One prominent theme in A Lesson Before Dying that we haven't really explored in class is Grant running away. Grant thinks constantly about leaving the town he lives in and running away with Vivian. Grant has also run away before, like when he went to college and when he left to go to California to see his parents, but he came back every time. One thing we did talk about in class was Grant's adolescent qualities, and his urges to run away, but always come home definitely support that point.
An example of Grant's association with running away occurs when he and Tante Lou are fighting over how to deal with Jefferson. She says, “You ain’t going to run away from this, Grant.” (p. 123) She knows that Grant has run away in the past and would do it again, but she won’t let him because his task is too important.
Another example of Grant’s obsession with running away happens right after Grant learns of Jefferson’s execution date. When Reverend Ambrose wants Grant to go be with Miss Emma, Grant responds:
“I’m not going back down there right now,” I said. “I’m not going back down there and tell her he’s going to die April eighth. Not me.”
“You’d have the strength if you had God,” Reverend Ambrose said.
“That’s where you come in, Reverend,” I said. “I’m going for a walk, a long walk in the opposite direction. Excuse me.” (pgs. 158-9)
This really shows how Grant’s immediate response to anything difficult is to distance himself from it, usually physically. It’s interesting that Grant always seems to leave or stay out for a little while, but will come back eventually.
One of the best examples of Grant’s urges to run away is his conversation with Vivian after the bar fight. Vivian is extremely frustrated with Grant, he says:
I didn’t know what to say. Nothing I would say was going to change anything.
“I’ll leave,” I said.
“Sure, that’s the easy way out--leave.”
Even Vivian knows that Grant only knows how to leave when a situation gets difficult. She calls him out here and Grant responds by getting up to leave. But when he gets to the door:
I could see outside into the darkness, and I didn’t want to go out there. There was nothing outside this house that I cared for. (p. 210)
I think this is a greater metaphor for what happens every time Grant tries to run away. He constantly wants to leave the place that he grew up, but every time he looks at what lies outside of his community, he sees nothing he cares for. This could explain why Grant always returns to his hometown, even though he supposedly can’t stand living there. Therefore in order to truly find his place and be happy in his community, he needs to grow past his fundamental urges to run every time he experiences a difficult situation.
Overall, Grant’s urges to run away not only further the plot, but reveal a significant flaw in his character. While making Jefferson a man is Grant’s main task in his journey, he is going to need to overcome his impulse to run, either through the process of making Jefferson a man or subsequently, in order to truly rise to heroic status.
In the earlier chapters especially, when Grant is in his extended "refusal of the quest" stage, I view these "let's run away tonight!" moments as one more "adolescent" characteristic: when things get too real or too daunting, pack up and flee, with the vague notion that things will be better elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteBut in terms of the hero's journey, there's also a neat kind of reversal or inversion happening here: in Grant's case, going on a journey (i.e. leaving home) would be to *avoid* the heroic journey he is called to take. Running away not as a "quest" but as a cowardly move, an avoidance of responsibility. For Grant, the "journey" is instead into the "belly of the beast," the courthouse in Bayonne where Jefferson in in his cell. He must ironically journey *into* the heart of the place that produced him, and in this case, remaining *within* that ordinary world and penetrating more deeply into it is actually the heroic journey.