Character Analysis: The Lesson By Toni Cade Bambara

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Tama Dieudonne Prof: Brand ENC-1102 3 March 2018 Characterization of Sylvia "I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act." Stated Bill Gates, a business magnate and philanthropist. I selected this quote by the fact that sometimes we do not see the problem until someone show it to us, and we will look forward to resolving it. Toni Cade Bambara’s, “The Lesson” illustrates the story of young children growing up in poverty and how an instructor creates the environment to help them discover and succeed in learning some very important issues about the world they are living in. Sylvia is the protagonist and the narrator of the story. She is an African-American girl, who happens to recognize the value of money and the true story behind not …show more content…

The experience, which Miss Moore has given to Sylvia, seems to be more significant. Miss Moore, takes a group of poor children to the F.A.O. Schwarz Toyshop on Fifth Avenue in New York City and shows them very expensive toys. The children were looking for price tags, and the girls start to think about wealthy people who could afford paying the small fortune for a toy ship. On the way to the toy shop, Sylvia feels and behaves in her usual way: “hangin out the window and hollering to everybody, putting lipstick on each other cause Flyboy a faggot anyway, and making farts with our sweaty armpits” (Bambara). In the other hand, when she gets to the Fifth Avenue, she feels humiliated. She also feels like she comes from another planet: “everybody dressed up in stockings. One lady in a fur coat, hot as it is. White folks crazy” (Bambara). This demonstrate the fact she’s never been anywhere similar to the place that’s miss Moore bring

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