Comparing Similar Stories In The Lesson And Sonny's Blues

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Stories having similar characteristics are very common nowadays. While reading “the Lesson” and “Sonny’s Blues” it was apparent that the story was alike in many ways. I wonder how two separate stories could be so parallel, so I did some research on the authors. While researching the author of “The Lesson”, Toni Cade Bambara, I found out she was born in Harlem just like the main character, Sylvia, in her story. Like Bambara, James Baldwin, the author of “Sonny’s Blues”, was born in Harlem as well. The first similarity that I observed between these two short stories was the characteristics between the protagonists’ families’ lives. Throughout “The Lesson” and “Sonny’s Blues” many hardships were placed on the characters due to their social status and where they came from. The characters had to deal with factors of poverty and even violence growing up. In “The Lesson” the main character and narrator Sylvia lives in the Harlem ghetto, and experiences life on …show more content…

To start off the first difference that I noticed between the stories was the age that the characters matured and the person who taught them. Sylvia is taught a lesson while she is still very young, when reading the text you can assume that Sylvia is between 10 and 13 years old. Sylvia was taught a lesson as child by an adult. The lesson Miss Moore was trying to teach her was that getting an education is key for them to change their lives and have a better future for themselves. On the other hand, in “Sonny’s Blues” the narrator is an adult, and we can assume he is around the age 30 because he has two kid, a wife, and is a school teacher. Unlike In “The Lesson”, the narrator is taught a lesson as an adult, by someone who is younger than him. The lesson that the narrator is taught is that, all the struggles his brother has gone through he expresses them through his

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