must go through hell in order to achieve something that seems unachievable. A Lesson Before Dying also sympathizes with people who are unhappy with their surroundings due to chaos and want to just run away from it all. At the very end of the book, Grant and Paul, ( deputy at the Bayonne prison), are walking down a road talking about how Jeffersons execution went and Paul tells Grant that he is one of the best teachers he's ever seen. They end up shaking hands, and to me, this indicates that somewhere down the line, blacks and whites will bond one day and all of this ridiculous racial tension will end. This is the kind of book that seems like time flies when you're reading it because you get caught up in it and it is so interesting and easy to understand. Earnest J. Gaines definitely put together one hell-of-a book when he wrote A Lesson Before Dying. Don'y hesitate to buy it.