One of the plot-drivers of A Lesson Before Dying is Grant's guilt over his failure to break the cycle of black men disappointing or leaving the women in their community. If Grant didn't feel so guilty, he wouldn't be trying so hard to get Jefferson to do what he can't, be a role model or hero to his community. This is the situation as presented by Gaines, and on the surface, it makes sense. But, the more I think about it, the more questions I have.
First of all, why is Grant so guilty? He hasn't skipped town yet. He wants to, and he could do a lot more with his degree if he lived in the North, but he's standing like a man and bringing his education back to his community, which he by no means has to do. The novel says, "okay so Grant himself hasn't fallen in the trap of the cycle yet, but he will, and besides, he's perpetuating it by teaching his students to be men of the cycle." Okay, so maybe this question is oversimplifying the situation but honestly, why doesn't Grant just teach his students different things? Why doesn't he teach them to be independent thinkers and that they are worth as much as a white man? It's stated in the book that the superintendent only comes to the school once a year, so its not like the school board would notice enough to fire Grant for teaching a few inspiring lectures a semester. Does he think it will be dangerous for his students, that life will be worse for them if he teaches them to aspire higher when they live bound by a social system that prevents them from doing so? Is this the burden of education Antoine was talking about? It's a catch-22; Grant can either teach what he does and his students become like their parents, perpetuating the cycle, or he can teach them what he wants to and when they grow up they move north, perpetuating the cycle.
If so, then it makes sense that Jefferson would be the only one who could take Grant's teaching and break the cycle, because if he learns to hold his head up high to his white oppressors, he will not be able to move north; he is pretty much guaranteed to stay in the community the rest of his life. But his life will be over in a month, which brings me to my last and biggest question. If the only man who can break Grant's cycle is one who has to literally die at 21 before he has a chance to perpetuate it, how is that a source of inspiration to the community? Isn't that horribly depressing? How will the people around him be able to follow his model in any meaningful, useful way?
You bring up some excellent questions and ways of looking at Grant's situation. A key point that you made is that "Grant can either teach what he does and his students become like their parents, perpetuating the cycle, or he can teach them what he wants to and when they grow up they move north, perpetuating the cycle." I think that this perspective is at the core of Grant's guilt and powerlessness. He is afraid that, whatever he does, it won't be enough and will just end up changing nothing. What Grant wants is for Jefferson to take on some of his burden; to, I think, make it worth staying in their community. Jefferson's unflinchingness in the face of death shows both Grant and his students that you can, even in the most bleak possible situation, stand strong and not attempt escape. I think that Jefferson facing the chair as a man reflects a truly educated black community not backing down from their burden by fleeing.
ReplyDeleteThese are all really tough and important questions. It's easy for us (me, perhaps, especially) to criticize Grant's pedagogy as obviously perpetuating the power structure and not encouraging any kind of independent, critical thinking. But Antoine is an important voice in this discussion: for all his cynicism, he reveals the fact that having knowledge or critical awareness doesn't necessarily get you anywhere beyond being *aware* of how thoroughly the oppression shapes one's life. Grant would pass this "burden" on to his students, and there's the troubling idea that maybe they're better off ignorant (which is quite close to the defense attorney's way of characterizing Jefferson).
ReplyDeleteThere is something clearly futile about the idea of Jefferson as a source of inspiration for the community, if we focus on his youth and the fact that he dies an absurd death for a crime he (presumably) didn't commit. But Grant (and Gaines) want to focus instead on the symbolic nature of his death--the way he comports himself within the profoundly dehumanizing system *asserts* his humanity in the face of the courts that would deny that humanity. By walking to the chair--not begging for mercy, or collapsing to his knees in fear--he can control his own self-definition, and not concede the "hog" identity placed on him. In Gaines's view, this symbolic victory will have potentially profound effects on the community who sees a sentence like this as inevitable, a reflection of "how things are."
I agree that he should teach them different things, but I can also see why he can't. Thinking about when the superintendent came, he didn't want them to learn, he wanted more work on the flag and for them to slave away to make money to buy toothbrushes. Grant is stuck in a society which won't let him teach what he wants to teach, and that's why he want's to run away, but can't because that would perpetuate the cycle.
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