This page was created by Erynn Bossier. The last update was by David Squires.
Power
A Lesson Before Dying depicts suppression and oppression in multiple ways, from institutional forms to the action of individual characters. In particular, unjust systems associated with Jim Crow force the Black characters to create relative autonomy within their own community, affecting those relationships. In “Intimate Spaces: Performance and the Making of Jim Crow,” Stephen Berrey argues that segregation "can be understood as an answer to a racial question, an answer that involved the use of space to reestablish difference and hierarchy and to thwart black assertiveness” (21). Because segregation thwarts Black assertiveness, the Black characters in A Lesson express a will to power in their own community that permits them a degree of autonomy not permitted in white society. Power in the novel is not uniform or even; rather, it shifts depending on the particular space or situation. Power normally indicates an ability to control, influence, or dictate circumstances in the world. However, Gaines complicates the ordinary sense of power as control of others or the external environment by showing how the main characters also achieve internal power, or power over themselves. The cultivation of this internal power is what gives them dignity in a society that is determined to oppress them.
The White Institution
In order to fully understand the dynamic between institutional racism and oppression requires analyzing how specific institutions work and thrive on suppression. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva offers a useful starting point in his article “Rethinking Racism: Toward a Structural Interpretation.” He writes:Because of the extreme version of racial hierarchy present within social world described by A Lesson, the Black characters are forced to create and move about their own social structures, therefore isolating themselves from the white community to a large extent. By avoiding the dominant society, the Black community creates their own society with their own hierarchies and values. A minor yet telling example of this appears in the novel just after Jefferson's execution date is set. Grant and Vivian are in the quarters when Grant decides he needs a drink and suggests they go to the Rainbow Club. Vivian asks if there's anything closer but Grant explains, "Not unless I went to that back room at the corner store. You know I can't do that" (164). Here we get an indication of how he avoids white society and the ugly reality of segregation. The back room he mentions is for Black customers, while white customers would have a larger front room. Instead, Grant prefers to patronize the Black-owned bar and restaurant in town, even if he has to drive farther to get there. When the Black characters do have to engage with white institutions, such as the school system and the prison, they are forced into unequal power relations and so have to cultivate different forms of control.In all racialized social systems the placement of people in racial categories involves some form of hierarchy that produces definite social relations between the races. The race placed in the superior position tends to receive greater economic remuneration and access to better occupations and/or prospects in the labor market, occupies a primary position in the political system, is granted higher social estimation (e.g., is viewed as “smarter” or “better looking”), often has the license to draw physical (segregation) as well as social (racial etiquette) boundaries between itself and other races, and receives what DuBois (1939) calls a “psychological wage.” The totality of these racialized social relations and practices constitutes the racial structure of a society. (469-70)
The School
Jim Crow laws started to mandate segregation throughout the United States immediately after the Civil War. Tennessee, for instance, passed a law in 1866 that segregated schools (Berry 25). Berry says, “Even as segregation became more formalized in the Jim Crow era and the racial lines around these spaces more rigid, separation was often incomplete. In Mississippi, for example, white superintendents regularly monitored the activity in ‘colored’ schools in their districts” (25). In Louisiana, most every facet of society had been segregated by 1900. The novel reflects that reality with Grant teaching in an all-Black school that is part of a district headed by a white superintendent named Dr. Joseph. The school is known in the Black community as a space controlled by Grant (and by Reverend Ambrose on the weekends because it doubles as a a church). In earlier scenes we see Grant exercising strict control over his classroom. In anticipation for this visit, Grant prepares his students in extremely harsh ways. For instance, when Grant catches a student playing with a bug instead of doing his work, he uses corporal punishment to discipline the child. “I looked at Irene Cole, my student teacher, to let her know not to warn him," Grant says, "and when I got in good striking distance of his nearly shaved head, I brought the Westcott down on his skull, loud enough to send a sound throughout the church” (38). He notes that most of the other students seem petrified.However, when the superintendent makes his annual visit, it becomes a white dominated space. Grant even grovels, saying, “We’re honored that you took the time for us, sir” (53). At that point it becomes clear that Grant has ceded his authority. Dr. Joseph who acts as head of the classroom, forcing the the students to obey his orders. Grant describes him taking his chair behind the desk and surveying the room. "He looked over the classes from one side of the aisle to the other, as though he was trying to catch someone doing something improper" (54). He then examines the children, asking them questions as would be expected in a school, but also inspecting the hands and teeth. While Grant can act as a harsh authority in the classroom, he tends to focus on education, while the superintendent seems more interested in rote memorization and health. This difference becomes evident at the end of Dr. Joseph's visit. Grant inquires about school supplies (books, paper, chalk, pencils), but Dr. Joseph tells him, "More drill on the flag, Higgins... More emphasis on hygiene" (57). That he gets Grant's last name wrong indicates how little he respects him.
One way to understand Grant's disciplinarian attitude toward the students is as a response to the racist disrespect from the school district. In anticipation of his impending loss of space and control over the situation at the school, Grant finds ways to gain control and relative autonomy by dominating the school and his students. He publicly humiliates them and asserts his dominance—he even ropes Irene into his power dynamics. In that way, he establishes his power over the space. However, he knows the white institution, represented by the superintendent, asserts its control over Black education every day through the unequal allocation of resources and the cultivation of healthy, compliant Black pupils instead of educated ones. Grant realizes that just as he made Irene an instrument of his power, he is an instrument of the school district's power. "Instead of feeling pride," he reflects, "I hated myself for drilling them as I had done" (57).
The Prison
A Lesson represents the prison as an institution that structures a clear power dynamic between prisoners, visitors, and police officers. Philip Auger argues in “A Lesson about Manhood: Appropriating ‘The Word’ in Ernest Gaines’s ‘A Lesson before Dying,” that the prison gives concrete, materialize existence to a racist legal system, which he describes as a "discursive structure." He writes, “These discursive structures—of ideology, law, and ultimately language itself—are, literally and figuratively, structures designed to preserve white forms of power” (77). The law, as written and practiced in language, invents the prison as a white institution designed to benefit white people while policing the Black community. For that reason, while the prison is a white-controlled space, it is a black-majority space, inverting the majority as dominant dynamic in Bayonne society. From the very beginning of the novel Grant's reflections on Jefferson's trial make clear how the Black community is treated by the law. Imagining Miss Emma at the trial, Grant muses, “She was not even listening. She had gotten tired of listening. She knew, as we all knew, what the outcome would be” (4). The apparent inevitability of Jefferson's conviction suggests that this experience of the law is somewhat routine for the Black community, reflecting the historical fact that many Black people were unfairly convicted during the Jim Crow era.While the prison is white-controlled, there are moments in the novel when it becomes clear how Jefferson's cell creates a space for organizing a power contest among the main characters. For example, when Miss Emma, Tante Lou, and Reverend Ambrose visit Jefferson without Grant, Jefferson refuses to accommodate them. As Grant hears about it later, “Jefferson lay on the bunk with his back to them, and there was no place for them to sit” (121). Controlling his space here, Jefferson establishes relative power over the situation by making his guests feel uncomfortable. However, Miss Emma recognizes this and pushes against him "to get a small place to sit” (121). Recognizing that Jefferson does not want to share his space, she forces her way into it, trying to negotiate control over their power dynamic in his jail cell. After this power struggle, Jefferson proceeds to offend Miss Emma by calling himself a hog and speaking crudely to her. By doing this, Jefferson is intentionally trying to hurt the person closest to him. In other words, he leverages her interest in helping him to exert power of their relationship so he might somehow express the pain of suffering injustice. Miss Emma negotiates Jefferson's verbal assault by slapping him. "Then she fell upon him and cried" (122). In that way, she forces a sort of intimacy through physical proximity that Jefferson had tried to forestall. She let Jefferson know that she would not accept his attempts to degrade her or himself.
Upon hearing this story, Grant interprets Jefferson's behavior as a form of misplaced blame. "He wants me to feel guilty," Grant says to Tante Lou, "just as he wants her to feel guilty" (123). Grant supposes that Jefferson is lashing out at the people closest to him because he doesn't have anyone else to lash out at, and perhaps because it is easier to blame familiar authority figures (guardian, teacher, preacher) than to blame a white power structure that organizes all of society. Interestingly, Miss Emma has a slightly different take. She accepts guilt, although she does not know what she did to deserve it. After telling Grant the story of their uncomfortable visit with Jefferson, Miss Emma asks, “What I done done? What I done done my Master to deserve this?” She repeats “Master” two more times in lines of dialog that follow (122). In an earlier draft of the novel, Miss Emma asks the question differently: “What I done done to man and God to deserve this?” (167). While “Master” operates as a synonym for God in that sentence, it also resonates as reference to slavery, reminding readers how Miss Emma worked as a servant to the Pichot's her whole life, just as her enslaved ancestors had. Read for its connotative, not merely denotative, meaning, Miss Emma's question suggests she may have failed Jefferson by not saving him from a white power structure—an impossible task, really, even if she aspires to it. By changing “man and God” to “Master,” Gaines gestures at how white institutions, slavery and the prison alike, have profound impacts on the main characters in this novel. No matter how directly, white society always has a structuring influence on the power dynamics that organize the Black community.
