Death Makes the Hero

WARNING: The following post contains spoilers for the last couple chapters of A Lesson Before Dying.

            The thing that haunted me through a lot of A Lesson Before Dying was the futility of Jefferson’s “hero’s journey”. As we discussed in class, there’s a certain sad pointlessness to the lesson that Jefferson has to learn – what’s the point of making Jefferson into a man, a hero, if he’s only going to die at the end of his arc?

            As I continued to read, however, I realized that Jefferson’s death didn’t necessarily negate his growth and heroism. Perhaps death actually allows Jefferson to finish his arc; perhaps his heroism could only come hand in hand with death. Morbid and terrible as it sounds, Jefferson could be the only one capable of being the hero the quarter needs, precisely because he knows his life is going to be cut short.

            Grant himself outlines Jefferson’s singular chance for heroism in chapter 24 – “you have the chance of being bigger than anyone who has ever lived on that plantation or come from this little town…I am still that piece of drifting wood, and those out there are no better. But you can be better.” Even though he knows Jefferson is going to die, he still singles him out as the only one capable of being the hero, of breaking the system. Perhaps this means that Jefferson is fit to be the hero especially because he is going to die – perhaps the rest have too much to live for, too much to fear. In the same passage, Grant mentions how the whites feel “safe” with people like him and Reverend Ambrose, and how they can “just give something small…it is the only way that we can chip away at that myth. You – you can be bigger than anyone you have ever met.” While the others may have something to fear from that system, Jefferson has already been unjustly accused and sentenced to death, the ultimate fear. Unlike the townspeople, he has no future to live and care for, and perhaps that is the reason he can be such an effective hero – he can die for everything, for everyone, for people like Grant who do not have the courage to really challenge the system themselves. As sad as it sounds, if death is inevitable, why not die for something, for the most heroic thing?

            The enormity of his unjust sentence, I think, is also what makes him such a compelling hero – there is nothing so powerful that could have broken that myth. Death is final and unforgiving and indiscriminating between black and white. Everyone fears it, as symbolized by the entire town’s clear aversion to the electric chair in the last few chapters. Jefferson, however, is the only one able to stand strong and unafraid before that chair, unwavering in the face of his own death and thus becoming the “strongest man in the room”. When he walks to that chair, Jefferson “rises above” all others (including, crucially, the white men in the room) and is truly able to break the system. Only through facing the ultimate fear is he able to become the ultimate hero.