Summary: Chapter 3
Tante Lou, Miss Emma, and Grant arrive at the Pichot plantation. They
enter through the back door and inform the maid that they wish to
see Mr. Pichot. Miss Emma was the cook here for most of her life,
just like her mother and grandmother before her. Grant’s aunt washed
and ironed, and Grant ran errands. When he left for college, he
vowed never to enter this place through the back door again. After
some delay, Henry Pichot and Louis Rougon enter the kitchen. Miss
Emma asks Pichot to convince his brother-in-law to allow Grant to
visit the prison and educate Jefferson. Pichot hesitates, and Miss
Emma reminds him of all the years she spent working for his family. Pichot
asks Grant what he expects to do, and Grant responds truthfully
that he does not know. Grant carefully avoids being disrespectful,
making sure to lower his eyes when necessary. After some cajoling,
Pichot agrees to speak to his brother-in-law.
Summary: Chapter 4
After dropping off Miss Emma, Grant informs his aunt that
he will eat in town, which insults her. He drives to Bayonne. After
crossing the railroad tracks and making his way down a poorly lit
road into the black section of town, Grant stops at the Rainbow
Club where Thelma Claiborne, the owner’s wife, prepares his dinner.
At Grant’s request, his lighter-skinned girlfriend Vivian arrives.
She sits with Grant and they talk quietly. He offers to take her
and her children far away from the town, but she considers the idea
unrealistic and threatens to leave the bar if he continues to speak
about it. She asks him why he has not left town for good, and he
replies that he wants to be with her. She calls him a liar, because
he once left the town to stay with his parents in California. When
Vivian asks him why he returned, Grant avoids the question. She
reminds him that they cannot be so open about their love for one
another until she finalizes her divorce. While dancing, Grant tells
her about Jefferson’s sentence. Angry and afraid, Grant wonders
if he can teach Jefferson how to die when Grant himself doesn’t
know how to live.
Summary: Chapter 5
The next morning, Grant returns to the plantation school
where he teaches black children through the sixth grade. His school
is in a church, and his desk is a table normally devoted to the
Sunday collection. Grant teaches only five and a half months out
of the year, because his students work in the fields the rest of
the time. In a foul mood, Grant punishes his students for the slightest
offenses, though they try to avoid upsetting him. After a few hours,
he steps outside and surveys the homes near his school. He knows
many details about the troubled lives of their inhabitants. When
he returns to his classroom, he finds a student playing with an
insect. He sneaks up behind the young boy and slaps him hard across
the back of the head with his ruler. Furious, Grant finds himself
telling the class about the task Miss Emma has set for him. He explains
how Jefferson will die and says he must make Jefferson into a man,
which is exactly what he is trying to do with them. Toward the end
of class, a small man enters the church and informs Grant that Mr.
Henri Pichot wishes to see him.
Analysis: Chapters 3–5
The main conflict of A Lesson Before Dying lies
within Grant himself. Even though Grant struggles to manage in the
racist white society, his primary struggle is with his own mind.
As he says to Vivian, he cannot face Jefferson because he cannot
face himself and his own life. Vivian exposes Grant’s conflicted
nature by bringing up the fact that he left the South in the past
but eventually returned. Grant feels repulsed by the environment
in which he grew up, but somehow he cannot bring himself to leave.
Despite his statement that Vivian’s presence is the reason that
he remains in Bayonne, Vivian knows that there are larger issues
at play here. The novel shows that Grant’s pride and self-centered
qualities prevent him from truly appreciating the people with whom
he lives. When he finally learns how to view his family and friends
positively, he becomes able to live in the South with strength and
courage.
Undoubtedly, however, Grant is not completely
responsible for his inability to overcome his inner conflict. Life
in the South during the time of Jim Crow segregation was harrowing
for blacks and Grant’s vacillation between cynical confidence and despair
results from his daily struggle against the forces of racism. Here,
Gaines paints Grant’s visit to Henri Pichot as a humiliating experience.
Grant, Tante Lou, and Miss Emma have to enter Pichot’s house through
the servants’ entrance in the back and then must wait awkwardly
until Pichot deigns to see them. They talk to Pichot as servants
to master, careful to appear respectful and able to appeal only
to his sense of duty and generosity for help. Moreover, as Pichot
oppresses blacks by making them serve and beg, the town of Bayonne
oppresses them by segregating them to the back of the town. White
families own the plantations and fields, and black families work
them. White men run the jails, and black men rot in them. White
women bear white children, and black women care for them. Gaines
shows that the blacks are not only segregated, but they receive
meager resources, such as electricity. The road to the black section
of town is noticeably darker than the main streets with -streetlights.
The inequities of racism also divide blacks from each
other. Although Grant is inextricably bound to Tante Lou and Miss Emma,
he is also distanced from them. He feels pressured by Tante Lou
to conform to the racist expectations of the whites. He drives the
women to Pichot’s, yet he cannot stand living as they do, constantly
submitting to white authority. He refuses Tante Lou’s food in order
to show his resentment and disapproval of her behavior. Grant feels
both a connection to and a detachment from his pupils. He wants
them to thrive, to transcend the low-class work for which they have
been slated, but he expresses frustration when they do not exhibit
the concentration that will help them thrive. To the extent that
he wants his students to succeed and identifies with their plight, Grant
is on their side. Just as his aunt angers him, however, his students
anger him. He deals with them harshly, punishing them for tiny offenses
and making them afraid. Although he cares for them, he frequently
seems disgusted by them and convinced that they cannot make anything
of themselves.
