A Lesson Before Dying

Religion, racism, humanity, and manhood come together in these chapters as the children put on their annual Christmas pageant in Jefferson’s honor, the court issues Jefferson’s execution date, and Grant starts to crack under the weight of his burdens. First, there are several important insights in Grant’s description of the Christmas pageant. He mentions that there are more people attending this year than ever before, but he attributes it to the weather instead of to people expressing their support for Jefferson. Grant cannot reconcile that the increased attendance could be an outpouring of humanity for the young life that is about to be sacrificed.

In another example of colorism, Grant mentions that James Lavonia, a biracial man, never attends the pageant because it is beneath him. There is an implied comparison between Jefferson and Christ as the children raised money to buy him a gift that sits alone under the Christmas tree. This is also the chapter where we meet Bok, the developmentally disabled young man who is so excited he keeps pointing at the kids on stage, and his mother keeps putting his hands back in his lap. Bok is comparable to the character of Lennie from Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men in that he is a big young man whose innocence can easily get him into trouble. Mirroring the relationships of strong women and supplicant men in the novel, Bok literally needs a woman to physically control his actions. He will reappear only one more time in Jefferson’s final journal entry in Chapter 29. The Christmas pageant is a true community gathering where people share what they have to give: the children share their singing, Bok shares his innocence, the adults share their food, and Grant shares his cynicism.

A couple months later, when Grant learns of Jefferson’s execution date, he wonders at the process of a group of white Christians coming up with a “convenient” date and time for a man’s execution that avoids Lent and isn’t too close to Easter Sunday. He sarcastically comments on how it is fine to have executions on either side of Lent, but none too close to “His” death. Grant calls out the hypocrisy by saying that the execution is far enough after His death that the good white Christians will forget about the Savior’s death by the time of Jefferson’s execution. This is yet another comparison of Jefferson to Christ, which suggests that Jefferson, too, must die for the sake of others.

In an exchange with Vivian, Grant vents his frustration about the state of masculinity and manhood in the Black community. He says men can never satisfy the women’s expectations for them. He explains that all Miss Emma wants from Jefferson is for him to stand up for “her” by standing like a man when he goes to the electric chair. Grant says she wants to be proud of him. Grant also points to himself as a victim of female expectations and burdened by 300 years of slavery preventing men from ever living up to them. He explains that this is why he wants to run away and escape that responsibility he feels. He calls it a vicious cycle that he is not man enough to break, but he tells Vivian that Jefferson will have the opportunity to do it before he dies. This is a very important exchange that indicates Grant is aware of two things: one, that he is trying to persuade Jefferson to do what the women want, and two, that he realizes Jefferson might turn out to be a better man than he is.