Gaines, Ernest J.: A Lesson Before Dying

Referat
A Lesson Before Dying Author: Ernest J. Gaines was born in 1933 on a Louisiana plantation as s son of a poor family. He is one of the most popular contemporary novelists in the United States. Some of his books are Catherine Carmier , Of Love and Dust , Bloodline , A Long Day in November , In My Fathers House or The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman . Main Characters: JEFFERSON: is innocently sentenced to death because of a murder and a robbery GRANT Wiggins: black teacher who always wants to go away from where he lives VIVIAN: his girlfriend, teacher too, 2 children (not with Grant) MISS EMMA: Jefferson´s godmother who loves him very much AUNT LOU: Grant´s aunt, she is the one who forces Grant to visit Jefferson Plot: Jefferson, a black guy, is innocently sentenced to death on the electric chair because he is accused to have done a murder. In the courtroom his defender calls him a hog what hurts Jefferson deeply. Some time later Jefferson´s godmother Miss Emma and the aunt of Grant Wiggins, a teacher in the quarter, come to Grant and tell him the story of Jefferson. They want Grant to help them by going to Jefferson and teach him to be a man, so that he is able to die as a man and not as a hog. Therefore, Miss Emma and aunt Lou ask Henry Pichot, for whom they have worked a long time, to talk to the judge what he finally does and Grant receives the allowance to visit Jefferson. In the following weeks he visits Jefferson very often. The first times Miss Emma and aunt Lou go ...