Character Analysis: The Lesson
The story, “The Lesson”, takes place in the early 1970’s, in New York City. The main characters: Sylvia, her friends, and Miss Moore live in Harlem. Sylvia is a young black girl that tries to learn the lesson Miss Moore is teaching to them. Sylvia is annoyed with this because she sees it as Miss Moore taking away their summer vacation. Although as the story progresses she learns the lesson that Miss Moore is teaching and it turns her whole life around. Miss Moore is a person who devotes herself to help the children in the neighborhood. She tries to teach them all a lesson about life and learning life skills. All the children hate Miss Moore because they feel as though they have all the answers to everything, even things they were not taught.
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“And our parents would yank our heads into some kinda shape and crisp up our clothes so we’d be presentable for travel with Miss Moore, who always looked like she was going to church though she never did” (Bambara 3). This shows us that all the children hated her. They believed that she causes all this pain of hair pulling and such just to go and see her. They wouldn’t understand the lessons that Miss Moore was trying to teach them everyday because they were just kids, but the parents knew that she would end up teaching something very important. As we go further into the story we see the different mini lessons Miss Moore tries to teach them. “And I’m ready to speak on that, but she steps out in the street and hails two cabs just like that. Then she hustles half the crew in with her and hands me a five-dollar bill and tells me to calculate 10 percent tip for the driver” (Bambara 4). This is the first actual mini lesson Miss Moore tries to teach. She is teaching them the importance of money. Miss Moore wants her to tip the cab driver the proper amount because as a cab driver you receive a bit more money off of tips. Living in the ghetto, it is hard to come by cash so she wants to show them that even being strapped for cash, you can still make it with some hard
“And our parents would yank our heads into some kinda shape and crisp up our clothes so we’d be presentable for travel with Miss Moore, who always looked like she was going to church though she never did” (Bambara 3). This shows us that all the children hated her. They believed that she causes all this pain of hair pulling and such just to go and see her. They wouldn’t understand the lessons that Miss Moore was trying to teach them everyday because they were just kids, but the parents knew that she would end up teaching something very important. As we go further into the story we see the different mini lessons Miss Moore tries to teach them. “And I’m ready to speak on that, but she steps out in the street and hails two cabs just like that. Then she hustles half the crew in with her and hands me a five-dollar bill and tells me to calculate 10 percent tip for the driver” (Bambara 4). This is the first actual mini lesson Miss Moore tries to teach. She is teaching them the importance of money. Miss Moore wants her to tip the cab driver the proper amount because as a cab driver you receive a bit more money off of tips. Living in the ghetto, it is hard to come by cash so she wants to show them that even being strapped for cash, you can still make it with some hard