Character Clues

Character Analysis

Actions

Very subtle, small actions carry a lot of information in A Lesson Before Dying. The way that the people treat each other reveals their social status, which is almost always based on race. For example in the Pichot house the rich guys don't even have to speak to let the maid know what they want:

Henri Pichot finished his drink and stuck out his hand. Inez knew what it meant, and she came forward to get the empty glass. Then she turned to Louis Rougon, who had stuck out his glass, empty of everything except two or three small cubes of ice. She took the glasses to a liquor counter to refresh the drinks. (3.31)

This kind of thing lets us know that Henri and Louis are bossy and kind of ungrateful, and that Inez is really used to being a servant. In this novel, a ton of characterization can happen in just a flick of the wrist.

Family Life

The family structures on the plantation are often missing a few generations. For example, Grant was raised by his mother's aunt, because his parents are out in California. Tante Lou raised his mother, too, when her mother took off. Jefferson is raised by his godmother, Miss Emma, because his parents aren't around.

This type of family lets us know something about the women, like Lou and Emma, who are so devoted to their families that they raise generation after generation of children that aren't their own. It also lets us know some of the pain that guys like Jefferson and Grant feel because their parents left them behind.

Occupation

Lots of the people who stick around the plantation do so because they want to help the community. Grant and Vivian are teachers, which tells us that they are (or want to be) hopeful about the future. The Reverend, too, is interested in helping people out, but he does it in a different way.

Names

Grant and Jefferson, our two main men in the book, both have first names that are important last names in American history. Ulysses S. Grant was a Union general who oversaw the end of the Civil War and later became president of the United States.

Thomas Jefferson was another president and had a pretty sticky relationship with slavery. While he was into slowing down or stopping the slave trade, he was nervous about freeing slaves (contradictory, we know). Also, he owned a couple hundred slaves himself and is said to have had a whole family with one of them.

The names of these characters, then, will send readers back to America's complicated history of slavery and race relations, which continues in their own relationships with society.