An Interview with Ernest Gaines

           

As the author of A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest Gaines has spoken about his stance on education, in an interview posted in 2009. As someone who escaped the south and moved to California, Gaines based on his novel on his own hometown where he attended a school just like that of where Grant teaches. In this video interview, Gaines gives viewers an insight into the story behind the primary text of this blog. 

            Gaines, in his interview with Larry Bridges, says that he had never read a book about his “own people” and that his path to becoming a writer was not necessarily the intended one. He observed the lack of African American novels in a library in Vallejo, California, where someone suggested maybe he was the one to put that missing book on the shelf. He took that idea to heart and began his writing journey, eventually writing A Lesson Before Dying. 

            After returning to Louisiana, Gaines gained some ideas of topics to discuss in his work: slavery, Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Great Flood, along with others as well. For A Lesson Before Dying, Gaines desired to demonstrate the growth of a student, Jefferson, and a teacher, Grant Wiggins. According to Gaines, without Jefferson’s execution Grant would have never grown as an educator nor would have any other events happened. 

While some like to compare Gaines to Grant, Gaines disagrees with that comparison. According to Gaines, he was one of the fortunate ones to get away from Louisiana and study in California. Gaines himself could escape the racial injustices he faced in his southern community, unlike Grant who returned to his hometown. The setting of the novel, however, is almost an identical replica of where Gaines grew up and went to school. In the interview, Gaines notes that he was taught in a one room school in Louisiana, just as he wrote in the novel. Gaines used his own experiences to create his work, noting on crucial issues of the time, such as the justice system and the educational system. 

Ernest Gaines in his home in 2010; Photo by Jennifer Zidon of the New York Times

Gaines also touched on the school system of the time, noting that he himself was born on a plantation, educated on a plantation, and was only taught five to five and a half months out of the year because he had to work in the fields during the other parts of the year. This was a major issue of the time because students were lacking access to learning when they needed it to gain knowledge that they could not have received outside of a school. 

Something that Gaines said that resonates with me is that “Whether you live two months, two weeks, or whether you live forty years you have a certain responsibility to yourself and those around you.” Grant had a responsibility to not only his students, but Jefferson too as he mentored him throughout his execution. It did not matter how long Grant had been in the school system or how much he knew about Jefferson or his situation, but rather what mattered was the duty he signed up to handle. Grant took on a difficult job being a teacher and he had to fulfill the responsibility that he had to those around him, as Gaines stated. 

Gaines goes on to say that Grant would become a better teacher because of the events of the novel. From working with Jefferson, he would learn essentially how to prevent that scenario for his students. The time in the novel was a difficult one in African American history and through Jefferson, Grant could gain an appreciation for the education he was able to receive outside of Louisiana. According to Gaines, through Grant’s mentoring of Jefferson, he would gain his purpose in his occupation, something he was struggling to find. 

In relation to Gaines’ intended audience, he aimed towards the youth of the south, both African American and white. He says., “I wish the white youth of the south to read my book to let him know that unless he knows his neighbor of the past three hundred years, he knows only half of his own history.” This is especially important for the educational aspect because it is important for the present youth in the south to understand the history and changes that have been made year after year. For the African American youth population, Gaines says “I wish the black youth of the south to read my book to show them that characters in the book are no better and no worse than he is.” His novel was intended to be a reinforcement for the black youth, knowing that the characters in his novel both resemble and do not resemble how they are. 

Through this interview with Gaines, viewers can gain insight into Gaines’ upbringing and relation to the characters in A Lesson Before Dying. Gaines had a purpose and could fulfill that through Grant and Jefferson in the novel.