ABSTRACT
In his award-winning novel, A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest J.Gaines (1993) described the relationship between Jefferson, a young Black man who is sentenced to die in the electric chair, and Grant Wiggins, who has returned to his small Cajun community to teach in the plantation school. Grant’s aunt and Jefferson’s godmother want him to teach Jefferson to become a man before his execution. An incredulous Grant asks, “What do you want me to do What can I do It’s only a matter of weeks, a couple of months, maybe. What can I do that you haven’t done the past twenty-one years ” His aunt only offers, “You the teacher” (p. 13).
