Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas
explored in a literary work.
Recognizing Injustice and Facing Responsibility
Grant often criticizes his society. He bitterly
resents the racism of whites, and he cannot stand to think of Jefferson’s
unjust conviction and imprisonment. For most of the novel, however,
he does nothing to better his lot. He sarcastically claims that
he teaches children to be strong men and women despite their surroundings,
but he is a difficult, angry schoolmaster. Grant longs to run away
and escape the society he feels will never change. Like Professor
Antoine, he believes no one can change society without being destroyed
in the process.
Jefferson’s trial reinforces Grant’s pessimistic attitude.
Grant sees the wickedness of a system designed to uphold the superiority
of one race over another. He sees a man struck down to the level
of a hog by a few words from an attorney. He sees a judge blind
to justice and a jury deaf to truth. These injustices are particularly
infuriating because no one stands up to defy them. The entire town
accepts Jefferson’s conviction with a solemn silence. Even Grant
stays silent, resisting his aunt and Miss Emma, who implore him
to teach Jefferson how to regain his humanity.
During the course of the novel, however, Grant comes
to realize that cynicism like his is akin to lying down and dying,
and that even small victories can accumulate and produce change.
Rather than looking at Jefferson as a hopeless stranger, or ridiculing
him as someone who tries to make Grant feel guilty, Grant accepts
Jefferson’s plight as his own and begins to fight for Jefferson’s
salvation. He accepts his duty to the society he inhabits, thereby
taking the first step toward improving that society.
Redemption in Death
With its consistent references to Jesus Christ and his
crucifixion, this novel insists that a man’s death can be a meaningful
event that bolsters a community. Jefferson has led a quiet life,
working as a common laborer for years and never speaking a word
out of turn. When convicted for a crime he did not commit, Jefferson
is initially angry and recalcitrant, acting like the animal the
whites think him. Eventually, however, his death sentence liberates
him, and he finds spiritual rejuvenation.
By the end of the novel, Jefferson understands that by
dying like a man, he will defy the society that wrongfully accused
him and convicted him not just of murder, but of being black-skinned.
He knows that by refusing to bow down in his final moments, he will
make his community proud. For these reasons, he walks to his execution calmly,
and onlookers say he is the strongest man in the room.
The Inescapable Past
Both Grant and Vivian are haunted by their pasts. White
people treated Grant as their inferior as he was growing up. Grant
deliberately severs himself from his past because thinking of it
discomfits him. Vivian, however, recognizes the sway her past has
over her, and she deals with it. She cannot completely embrace her
relationship with Grant, in part because her husband still threatens
to take her children away from her. She also realizes that their
history in Bayonne means that she and Grant cannot run away from
their town. Unlike Grant, she recognizes that the problems of the
past will not disappear by changing geographic location. Moreover,
she recognizes that Grant’s wish to ignore his past is symptomatic
of his inability to love his community, or to love her for that
matter. Gaines suggests that only confronting racism will change
it.
