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Personal Narrative: A Lesson Before Dying

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My philosophy of life is that we all have to set goals for ourselves and be responsible for ourselves. Everyone must have certain expectations for themselves. I believe that happiness comes from within an individual, and that if you are not happy with yourself, no one else can make you happy. Although teamwork is important, we should all learn to be independent. I believe this because if you are independent, then you can help other people. I don’t believe that anyone should be completely reliant on another person. Also, I believe that as individuals, we must be able to not only make our own decisions, but commit to them. This is another important piece of living independently. Some of my other core beliefs of life are that we must live our …show more content…
The setting is in the 1940s in Louisiana. The story involves Jefferson, an African-American man, on death row for a crime he did not commit. His Godmother, Miss Emma, attended his trial and heard the defense, which was that he was less than a man. He was compared to a hog, and it crushed her. She and her good friend, Lou, asked Grant Wiggins, Lou’s nephew, to teach Jefferson how to be a man. Grant Wiggins is the main character, and as he is teaching Jefferson, he becomes the student. He becomes less narcissistic when he teaches Jefferson, especially when he dies so nobly. I like that he changes in the story, but he doesn’t change entirely. It made him lose faith in society. People don’t change overnight, even when you go through life experiences. But in Grant’s case, the slight change he maid had an impact on his life. This spoke to me because it shows that the events of our lives can truly change who we are. Another reason I like this book is that it realistically reflects how African-Americans are treated, especially in the 1940s. The reason Jefferson received the death penalty was because he was African-American. We still see injustices like this today, such as the Ferguson Case, Trayvon Martin, or Michael Brown. A Lesson Before Dying took place before the civil rights movement, but still after the civil rights movement, not much has changed. The book was written after the civil rights movement, so the author wrote a story about how characters change, but our society hasn’t much. After reading A Lesson Before Dying, I asked myself if there any hope for the black community in America. We do have a black president after all, yet it seems like there hasn’t been enough change in our society since the story took place. Even though we have come along way since 1940s, it does not seem like far enough. A Lesson Before Dying is one of my

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