A Lesson Before Dying

The themes of race and racism figure prominently in this story. The opening scene features a courtroom where a 21-year-old Black man stands accused of being complicit in the death of a white shopkeeper. The narrator explains that everyone already knows how this must end: The young Black man must die because there can be no justice for him in the white courts. The all-white jury finds him guilty over lunch and sentences him to death by electric chair.

Grant Wiggins, the protagonist, is a Black man struggling to figure out who he is apart from 300 years of slavery, racism, and white oppression. All of the characters are impacted by this history of systemic and cultural racism, but this story focuses on the plight of the Black man trying to define his own humanity within social and economic conditions that still view him as no more than a “hog.” The reminders of slavery are everywhere, including the big plantation where the characters live.

While the story takes place in 1947 Louisiana, and slavery and reconstruction ended many years ago, the culture and lifestyles haven’t really changed. The white owner of the plantation,