Jefferson's life and death is a product of racism.
The novel A Lesson Before Dying', written by Ernest J. Gaines, is set in 1948 in the old plantation, Deep South. The novel shows how racist the white people were to the colored. It is about the ways people insist on stating the value of their lives in a time and place, which those lives count for nothing. It focuses on Jefferson - a sincere, sensitive, young black man of below-average intelligence. Could he really be a criminal .
Jefferson was charged with murder. Bear and Brother, two fellow black men, bullied young Jefferson into their car, and then into a liquor store. Guns were fired and the only one standing was Jefferson. In shock, Jefferson grabbed a bottle of whiskey and took a swig to calm his nerves. Mr. Groupé, the owner of the store, was dead cold. Jefferson didn't have any money and Mr. Groupé didn't need it anymore, so Jefferson filled his pockets with the money. The next thing he knew, Jefferson was being arrested. He was found guilty and sentenced to death by electrocution.
At his trial, Jefferson hears his own lawyer argue that he should be found not guilty because he is nothing more than a fool, a hog and naturally unable to carry out a complicated robbery and murder. The lawyer's words terrify him even more than the death sentence itself. Jefferson becomes a bitter and resentful man, refusing to act like a human being any longer and talking about his life like it means nothing more than the life of a hog. "Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this.".
All the characters in A Lesson Before Dying are motivated by a single word: "hog." Jefferson's attorney compared him to a hog, Miss Emma wants Grant to prove that her godson is not a hog, and Jefferson - at first - eats the food she has sent him on his knees, because "that's how a old hog eat-.