A lesson before Dying Essay

Morgan
Honors English
July 28th, 2013
A Lesson Before Dying Before Reading Assignment In Nicholas Sparks’ “The Guardian”, the reader is consumed into the story, falling into the small-town, comforting feel of the setting. The author makes you feel as if you are there in the way he speaks of the little town: “…quiet streets of Swansboro. It was cold; the sky had been angry for a week, and the rain made gentle tapping sounds against the window. Trees were barren, their cragged limbs curling in the frigid air like arthritic fingers…” (1). But seasons change, as well as attitudes in saying “…lying in bed on a cool spring morning in Swansboro, North Carolina…” (4). You can see how Sparks describes in detail the look and feel of the small town setting of Swansboro, North Carolina, allowing you to feel, see, and hear as if you were there. His descriptions create such wonderful visuals; you almost think you are in the story yourself. This draws you in, escaping our own reality to absorb into the lives of those living in what is shown to us as a beautiful town. In conclusion, the description of the setting, in any novel, draws you in because it is something different, something else to experience other than the tedious life a majority of we readers live.

Morgan
Honors English
July 29th, 2013
A Lesson Before Dying During Reading Assignments
(A) The Law of Getting Started

From the first paragraph in Ernest J. Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying I learned two things. One: the story is being told in an honest, yet slightly unclear perspective unto which I think will very well justify the message the story is trying to tell. For example, the first sentence on page 1 says “I was not there, yet I was there,” which shows how you can tell throughout the story the narration will seem quite confusing. The narrator, being Grant, tells the entire story from his point of view. This can leave out important details and force you to see the story from only side. However, I believe that is the best way for the story to be told. Two: the trial which the narrator did, or did not witness is being held with the verdict already in mind. This is proved when “I did not hear the verdict, because I knew all the time what it would be,” is said. We know the story is set in pre-civil rights 1940’s where this occurrence was all to common. That shows how racist and segregated the whites were towards blacks in the time period of the story. This paragraph, I believe, is just the beginning to a great story. A great story with a wonderful opening paragraph that has drawn me in to make me want to read more, this book is.
(B) The Law of Bogus Locales A person can infer that the setting of Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying, Bayonne, LA, is fictional, yet based upon how a real town in southern Louisiana in that time period of the 1940s would have been based upon both prior knowledge, as well as research upon Gaines’ hometown he grew up in during the 1940s. The author shows how pre-civil rights the town is in saying, “Approximately three thousand five hundred whites; approximately two thousand five hundred colored… white movie theatre uptown, black movie theatre back of town…” (25). One can see how this is directly correlated to how life was in real towns during the 1940s because when researched, big similarities were shown in researching towns such as pre-civil rights Oscar, LA. When researched, (sites listed below) there was proof of how segregated towns like Oscar, the imaginary Bayonne, and any others in the “deep south” would have been. Things such as water fountains, restrooms, movie theatres, and even sides of towns were designated for “blacks only” and vice versa. We also have proof to this from our little hometown here, Athens, AL, where we can see at our ice cream parlor downtown there were once segregated water fountains for each race. Thus further proving, the town of Bayonne was well written to historical detail by author Gaines.

Show More

Lesson Before Dying

Lesson Before Dying