The Community’s “Lesson:” Heroic Redemption

Corina Crisu

Rewriting

Polytropic Identities

in the Postmodern African American Novel

Chapter VII

“Tell Nannan I Walked”

Reconstructing Manhood in Ernest J. Gaines’

A Lesson Before Dying

The Community’s “Lesson:” Heroic Redemption

Gaines asserts the importance of an education based on communal solidarity, while searching for new pedagogic ways that strengthen intra- and inter-racial relations. His view on human solidarity distances him from Wright’s and Ellison’s perspectives that emphasized the characters’ isolation from their community. Gaines’ “lesson” effectively aims at rewriting the former image of the African American individual as a native son or an invisible man (partly juxtaposed in Jefferson’s portrait), by providing us with a communal pedagogy of representation. As Henry Giroux specifies, the “pedagogy of representation focuses on demystifying the act and process of representing by revealing how meanings are produced within relations of power that narrate identities through history, social forms, and modes of ethical address” (1994, 47).

Through his praxis of communal pedagogy, Gaines proposes an educational system in which the individuals help each other to disseminate a new image of black identity. Not just Grant, but also Reverend Ambrose, Miss Emma, Tante Lou, and Vivian are educators involved in the process of producing different views on identity. In Gaines’ “counternarrative of emancipation,” the members of the community assume the role of “critical educators” involved in a process of rethinking their own ethnic representation as black people (Giroux 1994, 51). In this way, all of them contribute to transforming Jefferson’s stultified representation into a heroic one: the “hog” becomes a hero. As the deepest string of his humanity is touched by their shared effort, Jefferson’s portrait remains tuned to our image of Christian endurance. The stages he passes through—from muted anger to dignified calmness—testify the development of his complex personality through the religious meaning of his inner growth.

In a context in which the connotations of such words as “school,” “church” and “prison” cross over all the time, both social and educational acts attain a religious dimension. Many instances in the novel testify for the Christ-like significance of Jefferson’s death. In this direction, Philip Auger observes that “Jefferson’s death is timed by the town’s officials so as not to conflict with a religious holiday, as Christ’s death is timed by Roman and Jewish authorities so as not to coincide with the Jewish Passover” (1995, 81). The New Testament motif of the sacrifice of an innocent man who assumes the others’ sins transpires in Jefferson’s words: “Me, Mr. Wiggins. Me. Me to take the cross. Your cross, nannan’s cross, my own cross. Me, Mr. Wiggins. This old stumbling nigger. Y’all axe a lot, Mr. Wiggins” (224).

While Jefferson’s image is Christ-like, “Miss Emma, Jefferson’s godmother, takes on the role usually reserved for God the father: she is the initiator of the discursive movement; from her ultimately springs a new identity for Jefferson and his ‘followers’” (Auger 1995, 81).⁴³ As in Walker’s The Color Purple, the proposed religion is matriarchal, in the sense of gravitating around a female image. Still, while Walker’s Shug promotes a new pantheistic religion, Gaines’ Emma remains faithful to the old Biblical pattern, which she reinforces with the help of the minister. A nurturing figure, Miss Emma is also a stubborn person who prompts Grant and Reverend Ambrose to insufflate Jefferson’s transfiguration. As a godmother, she symbolically officiates at Jefferson’s baptism as a new man.

In his turn, Reverend Ambrose offers spiritual sustenance to Jefferson’s godmother, while playing a significant role in both Jefferson’s and Grant’s conversion. Even if he has no higher education, the reverend is “a simple, devoted believer,” ready to always aid his community (101). The reverend is the one who urges Grant to revise his religious beliefs and his educational system that should be focused on the ethics of care for the other. For the reverend, to be educated does not mean to teach “reading, writing, and ’rithmetic,” but implies a profound knowledge of the others’ needs. In his equation, believing in a better life can also imply lying to the others: “They sent you to school to relieve pain, to relieve hurt—and if you have to lie to do it, then you lie” (218).

Urged by the reverend, Grant reconsiders the basis of his educational method from a religious perspective, realizing that his position as a teacher makes him responsible for the acts of the young people he is educating. His skepticism, his refusal to lie to Jefferson about his lack of belief in the afterlife implies his negation of the values of his own community. In response to Reverend Ambrose’s admonishment, Grant discusses with Jefferson the importance of faith. Without giving up his honesty, Grant admits that even if he does not pray, he does believe in God, whom he characterizes as the supreme force that makes people care for each other. Through his maieutic method of bringing forth his pupil’s knowledge, Grant makes Jefferson comprehend the similarity between his destiny and that of Jesus Christ, to see his death as a redeeming act of heroism for the sake of the others.

To sum up, in an equilateral triangle, the godmother, the priest, and the teacher represent three basic figures in Jefferson’s education and conversion. Besides them, the community’s lesson is essential for a new pedagogical praxis in a “narrative of liberation” that acquires a “metacritical function—that metaconceptualizes relations of everyday life” (McLaren 1994, 211). A Lesson Before Dying suggests the transformative potential of communal efforts that develop a local critique of dominant institutions.⁴⁴

Accordingly, there are significant moments when the community’s solidarity subverts the oppressive regime. For example, the few Christmas gifts that the members of the community manage to buy for Jefferson reveal their combined efforts to assist him, to symbolically dress him with their affectionate support.⁴⁵ Another important gift is the radio, which is bought by Grant with the financial assistance of various people. Another instance of the community’s support appears when the children and the “ole folks” pay Jefferson a visit as their last homage. This shared acknowledgement of Jefferson’s value endows with a positive meaning his shameful imprisonment. Narrated by Jefferson in his notebook, the event makes him shed tears for the first time, thus revealing his profound understanding of the others’ abnegation:

this was the firs time i cry when they lok that door bahind me the very firs time an i jus set on my bunk crying but not let them see or yer me cause i didn want them think rong but i was cryin cause of bok an the marble he giv me and cause o the people com to see me cause they hadn never done nothing lik that for me befor (231).

To borrow from McLaren, A Lesson Before Dying demonstrates that shared beliefs and values result in a “critical pedagogy” which attempts “to explore other modes of sociality and self-figuration that go beyond dominant language formations and social organization” (McLaren 1994, 215). This critical pedagogy allows the community members to pass over or interrogate local meanings that are part of their own collective practice. Hence, their pedagogic efforts “enable them to understand and intervene into their own history” (Grossberg 1994, 16).

NOTES

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