FREE ESSAY ON A LESSON BEFORE DYING

A LESSON BEFORE DYING

In A Lesson Before Dying, Mr.
Grant Wiggins' life crises were the center of the story.
Although he was supposed to make Jefferson into a man, he
himself became more of one as a result. Not to say that
Jefferson was not in any way transformed from the hog he
was into an actual man, but I believe this story was really
written about Mr. Wiggins. Mr. Wiggins improved as a
person greatly in this book, and that helped his relationships
with other people for the most part. At the start of the book,
he more or less hated Jefferson, but after a while he became
his friend and probably the only person Jefferson felt he
could trust. The turning point in their relationship was the one
visit in which Jefferson told Mr. Wiggins that he wanted a
gallon of ice cream, and that he never had enough ice cream
in his whole life. At that point Jefferson confided something
in Mr. Wiggins, something that I didn't see Jefferson doing
often at all in this book. I saw a slight smile come to his
face, and it was not a bitter smile. Not bitter at all; this is the
first instance in which Jefferson breaks his somber barrier
and shows emotions. At that point he became a man, not a
hog. As far as the story tells, he never showed any sort of
emotion before the shooting or after up until that point. A
hog can't show emotions, but a man can. There is the
epiphany of the story, where Mr. Wiggins realizes that the
purpose of life is to help make the world a better place, and
at that time he no longer minds visiting Jefferson and begins
becoming his friend. Mr. Wiggins' relationship with his Aunt
declined in this story, although it was never very strong. His
Aunt treated him like he should be a hog and always obey,
yet she wanted him to make a hog into a man. His Aunt was
not a very nice person, she would only show kindness
towards people who shared many of her views, and
therefore was probably a very hard person to get along with.
The way Mr. Wiggins regarded his relationships most likely
would have been different were he white. Mr. Wiggins feels,
and rightly so, that several white men try to mock or make a
fool of him throughout the story. This was a time of racial
discrimination with much bigotry, so if the story took place in
the present, it would be much different. In fact, there
probably would have not even been a book because in the
modern day, and honest and just jury would have found him
innocent due to the lack of evidence. It wasn't really clear
what sort of situation Mr. Wiggins was in regarding money,
but he could not have been too well off because he needed
to borrow money to purchase a radio for Jefferson, and he
commented about the Rainbow Cafe: When I was broke, I
could always get a meal and pay later, and the same went
for the bar. I suppose he had enough money to get by, but
not much extra. As the book progresses he probably had
less money to work with due to the money he was spending
to buy the radio, comic books, and other items for Jefferson.
Mr. Wiggins seemed to be well respected by the
community, and he felt superior to other African Americans
because he was far more educated than they were. That
makes Mr. Wiggins guilty of not practicing what he
preaches, although Jefferson probably made it clearer to him
that the less intelligent are still humans with feelings. At the
start of the book, Mr. Wiggins did not understand this. He
went to visit Jefferson because Miss Emma and his Aunt
more or less forced him to do it. He really had no motivation
except that he would be shunned by his Aunt if he did not
comply. The whole process of Mr. Wiggins' development
and the plot of this story both spawn from the crimes of two
characters with no other relevance to the story. After the
police found Jefferson at the liquor store with the dead
bodies all around, he was of course taken to trial and the
times being what they were, he was convicted with very little
doubt that he would be found innocent. Miss Emma, his
godmother was afraid that he would die a hog and have
lived a meaningless life. She wanted him Not to crawl to the
white man, but to get up and walk to him at the end. At first
Mr. Wiggins was not very concerned about Jefferson, he
just wanted to pass the time he had to spend with him, but
then after a while he began to think of what it would feel like
to be a dead man, and what he could do to make the time
Jefferson had left to be the best they could for him. This was
the greatest achievement Mr. Wiggins accomplished in the
entire book. He managed to be able to have pity upon
Jefferson without empathy. After the point in which he
discussed the ice cream and the radio with Jefferson, and
Jefferson admitted for the first time that he was more than a
hog, Mr. Wiggins truly cared. Mr. Wiggins developed
greatly during the course of this story, along with other
characters featured in the story. Vivian met new people and
increased the quality of her relationship with Mr. Wiggins,
Miss Emma finally got to see someone stand for her, Tante
Lou learned that she had a decent nephew after all, and
Jefferson got off of his four legs and stood. The End!