The Acceptance of Capital Punishment. A Comparison of Ernest J. Gaine's Novel "A Lesson Before Dying" and Today's Views

Pre-University Paper from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 11, Braunschweig Kolleg, language: English, abstract: By discussing the novel "A Lesson Before Dying" by Ernest J. Gaines the question should be approached to what extent capital punishment is accepted in the universe of the novel in comparison to the modern time in the United States. The history of capital punishment in the United States of America goes back to the beginning of the 17th century. At the time of the colonial settlement in the USA, the British colonial rulers brought this new aspect of punishment from their old native country, where they had carried out executions for centuries even for minor offenses. In 1608, the British Captain George Kendall was executed in Virginia because he had been spying for Spain. He became the first victim of capital punishment on American ground. Capital punishment in the U.S. was first put into question during the 18th century by philosophers like Beccaria, Voltaire or Montesquieu, who were against capital punishment. Set in the fictional town of Bayonne, Louisiana, the narrator Grant Wiggins tells the story of Jefferson, a 21-year-old man, who is wrongfully accused and convicted of the robbery and murder of Alcee Gropé, a white storekeeper, and is sentenced to death by electrocution. The challenges an African-American citizen had to face in the middle of the 20th century, a time when it was both legal and endemic in the South to have racial segregation, a time when African-American citizen could barely hope for recognition of their humanity, a time where race and poverty affected people in the criminal justice system, in particular in capital punishment, were racism and poverty. Those topics will be discussed alongside the question, if the views portrayed in the novel differ with those we have today.