Have you ever had to make a really hard choice that you knew would not only affect you but affect all the people in your lives to? In the book A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines the main character Grant Wiggins is forced to make many important choices. Some of these choices that he made even affected the outcome of Jefferson’s life. In A Lesson Before Dying Grant has to make some of the toughest decisions ever in order to try to save the life of a student.
Grant had to make many decisions in A Lesson Before Dying One of which being whether or not he was going to help Miss Emma, Tante Lou, and the Reverend turn Jefferson into a man. I this book Grant states, “The jury, 12 white men good and true, sentenced him to death. Now his god mother wants me to visit him and make him know- prove to these white men- that he is not a hog, that he is a man. I’m supposed to make him a man. Who am I? God?” this quote shows that Grant is unsure of whether or not he is going to try to make Jeferson a man. If Grant chooses not to help out Jefferson then jefferson will most likely die a hog and that is exactly what the white people want.
On the other hand if Grant decides to help Jefferson then he can help him become a man again and that will show the whites that the African Americans are strong and that they can stand up for themselves. “Follow me,” the young deputy said. We followed him down a long corridor, passing officers with open doors, and bathrooms for white ladies and white men.” this quote shows that Grant accepted the challenge that was given to him and he is now working with Miss Emma to turn Jefferson to a man.This decision is crucial to Jeffrson’s life and Miss Emma’s life because if Grant would have decided not to help out Jefferson then Jefferson would have died a hog. This would lead to Miss Emma dying because she was already sick and could not bear to see Jefferson die a hog.
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In my life I have needed to make many decisions as well although none of them have ever been as hard to make or as important as the decision that Grant had to make. One of the decisions that I have had to make is in fifth grade when I had to decide if I was going to do basketball, wrestling, or swim team. At the time I was in all three but I knew that I did not want to be in three or even two sports at the same time. I would go from one practice to the next to the next all in one night. I weighed my options and I decided that wrestling was definitely my least favorite because even though I was good at it. Then the decision was just down to whether I wanted to play basketball or swim team. I was the second best player in basketball but I won almost every race that I was in for swimming. For a while I was thinking about quitting basketball but then I thought about it and all of my friends that are in my grade played basketball and so I figured that if I did swim team instead of doing basketball eventually we would not be as good of friends. So I made up my mind and decided to play basketball, and I am glad that is what I decided because now basketball is my favorite sport and all of my friends are in it.
Throughout the book A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines, Grant had to make a lot of tough decisions that would alter the lives of others. This is important in the book and in our own lives because everyone is forced to make a lot of important decisions and knowing how to make decisions and making the correct decisions is important.
