Someone Save Him
One of the most entertaining characteristics of the human condition is this need to believe in something. There has to be something to put your faith in, that you believe can change things and right wrongs. For lots of people, such as the Reverend in Ernest J. Gaines’ novel A Lesson Before Dying that faith manifests itself in religion and God. But for those of us who are less inclined to blindly follow an invisible all-knowing entity of supreme power, such as Grant, there is school and education.
Grant is a teacher. He is charged with saving Jefferson’s mind, “cause you the teacher,” (pg.123 Gaines), to turn this child into a man before he must face the scariest day of his short life. Grant has to make Jefferson see himself as a man, not a beast. He approaches this in a secular way, treating him as a grown man, not lying to him or giving him false hope, but by being honest and straightforward. By making him write and think instead of just wallow in his predicament and moving him towards more constructive habits. Grant treats him like a worthwhile individual and helps Jefferson see himself as such. He also works in the substantial and physical, taking care of the here and now, not the what-ifs of the future and the afterlife. “I figured that’s where you came in, Reverend,” (pg. 101 Gaines).
The Reverend is trying to save the soul of young Jefferson. He sees this scared child, about to die and wants to make his afterlife tolerable, to save him from damnation. When thinking about bringing Jefferson something to ease his mind he “was thinking about the Bible,” (pg. 101 Gaines). This is the problem with the Reverend’s teachings and visits. He doesn’t see or think of the person Jefferson, he doesn’t even know the boy or try to know him really. His goal is to save his soul and that can only be done through prayer and acknowledging God. He brings the child salvation for later not for the now.
It is in their utterly different agendas and concerns that the two differ. Though they both want to save and help Jefferson the one is concerned with the now and the other with the after. One doesn’t see the point in worrying about the after when there’s nothing to do for it and the other doesn’t see why to bother with the now if the after isn’t assured. Jefferson shows hatred for the Reverend, a man who would have him believe in another entity that, instead of saving Jefferson is letting him suffer and die for the sins of others and racist injustice. Grant knows the proceedings are bull and he doesn’t lie to Jefferson by assuring him he knows what’s out there when he doesn’t have a clue. Blind faith isn’t going to save the child’s mind as he nears his doom.
Both men showed power, courage and conviction. The Reverend by attending the death and being their to help usher the soul into heaven, doing his job and ensuring the afterlife, and Grant by not attending the funeral and rather remembering the young man he’d taught, as a teacher, to hold himself up as a man, not an animal. Both men remained at Jefferson’s side, even when the boy didn’t want them, both determined to help him through this time. And both men achieved their goals in the end, Jefferson’s soul and mind was at rest upon his last breath.
Gaines, Ernest J. A Lesson Before Dying. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.
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