A Lesson Before Dying (Masterplots II: African American Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Ernest J. Gaines
- First Published: 1993
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Social realism
- Time of Work: 1948
- Setting: Southern Louisiana
- Principal Characters: Jefferson, Grant Wiggins, Miss Emma, Tante Lou
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: African Americans, Civil rights, Teaching or teachers, Prisons, Racism, Blacks, Murder or homicide, South or Southerners, 1940’s, World War II, Capital punishment, Cajuns, Human behavior, Pigs
- Locales: Louisiana
The Novel
In the year 1948, in rural southern Louisiana, Jefferson, a barely literate black man of twenty-one, has been sentenced to death because he had the misfortune to be a bystander at a shooting that resulted in the death of a white man. The action of the novel covers the period between sentencing and execution. That the sentence will be carried out is never in serious doubt. The question the novel explores is the terms on which Jefferson will confront his own death.
The issue that organizes the novel arises from the plea a desperate defense attorney made to the...
[The entire page is 3223 words long]
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