Change is a part of life, everyone must experience it. From infant to child to adolescent to adult and from these stages we become more mature over time. Some never learn important lessons, and most never have the opportunity, because to mature you have to experience a test. In the novel A Lesson Before You Die, the most important thing one can learn is that one can never stop changing and growing as a person. The most important lesson anyone can learn before we die is that as human beings we have the capacity to change, learn, grow, and see things differently. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The character of Jefferson embodied arguably the most "change" that anyone has undergone in the novel, remaining true to the important lesson we all must learn before we die. Jefferson's punishment is justified because he is not considered a human being. The ideal of "[Jefferson] is a pig" is used to dehumanize him, making it easier to believe that he is not worth executing, but at the same time making it easier to accept his death . The sheriff even embraces it when he tells Grant, “It’s better to see a happy pig sit in that chair than an exasperated pig.” » (41 years old, Gaines). The sheriff believes that "there's nothing you can put in that skull that isn't already there." (41, Gaines). This white-dominated society that sentences Jefferson to death believes that individuals like him are not capable of higher thinking and are not capable of change. However, Jefferson changes through Grant's help and instruction. What Grant teaches him is what gives him a greater awareness of the world and his place in it. Before Grant's "teachings", Jefferson believed that his identity was static and that he could not change the expectations placed on him as a black man in this society. This can be seen in his criminal life since Jefferson was not actively attacking/robbing the store. He did not plan the crime, and by completing it, it showed that he believed himself incapable of change and was a criminal through and through. “The human capacity to grow and “be a man” is something Grant addresses in his lessons: “And that's all we are, Jefferson, all of us on this earth, a piece of driftwood, until to what we, all of us. we, individually, decide to become something else. » (158, Gaines). Jefferson learns that he can change and he discovers his own humanity. Jefferson shows this when he writes that “man walks on two feet; pigs on four hooves. (180, Gaines). It is what he reads that allows Grant to understand Jefferson's emotions and ideas at the time: "tell them I am strong, tell them I am a good man by Mr. Wigin." (190, Gaines). By asking Paul to deliver this message, Jefferson embodied the change of "becoming a man," which is confirmed when Paul says that "Jefferson was the strongest man in that crowded room." Additionally, Jefferson's final words to Grant strongly emphasized the importance of their town's community knowing that he had died as a man. He knows that students, the rest of the black community and his family must understand that he faced his death as something other than the name the white man gave him. Grant is another example of a character who recognized the importance of this lesson. He learns from Jefferson that humans have the ability to change their.