"The Lesson" Analysis

The problems of inequality of people with different social backgrounds has been the main thing for people into the political, and social studies. Everyone is placed in an category which determined as “high class, middle class, and lower class”. Since slavery has ended, there has been struggles between the African Americans and Caucasian’s involving different backgrounds. Although, slavery may have ended, African Americans are still placed in the low class category. In the story “The Lesson”, author Toni Cade Bambara, sends an understanding in which adolescents can learn which society they want to choose to live in.

Symbolism throughout the story

The author uses a portion of symbolism throughout the story between the two main characters. Miss Moore is a teacher who has moved into a neighborhood and decides to take the responsibility to teach the young children about the social lessons, she educates the children on how they are seen as different compared to the children out of Harlem and shows them they can live the rich life if they’d like to.

Sylvia is portrayed as the main character of the story, she is described as a leader of her group of friends. She leads her friends in every activity that goes around in their neighborhood, bringing Miss Moore into the neighborhood brings Sylvia to dislike her. Because Sylvia dislikes Miss Moore, she describes her as a lady with no first name and “nappy hair and proper speech and no makeup” (147).

Although the parents did not know Miss Moore well, they did not mind her taking the children to the other side of the city.

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Miss Moore believes she can spend the two months of summer vacation to teach the children what they need to know for a better future. Because Miss Moore feels as if she can get into Sylvia than Sylvia will be able to get into her friends since she is the leader of the group and guides them in everything so, she decided to start her lesson off by giving her money for a taxi and teaching her about tipping a worker. Initially, upon arriving on the other side of the city, Sylvia notices the difference of the neighborhood. She describes it as “ we check out that we on Fifth Avenue, and everybody dressed up in stockings. One lady in fur coat, hot as it is” (147). The children are confused as if they were somewhere else because of the way people were dressed different from how they were.

Miss Moore Character

Following, She uses F.A.O. Schwarz, an expensive toy store to persuade them to do better and for themselves and their future. She wanted to show them the importance of getting out of Harlem and finding a better future for themselves could let them be able to afford all the expensive toys they like. For Miss Moore, she portrays education to the children for them to understanding they can have a better future. The author Bambara, sets Sylvia mood throughout the story as an uninterested child who did not care about learning. She thought of Miss Moore has a disrespectful lady who was judging her neighborhood after describing it as “a slum and families are poor”. Sylvia believes her family are striving to have a better future for her and her siblings because they are involved in piano rentals, but Miss Moore believes they children are in a stage of ignorance and do not want to learn about the kind of society everyone lives in.

The theme, Toni Bambara portrays in the story is social class and choosing what kind of society and category of class the children want to be apart of . Towards the end of story, Sylvia feels as if she is in competition with her bestfriend Sugar because Sugar wants to go back to her old behavior and does now care or try to fix the situation to have a better. Sylvia thinks otherwise, she learned she has to have a lot of education in order to have a good job and better future to be able to provide for her family with everything they want. So, instead of following Sugar to a candy store, Sylvia decided to go her own way and do her own thing by starting off saving the extra money she had from the taxi ride. The mood at the end of story took a big turn, it was a more serious but calm between Sylvia and Miss Moore. Sylvia did not want to show that she actually learned something and wanted a difference but instead showed she did not care.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Bambara enabled Miss Moore to make an impact in the children’s life by providing life lessons. Toni Bambara reminds the readers of the difficulty of society the children live and the importance of having education. Sylvia and her friends are confused about everything around them, on the way to Fifth Avenue and inside the store their impressions changed as well as their attitude towards Miss Moore. She gives them the chance to learn how important it is to have education.