Preview

The Lesson By Toni Cade Bambara

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
353 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Lesson By Toni Cade Bambara
Different symbols are shown in “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara, that depicts the economic and social inequality faced by society, specifically the children in the story. The story touches on the situation the children are stuck in living in almost poverty, it is up to the children to change their fate. The use of irony helps portray how the trip ended up teaching Sylvia more than she expected despite her doubt. Towards the end of the story, Silvia realizes that she actually was able to benefit from the trip unlike she thought she would in the beginning of the story, “And she’s lookin very closely at me like maybe she plannin to do my portrait from memory. I’m mad, but I won’t give her that satisfaction.” (Bambara 64) Silvia’s reaction is

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The short story “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara is about a group of young poor children as they venture downtown to a toy store. They gaze upon all the toys in wonderment, but mostly they are shocked by the price of the toys. They feel out of place in such an upscale establishment and do not know how to act. Upon leaving the store and heading home, they reflect on how unfair society really is. There are people who are so well off they can afford toys that could feed a family for months, and other people like themselves that barely have enough money to get by. The central idea of the story is the examination of wealth and poverty in America.…

    • 210 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara was published in 1972. The setting takes place in New York. Starting off with Sylvia, the main character along with her friends Sugar, Junior, Flyboy, Fatbutt, Junebug, Q.T, Rosie Giraffe, and Mercedes are enjoying their summer vacation. Miss Moore, an educated black woman who takes the children to learn and expand their mind. Since Sylvia is telling the story we get Sylvia’s internal conflict about Miss Moore taking the children away from their summer vacation.…

    • 274 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Symbolism is the voice of the unspoken feeling. There is an abundant amount of powerful symbols exhibited within the novel A Lesson before Dying by Ernest Gaines. The author successfully adds a touch of importance to his symbols; the three most important symbols delineated in this novel are Jefferson’s notebook, the recurring food, and lastly the kitchen door of Mr. Henri’s house. A Lesson before Dying emphasizes the implications behind symbols and how they are borne throughout the story.…

    • 1201 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The short story, “The Lesson,” by Toni Cade Bambara, portrays one of the most interesting themes in literature, the initiation story. The story illustrates a group of kids who live in the slums in New York city. They are unaware of their environment, and Ms. More is conscious of this situation. In a basis, she teaches the kids life lessons to help them strive for success and attempt to better themselves and their situations. In this occasion, she brings them to a toy story, but not just a common one. Ms. Moore is an educated woman, and she knows that going to an ordinary toy story would not make a footprint in the life of those kids. Ms. She brings them to F.A.O. Schwarz located on Fifth Avenue, the most exclusive and expensive store in the…

    • 477 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Lesson Before Dying takes place in Louisiana. Throughout the novel, a young girl, known as Vivian is the most stable and influential character in A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines. Even though she is still “married”, she and Grant have been able to maintain a romance. Although she is not a main character, Vivian plays a vital role in A Lesson Before Dying; she acts as Grant’s conscience and she differs drastically from Tante Lou and Miss Emma.…

    • 602 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Lesson is a short story written by the writer Toni Cade Bambara in the late 1970’s. Sylvia, the narrator of the story is a young African-American female who receives a lesson in class inequality. The setting story of begin the slums of Harlem, New York and is dated as “back in the days” which is described in the opening of the story. Throughout the story Sylvia, realizes its world outside of her neighborhood, not as similar has she once thought. I chose the article, “Sylvia and The Struggle against Class Consciousness in Toni Cade Bambara's "The Lesson” this article analyzes the Sarah Wiktorski writes the article and she analyzes the struggle against class-consciousness and sets the mind of the reader to think about some of the consequences of class-consciousness. It contributes to the study of literature because it helps us understand the book, “The consciousness” by Toni Bambara changes the way the reader thinks and attempts to re-conceptualize his or her understanding of representation of class-consciousness. The writer hopes to present to the world a real picture of disadvantaged minorities and shows how on should change the world and…

    • 1199 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sylvia’s initiation in the short story The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara, is striking because Miss Moore gives the opportunity to the children to evaluate the difference between the fifth avenue and their poor neighborhood. However, one of the story’s main themes is that innocence is a handicap and the political and moral innocence that are represented from the beginning to the end of the story brings the main character to many reflections. This idea is revealed as Sylvia’s ignorance towards the different social classes, Sylvia’s questions on the purpose of wealth and the hard realization of the true facts of inequality. Due to the children’s lack of political and moral knowledge,…

    • 1096 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Some short stories are designed to teach lessons to the people who read them. They teach lessons about life, love, and growing up. People can learn lessons by reading short stories that where the main characters discover something about life and about themselves. There Character and the way the use of actions, words, or thoughts carry throughout the story can relate to many realistic personas. In Toni Cade Bambara's short story, The Lesson, the author presents a lesson to be learned. The narrator, Sylvia a young, self minded, lack of vocabulary, strong feminist African American from a poor neighborhood in New York is in for a great awakening, with her cousin Sugar always by her side their world was untouchable until a black woman named Miss Moore stepped in. They find her unusual because she is a black woman who has, "...proper speech..."(42). Miss Moore was educated and, "...been to college and said it was only right she should take responsibility for the young ones' education" (42). Miss Moore is not the typical black woman in the neighborhood. She is well educated and speaks well which can be found different in the neighborhood she lives in. Mrs. Moore climbed up against the odds in a time where it was almost unheard of for a black woman to go to college. She is a role model for the children who encourages them to get more out of life. When Miss Moore takes the children to an upper class toy store in the city the children see a, "Handcrafted sailboat of fiberglass at one thousand one hundred ninety five dollars" (44). The children are not sure what to make of the high price but they do realize that for, "That much money it should last forever" (45). They understand that people who make more money can afford higher quality things, and that in order to make more money they have to get an education like Miss Moore. They have to strive the best in life. At the end of the story Sylvia's cousin, Sugar, realizes that even though they are not the wealthiest…

    • 2043 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Lesson” is a short story written by Toni Cade Bambara. This story tells about the effects that social inequality can have on children. It also goes to show that race and financial situations can help motivate children to make a better future for themselves. It is a story about a young African-American girl named Sylvia and her growing understanding of class inequality. The children’s educator Miss Moore introduces the facts of social inequality to the underprivileged group of children, of whom Sylvia, the main character, is the most important. Sugar, Fat Butt, Junebug, Flyboy, Rosie, and Sylvia think of Miss Moore as an unrequested educator who bores them, and Sylvia would rather do anything than listen to Miss Moore give lectures. Deep down Sylvia knows that she is underprivileged but it starts to bother her tremendously when Miss Moore introduces her to the world of the privileged. In “The Lesson,” Miss Moore sets out on a mission to teach an underprivileged group of kids an important lesson by showing them the conflict of class inequality.…

    • 795 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This story revolves around a trip taken by five young children, accompanied by a woman named Miss Moore, to Fifth Avenue in New York. Miss Moore takes these young children to this precise location in order to teach them a lesson regarding the invisible privileges and vastly greater possibilities of wealthy individuals living in America. Although main character Sylvia does not strongly or outwardly express a will or newfound desire to change her currently low economic status for her future self, the reader is able to interpret by a specific line in this short story that she has undergone a significant transformation. Towards the conclusion on this publication, the reader can observe Sylvia's interest in overviewing what she had learned earlier that day. Sylvia mentally states, “Ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nothin,” which suggests that her stubborn, hardheaded resistance to see the truth in front of her has been transformed. Her transformation will perhaps drive her will to succeed financially in the future. This fiery, young lady certainly seems to be expressing a different outlook not only on the leader of the field trip, Miss Moore, who she formally resented and ridiculed, but also on her future aspirations to become successful. The reader may be able to infer that young Sylvia has learned the lesson of social inequality and her discovery of such an existence, motivates her will to one day become educated and financially stable. Even though the entire short story does not revolve around Sylvia expressing an acceptance or reason to change her once ignorant outlook on society, she certainly gives sufficient reason through her actions and her mental thoughts that she is going to strive to make a difference in her current…

    • 834 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Democracy implies equal chance for all. Such is not the case for the black children of the ghetto, as we learn through reading Toni Cade Bambara 's "The Lesson". During the course of the story the narrator, Sylvia, develops as a character due to the trip that Miss Moore takes her on. Miss Moore, an educated black woman who comes to the ghetto to give back to the children, takes children from the ghetto of New York to F.A.O Shwarz which is an extremely glamorous toy store. She does this to make the children aware of their social and economical situations by forcing them to face the difference between them and the people who would purchase toys from such a store that would sell a toy sail boat for over a thousand dollars. The theme of this story is very similar to the lesson Miss Moore is trying to teach the children. It is that through the loss of innocence and naiveté that poor black children can have a chance to stand up and fight for their piece of the pie. In "The Lesson" all the children come from poor families. They live in apartment buildings where drunkards who reek of urine live in the hallways that reek of urine from the drunks who pee on the walls; they live in what Miss Moore would call the "slums." The children 's families, however, exhibit somewhat of a varying degree of monetary security. For example, Flyboy claims he doesn 't even have a home whilst Mercedes has a desk at home with a box of stationary on it, gifts from her godmother.…

    • 922 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the early to mid 1900’s, the author was able to illustrate the life of this society from childhood all the way to adulthood. This story was written in a particular language which was relative to the environment of these children and the neighborhood they were being raised in. The children in “The Lesson” were a definite product of their society. The spoke, walked and conduct themselves according to the way they were raised and taught. The actions and conduct of the adults could be observed within the actions and conduct of the children. The author in this story used a college educated black woman, who took specific interest in helping to develop the young children in her neighborhood. She wanted to teach them that education was important and that they could achieve anything they set their minds to achieve. Miss Moore would take the children uptown to where the upper-class society lived, shopped, and frequent to show the children what other people had. She wanted the children to see that where they were from is who they are, but she also wanted them to understand it did not have to be that way (DiYanni, 2007). She also attempted to stress to the children that poor people had to demand their share of what society had (DiYanni,…

    • 2384 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Bambara The Lesson

    • 1466 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Also, on their way to F. A. O. Schwartz, Sylvia notices a lady wearing a big fur coat and points out that it is too hot to be wearing something like that. Sylvia’s observation is foreshadowing what she will notice in the toy store because it symbolizes “frivolous spending and ostentatious flaunting of wealth” (Champion 119). Once they arrive at F.A.O. Schwartz, Miss Moore has the children look into the window before they go inside. At first, Sylvia does not notice an economic structure hierarchically but, as the children get closer to the store, “they begin to use comparisons that suggest they are becoming aware of class divisions (Champion 74). As Laurie Champion states in “‘Passing It Along in the Relay’: Struggles for Economic Equality in Toni Cade Bambara’s ‘Raymond’s Run’ and ‘The Lesson,’” Sylvia becomes progressively aware of the significance of Miss Moore’s trip to F.A.O. Schwartz while she is looking through the window at the toys (Champion 74). The children notice how expensive the toys are and, specifically, point out the clown, paperweight, sailboat, and microscope. Once Sylvia notices the prices, she feels anguish and confusion but, she does not know why she feels that way (Chamion 74). She becomes progressively angry at Miss Moore as she sees the price tags because Miss Moore forced the lesson upon her (Korb 3). At one point, Sylvia claims that Miss Moore is not that smart because she kept the four dollars that Miss Moore gave her for the taxi ride since Sylvia says that the taxi driver does not need the money as bad as her (Bambara 147). “The unpleasant awareness of the unfairness of the social and economic system that prevails…” (Korb 1) is the lesson that Miss Moore is trying to teach the children and Sylvia is unsure of why she is anguished because it…

    • 1466 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Compare and Contrast

    • 701 Words
    • 3 Pages

    All interesting authors expose their readers to experience the essence of the story. In this case, Toni Cade Bambara uses the illustration of her short story “The Lesson”, in order to convey the reality of a 1960’s ghetto, African American community through the eyes of a young girl named Sylvia. Sylvia is a young, fearless girl who has an audacious and outspoken nature despite her constant use of profanity and insulting judgments of Miss Moore. Moreover, Toni Bambara’s technique of literacy in this piece is written in a way that transport the readers to another cultural setting that is condemned by a helpless cycle of economic poverty, which Miss Moore attempts to prevent for the future generation. In addition, Toni Cade Bambara uses her colorful style of tone to express the realism and individualistic characteristic of the urban black community of the 1960s through the use of AAVE, which stands for “African American Vernacular English.” Through this unique style of writing, Toni Bambara’s goal is to challenge or even question society of its unfair economy.…

    • 701 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Papers

    • 561 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Writer, Toni Case Bambara, in his short story, “The Lesson” explains and refers the norm in which Bambara accredits to a group of kids who have been exposed to a number of social, economic, and political issues. Sylvia and the rest of the group of kids are not aware of the significant but negative impact that these factors will have on their lives if they do not realize what kind of system they are living and depending upon. Based on some bad ramifications on the personal and social department regarding kids in their societies, all these factors can be effective. Being set aside, the main purpose in the short story is not to take advantage of the opportunities given, but to understand and be grateful for what they have, but also to be determined to thrive for more giving them ambition.…

    • 561 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays