Grant's inspiring speech chapter 24

In chapter 24 of A Lesson Before Dying, Grant delivers a truly inspiring speech (technically they are having a conversation but I saw it more as a speech). For the first time in the book, Jefferson is truly moved by Grant's words as we see him engaged. When Grant asks him to look up, Jefferson looks up and is crying. Throughout the book he had been disconnected from Grant as he didn't show any level of attention to what Grant said and seemed to be in his own little isolated world. Jefferson's willingness to eat the Gumbo that Miss Emma has made, along with his tears show us that he is internalizing Grant's words and wants to heed his advice to become a hero of sorts and chip away at the myth that white people are better than everyone else. At the end of the chapter, Grant says that Jefferson looked at him with a "great pain" and that something inside of him was touched.

I found the speech to be especially inspiring myself. I thought that Grant's ability to address his own issues and talk about how he has made mistakes too, made everything he talks about easier to relate to. I’m sure Jefferson feels more comfortable talking about these feeling with someone who is going through the same sorts of identity struggles and who is also fighting the racist culture that has made both of them unable to pursue their own interests. Grant doesn’t make himself seem like a perfect person who has always done everything right. This would be problematic for someone like Jefferson who struggles with his own self-esteem and he might not listen as carefully. Thus by telling Jefferson "I need you to tell me and show me what a hero looks like", he is putting the weight on Jefferson’s shoulders and giving Jefferson a responsibility to act in a certain way and prove all the white people wrong. This is a great strategy to motivate Jefferson and get him to change his behavior.

At the end of the day, Grant’s actions in chapter 25 don’t really align well with what he lays out for Jefferson in the previous chapter. In chapter 24, Grant says that a “hero does anything for the people he loves because he knows it will make their lives better”. At first glance, I thought that Grant’s actions align well with his overall vision for how Jefferson (or any respectable black man) should act because he is standing up for his friend. On second thought, Grant also says in the same chapter that the last thing white people want is for black people to “stand and think, and show that common humanity in us all”. By mindlessly getting into a fight while drunk and punching first, Grant contradicts himself completely and doesn’t use his head at all.

Film adaptation

For someone who has never read the book “As I lay dying”, watching the film adaptation would be very confusing and disorienting. Even for someone who has read the book like myself, the film adaption that we saw in class was frustrating to say the least. It is very slow-paced (even though some of the transitions from scene to scene are abrupt) and serious and leaves the viewer with a weird feeling just like the book does. For one, it seems like the film narrative is flaunting its control over what it can throw at the viewer. The use of the split screen to show various characters and perspectives is interesting and unique but also confusing because its purpose is unclear and seems to be different in various scenes. Sometimes it seems like each screen is just showing two different perspectives of the same scene whereas other times it seems like one screen is showing a flashback from another time period. For example: In one scene, one screen is showing a dying Addie telling her story while the other screen appears to be a younger version of herself having an affair with Whitfield. 

It's the viewers job to try and understand what is being shown. In this particular case, it isn't obvious if the younger woman is Addie but we make that assumption in order to understand the film more fully. Not to mention, the split screen isn't even a part of the entire movie as the film jumps from full screen to split screen over and over again which makes this even more difficult to follow. Many of the fragmented monologues in the book are shortened or even rendered in voice-over which can be confusing because it is even unclear who is talking at certain times or where the voices are coming from. 

The split screen approach to the movie definitely emphasized the isolation of the characters as we get images of their faces alone more often than we see them interacting with one another. Additionally, the film does a good job of portraying the dynamic roles of Cash, Darl, and Jewel, and through the split screen we can clearly see how Jewel is different from the other two characters in both appearance and conduct. The zoomed in faces make this easily noticeable and I would imagine that it would be harder to notice Jewel being different without the split screen style.