Reverend Ambrose and Grant Wiggins in A Lesson Before Dying Essays

Suffering through the horrors of racism, color Americans appear to shoot no chance of progression in society. Generation after generation of being unstudied and treated like animals has left the black community in shambles, and thinking they are not as good as the whites. In the 1940s it was difficult to generate a black man who could read and write. The black mans illiteracy caused them to believe that they were less civilized than the whites. In Ernest Gaines A Lesson Before Dying, we are introduced to Jefferson, an uneducated, average black man who has been wrongly accused of a murder. Convinced that he is an animal, Jefferson is going to be taught by Reverend Ambrose and Grant Wiggins, the plantation schoolteacher, that he is actually a man. Because Reverend Ambrose, and Grant Wiggins have such different teaching beliefs and personalities, they approach teaching Jefferson with conflicting views. Reverend Ambrose and Grant Wiggins have very different educational backgrounds, which causes them to become foils for each other. Grant Wiggins is a very important man in the black community, because he is the only one with a college education. Many whites have not received this high of an education, and are offended by his intelligence. Reverend Ambrose, a man who has received very little formal education, is ignorant compared to Grant. Ambrose, the ghostlike leader of the black community, has been educated in the world of faith and religion. When reverend Ambrose says in a verbal confrontation with Grant, Im the one thats educated.(Gaines 215 ), we are able to curb that he thinks his knowledge of faith is more important than Grants reading, riting, and rithmatic. Grant and Reverend Ambrose represent the ... ...being like a child finally resolves Grant and Ambroses battle, for Jefferson is perceptive to Grants corporal form of teaching, but not to Ambroses teaching of religion. Jefferson uses the teachings of Grant, and dies like a dignified man. He sho ws the white people that blacks are humans, by living the last weeks of his conduct as a civilized man. Even though this story was fictional, the racism described in it was frighteningly true, and still is evident in the world today. just now in the 1960s would the black state finally band together and say weve had enough. The problem of racism cannot be resolved by one person, it requires an entire population to see it and stop it. I dont know if they got a heaven cause samson say they cant be an boo say they aint non fo no niger but reven ambros say they is one for all an bok dont know.(Gaines 233)