Grant Wiggins and Jefferson externalize the major internal conflict in every person: having the strength to acknowledge one’s own personal dignity. Jefferson’s experiences from his alleged homicide to his execution made him the “strongest man in that crowded room” (Gaines, 253) during his death; however, until before the very end, this seemed implausible because of the lack of collaboration between Wiggins and Jefferson. Ernest Gaines’s transcription of this conflict in A Lesson Before Dying enlightens his audience on the prerequisite of interpersonal support to construct a resounding revolution. He uses the conflict between Wiggins and Jefferson to assert that personal and social change exists if, and only if, cooperation occurs; however, without cooperation, all attempts at reforming issues of importance fail. …show more content…
Justice cannot be achieved by killing someone less than human, argued his defense; however, Jefferson’s godmother, Miss Emma, believed that Jefferson was more than that. She had decided that she “want[ed] a man to go to that chair” (Gaines, 13), not a hog; however, Jefferson did not understand it. In his mind, it was made up: he was “a old hog they fattening up to kill” (Gaines, 83). Wiggins and Jefferson quarreled throughout the entire plot, and they would have perpetually opposed each other’s efforts if something did not change. When Wiggins and Jefferson started to cooperate, with each other, with their respective cohorts, with themselves, they made headway. They produced a change inside themselves and inside their