Throughout the novel A Lesson Before Dying, the questions of what it means to be a man often gets thrown around. However, when it comes to Jefferson and people tell him to be a man (ultimately to stop acting like a hog that the white supremacists think he is), I don’t think they are trying to get him to act like a normal/ average man- I think they (especially Grant) are trying to get Jefferson to be a hero. However, still Jefferson hasn’t filled the role of the hero yet- he is still working on it which leaves the question who is the hero right now in the story?
Overall, what a hero is to me is acting in a way that can be used as an example for other people and helping and “saving” a community (no matter how big or small that community is)
So far while reading, I have thought that Grant is actually the hero of the story because he is the one who is setting up the situation where Jefferson eventually becomes the hero. He is able to get to Jefferson like no other character in this novel so far. In a sense, he himself is going through a hero’s journey himself. At first, Grant is running away and doesn’t want to go to jail to visit Jefferson. However he ends up going because he is forced to by Miss Emma. However, over time, Grant started to recognize his role in trying to help Jefferson become a hero and starts doing as much as he can to help Jefferson.
Right now in the book, Grant tells Jefferson that “a hero is something that other men don’t and can’t do. He is different from other men. He is above other men.” However soon after saying that, Grant also says that”I could never be a hero. I teach, but I don't like teaching...I want to run away. I want to live for myself and for my woman and for nobody else”. Then he goes on to tell Grant that he needs to be man so he can be the hero and prove the white supremacists wrong. I think everything Grant says in this passage is true except for the line “I could never be a hero”. Honestly, because he wants to run away and not do all this stuff, he is still doing it which makes what he is doing for Jefferson even more worthwhile, which is why so far I think Jefferson is the hero.
Nice Post! I can definitely see how Jefferson could be the main hero of the story. To me, it almost seems as if Grant is actually the mentor figure. He is giving Jefferson all of this advice on how he needs to sacrifice himself to fight against something larger. Maybe the Gaines decided to write a hero's journey narrative from a perspective that wasn't the hero's.
ReplyDeleteYeah I agree with you point that Grant is also a hero at this point in the story. I think the more that we are reading, the more we are seeing Jefferson surface as a hero, but right now we see the most change in Grant. He went from having no clue how to fix the situation, to trying and failing, to coming at it with a different approach which I think is working. We can see the progress and I feel like the more successful he is, the more of the hero role he is fulfilling.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Grant has been on a hero's journey for a while now. We don't get to see Jefferson's changes nearly as well. But I think it's possible to have multiple heroes in the same story; to let both Grant and Jefferson be heroes in their own right. It was (for lack of a better term) legal for Grant to think about Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson as heroes in his community's narrative without one somehow discounting the other, right? It could be the same sort of thing here.
ReplyDeleteOh wait also: unrelated to literary analysis but I'd recommend changing the font color and/or background of this blog. I had to highlight the text to be able to read the post.
DeleteI agree that Grant is a hero in his own way. He definitely plays a big part in this story, and he even has some of the aspects of a hero's journey (calling, rejection of calling, etc). However, I think that Jefferson is the ultimate hero in this book. While Grant plays a big part in helping the black community by making Jefferson into a man, Grant is not actually the one who sacrifices his life and does the "saving". Grant's role is to prepare Jefferson, and in the end Jefferson is the one who does the breaking of the cycle of racism by dying.
ReplyDeleteIs there anyway that both Grant and Jefferson can be the heroes of the book? By your definition, Grant can also be classified as a hero since he is able to help and partially "save" the community by continuing to help Jefferson, and we know that Jefferson is a hero because he dies with dignity on behalf of his community. If you're only looking for one hero, then I would have to agree that it would be Jefferson. Even though Grant gave Jefferson a reason to die a man, it was ultimately Jefferson who chose to die a man and not a hog.
ReplyDeleteA big part of the difficulty has to do with determining what "be a man" can *look like* for someone in Jefferson's position. As you suggest near the start of this post, there really isn't an "average" option available for Jefferson. Falling on his knees and begging for mercy would be a very understandable response, as would lashing out in anger at the whole system, or simply collapsing in fear. But simply to "walk to the chair" is, because of this uncommon situation, an act of profound heroism. He's asserting his humanity in the face of a system that would deny it. If Grant is a "hero," it comes through him getting Jefferson to view the meaning of his own life and actions in this way, or to do the thing that Grant himself admits he could never do.
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