Only thirty years old this year, Ernest J. Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying (1993) is a powerful testament to social justice and to the search for individual dignity in an oppressive legal system. Set in the late 1940s in a small Louisiana community, the book tells the story of two men, one a convicted murderer on death's row (Jefferson) and the other his reluctant tutor (Grant) who is asked to teach the doomed man how to face death and injustice with a sense of self-worth. Almost instantly canonized upon publication, A Lesson Before Dying is a deceptively straightforward work. Although eminently accessible, it asks weighty questions about the complicity of state-sanctioned execution and the healing power of community. Electric with religious imagery, it challenges readers' sense of the purpose of faith and the elusiveness of truth. Most of all it makes a passionate plea for relinquishing personal bitterness and finding transcendence in serving others.
Episode 8: Beloved and Ghosts of the Past, the Present, and Possibly the Future
Episode 7–All that Jazz: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
Episode 6: Watching the Horizon in THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
Episode 5: Blending Black and White in ABSALOM, ABSALOM!
Episode 4: Returning to THE AGE OF INNOCENCE
Episode 3: Seeing Ralph Ellison's INVISIBLE MAN Clearly
Episode 2: Diving with MOBY DICK
Definitions and Debates: What Exactly is a GAN?
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