“”I need you,” I told him. “I need you much more than you could ever need me. I need to know what to do with my life. I want to run away, but go where and do what? I’m needed here and I know it, but I fell that all i’m doing here is choking myself. I need someone to tell me what to do. I need you to tell me, to show me. I’m not here, I can just give something small. That’s all I have to offer. It is the only way that we can chip away at that much. You— you can be bigger than anyone you have ever met.” (193)
This passage is one of the most important points of the book. Up until now Grant has been trying to teach Jefferson how to “be a man” so he can walk to his death with his head held high. However, he has not been able to get through to Jefferson. Jefferson still acts like he is the hog that the white folk called him. In this passage we see a shifting of roles and responsibility. This is the point where Jefferson finally starts to understand the implication of what becoming a man in these circumstances would be. Grant needs him, his godmother needs him, and his community needs him. His defiance in the face of the white folk could break the endless cycle of abusive their people have faced for generations. Grant understands this, and he also see’s that despite all his efforts to become educated and respectable he is only making small strides for his people. Mr. Pichot, the men at the prison, and a few other white folk in the novel call Grant professor, but it is evident in the language that they don’t actually convey any respect for him. He is aware of this and it’s what makes Jefferson’s transformation all the more necessary. If he can face his death like a man, and defy the white folks exceptions it will be a much more tangible blow than what Grant has been able to accomplish. This is the passage that Grant conveys his feelings about this too Jefferson. We are left uncertain as to whether or not Jefferson has understood what Grant means “I cry, not from reaching any conclusion by reasoning, but because lowly as I am, I am still part of the whole. Is that what he was thinking as he looked at me crying?”. (Side note, we of course do find out by the end of the novel Jefferson understood and committed himself to that self sacrificing role, I say self sacrificing because although he was going to die either way he had a chose in what manner he went out, it would of been easy to die as a hog, it was hard to die like a man and defy the white man’s expectations.)