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A Lesson Before Dying Comparative Essay

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A Lesson Before Dying Comparative Essay
In The Hairy Ape by Eugene O’Neill, and in A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines, each writer depicts man as “less than human.” O’Neill’s piece is set in New York City in the early-twentieth century during the Second Industrial Revolution, a period of rapid technological progression in the United States that threatened the role of the working class. Gaines’s piece is set in southern Louisiana in the mid-twentieth century when Jim Crow Laws were still in effect. Both works explore themes of ostracization, intelligence, religion, authority, resistance, and growth.
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