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An analysis of sylvia in the short story the lesson by toni cade bambara
African Americans in American society
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After reading Toni Cade Bambara's, The Lesson, the reader is left with a sense of hope for the first person narrator Sylvia and her friends. Following her and her friends from the slums of New York, to a Fifth Avenue F.A.O. Swartz, one gets an idea as to the kind of environment they came from, the type of education they received, and the sense of economic imbalance they bear witness to. Through this the antagonist, Miss Moore, is able to let the children evaluate for themselves the difference between the Fifth Avenue world and the one they are from, at an age where the impression made upon them might generate a spark of desire to find out how they might achieve the same rewards Fifth Avenue has to offer.
The story is told from the point of view of the protagonist, first person narrator, Sylvia. Sylvia is a preteen African American girl, strong willed, intelligent, and the obvious leader of the pack. The story's plot involves a college educated black woman who comes back to an economically disadvantaged neighborhood on weekends and takes the local children on field trips of a sort. On this particular trip she lets the children experience their first ride in a taxicab to a toy store in Manhattan. It is played out through a chronological series of events from the time they leave their neighborhood, until the time they arrive back there.
The exposition introduces the reader to, Sylvia, Miss Moore, Sylvia's friends, and the neighborhood. Sylvia's friends consist of a number of round characters, such as Junebug, Mercedes, Fat Butt, and Rosie Giraffe, as well as the stock characters Sugar, Q.T. and Junior. The setting is what seems to be a 1960' circa slum.
As the story develops the reader gets a glimpse of Sylvia's “street smar...
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...lack of proper education in the poorer areas of the country, the need for parents to stand up and take responsibility for their children, and the inequality, and huge gap that exists between the rich and the poor in the United States today.
The use of Sylvia as the protagonist gave the story a real quality to it. The world as seen through the eyes of a pre-teen, streetsmart kid, and the realization that there was still a lot to learn in an unfair world. Every character was well defined, and seemed to have a life of their own. It was a very easy to comprehend story which I believe should be a staple, if not requirement, in every urban public school
Work Cited
Bambara, Toni Cade. “The Lesson.” Literature and society: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Nonfiction. Pamela J Annas and Robert C. Rosen. 4th Edition. Upper Saddle River, N.J 2007. P. 647-653
In this story, Bambara indicates the distance between Miss Moore and Sylvia, by showing the contrast of educational background between them. As Sylvia said, Miss Moore has “her goddamn college degree (330-331)”, but most of people around Sylvia did not go to the college because they were too poor to go. At the beginning of the story, everyone in the class looked like they did not like Miss Moore, as Sylvia said “we kinda hated her (330)”. She also said that “I’m really hating this nappy-head bitch and her goddamn college degree (330-331)”. As these words represent, she was insulting Miss Moore and the readers hear that the sarcasm in Sylvia’s tone most of the times in the story. She also called Miss Moore “lady”. This depicts Sylvia treated Miss Moore as an outsider. According to Naderi, “Miss Moore’s state of being called ‘lady’, her educational background, her ‘proper speech’ (195) make
The narrator Sylvia and the children in her impoverished neighborhood are prisoners in a dark cave, which is the society that encompasses ignorance and puppet-handlers. “The Lesson” begins with Sylvia as she talks condescendingly about her neighborhood of Harlem, New York: “Back in the days when everyone was old and stupid or young and foolish and me and Sugar were the only ones just right, this lady moved on our block with nappy hair and proper speech and no makeup. Quite naturally we laughed at her… And we kinda ha...
“I never found myself needing that piece of paper,” is a remark actor Johnny Depp made back in 2010 about his relationship with longtime partner Vanessa Paradis. Depp and Paradis have been in a relationship since 1998 and have two children together, Lily Rose and Jack. Another member of Hollywood’s elite, Latin singer Shakira, shares a similar view saying that marriage is like a contract, and that is unromantic. However, celebrities living like Shakira and Depp are also committing fornication and already view themselves as being married; the marriage is just not official. This draws comparisons to Ernest Gaines’ novel 'A Lesson Before Dying'. Two of the novel’s main characters, Grant and Vivian, have sex outside of marriage because they cannot be married since Vivian is still legally married to another man (Gaines 29). Even though of Vivian’s situation differs slightly from that of Depp’s, the act is still the same. These adults are conducting the act of sex outside of marriage; they are either ignoring what their religion teaches on the subject or do not care what religion has to say.
The children in this book at times seem wise beyond their years. They are exposed to difficult issues that force them to grow up very quickly. Almost all of the struggles that the children face stem from the root problem of intense poverty. In Mott Haven, the typical family yearly income is about $10,000, "trying to sustain" is how the mothers generally express their situation. Kozol reports "All are very poor; statistics tell us that they are the poorest children in New York." (Kozol 4). The symptoms of the kind of poverty described are apparent in elevated crime rates, the absence of health care and the lack of funding for education.
The story follows three girls- Jeanette, the oldest in the pack, Claudette, the narrator and middle child, and the youngest, Mirabella- as they go through the various stages of becoming civilized people. Each girl is an example of the different reactions to being placed in an unfamiliar environment and retrained. Jeanette adapts quickly, becoming the first in the pack to assimilate to the new way of life. She accepts her education and rejects her previous life with few relapses. Claudette understands the education being presented to her but resists adapting fully, her hatred turning into apathy as she quietly accepts her fate. Mirabella either does not comprehend her education, or fully ignores it, as she continually breaks the rules and boundaries set around her, eventually resulting in her removal from the school.
This negative attitude towards Miss Moore is what starts Sylvia’s character, which shows us how young and naïve she really is. At first glance we could perceive Miss Moore’s character as the protagonist and Sylvia’s character as the antagonist of this story. But really Miss Moore isn’t the center character Sylvia’s character is the center of this story, Miss Moore is just a character that starts conflict with Sylva’s character. Sylvia being the narrator
The lessons that are taught through experience are usually the ones that stick with children for a lifetime. In Toni Cade Bambara's “The Lesson”, Miss Moore, a prominent character in the story, teaches a lesson to underprivileged children growing up in Harlem. Bambara's work is described as “stories [that] portray women who struggle with issues and learn from them.” (Vertreace, Par. 48) Bambara uses Miss Moore and her characteristics to teach Sylvia and the other children about social inequality and the idea of pursuing personal aspirations regardless of social status. Miss Moore has many admirable characteristics; she's intelligent, patient and caring.
Toni Cade Bambara’s "The Lesson" revolves around a young black girl’s struggle to come to terms with the role that economic injustice, and the larger social injustice that it constitutes, plays in her life. Sylvia, the story’s protagonist, initially is reluctant to acknowledge that she is a victim of poverty. Far from being oblivious of the disparity between the rich and the poor, however, one might say that on some subconscious level, she is in fact aware of the inequity that permeates society and which contributes to her inexorably disadvantaged economic situation. That she relates poverty to shame—"But I feel funny, shame. But what I got to be shamed about? Got as much right to go in as anybody" (Bambara 604)—offers an indication as to why she is so hard-pressed to concede her substandard socioeconomic standing in the larger scheme of things. Sylvia is forced to finally address the true state of her place in society, however, when she observes firsthand the stark contrast between the rich and the poor at a fancy toy store in Manhattan. Initially furious about the blinding disparity, her emotionally charged reaction ultimately culminates in her acceptance of the real state of things, and this acceptance in turn cultivates her resolve to take action against the socioeconomic inequality that verily afflicts her, ensuring that "ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nuthin" (606). "The Lesson" posits that far from being insurmountable, economic and social injustice can be risen above, but it is necessary that we first acknowledge the role that it plays in our lives, and then determine to take action against it; indifference, and the inaction that it breeds, can only serve to perpetuate such injustices.
...siting F.A.O. Schwarz awakens in Sylvia an internal struggle she has never felt, and through criticizing Miss Moore, Sylvia distances herself from realizing her poverty. In her responses to the toys, their prices, and the unseen people who buy them, it is evident that Sylvia is confronting the truth of Miss Moore's lesson. As Sylvia begins to understand social inequality, the realization of her own disadvantage makes her angry. For Sylvia, achieving class consciousness is a painful enlightenment. For her to accept that she is underprivileged is shameful for her, and Sylvia would rather deny it than admit a wound to her pride: "ain't nobody gonna beat me at nuthin" (312).
Sylvia’s being poor influences the way in which she sees other people and feels about them. Sylvia lives in the slums of New York; it is the only life she knows and can realistically relate to. She does not see herself as poor or underprivileged. Rather, she is content with her life, and therefore resistant to change. Sylvia always considered herself and her cousin as "the only ones just right" in the neighborhood, and when an educated woman, Miss Moore, moves into the neighborhood, Sylvia feels threatened. Ms. Moore is threatening to her because she wants Sylvia to look at her low social status as being a bad thing, and Sylvia "doesn’t feature that." This resistance to change leads Sylvia to be very defensive and in turn judgmental. Sylvia is quick to find fl...
American Literature. 6th Edition. Vol. A. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 2003. 783-791
In the first section of the book it starts off with a little girl named Tasha. Tasha is in the Fifth grade, and doesn’t really have many friends. It describes her dilemma with trying to fit in with all the other girls, and being “popular”, and trying to deal with a “Kid Snatcher”. The summer before school started she practiced at all the games the kid’s play, so she could be good, and be able to get them to like her. The girls at school are not very nice to her at all. Her struggle with being popular meets her up with Jashante, a held back Fifth ...
2nd ed. of the book. New York: St. James Press, 1995. Literature Resource Center -. Web.
Renascence: Essays on values in Literature 59.2 (2007) : 93. Literature Resources from Gale Web. 24 Feb. 2010. Hatcher, Melissa. A. McCrory. The “Mythlore.”
Anderson makes effective use of fantasy to teach a moral lesson. He builds up the story in such a way that the reader does not care for the validity of the incidents. The moral lesson is that the proud and the disobedient must suffer.