Miss. Moore is introduced in this story as the women who just moved into the neighborhood. The children describe her as a woman with nappy hair, no makeup, and proper speech. As the children keep going on about her, it is learned that she is the only lady with no first name, meaning she is a proper woman, and should be addressed as such. With a proper name she also dresses very proper, the children describe her outfit as if she was going to church, yet never goes. The parents have no problem with sending their children with her, because it was good for them. She is college educated, and feels it’s only responsible to try and help the children with their education.
The story is told by one of the children named Sylvia. Sylvia, her cousin Sugar,
…show more content…
Flyboy, June Bug, Big Butt, Mercedes, and Rosie Giraffe are the children of the neighborhood, that Miss. Moore feels the need to educate and give some life lessons to. The kids were not particularly fond of Miss. Moore, and it becomes very clear once the neighborhood kids talk about how much they hate this “nappy head bitch and her god damn college degree.” The more we learn about the children it is evident that they are from the slums of a big city., and do not come from wealthy families. Miss Moore’s lesson today required all the children to go on an adventure into the city. She hails two cabs for the whole group and head to 5th Avenue. The second everyone gets out of the cab it is quite clear that they are the outsiders, and do not belong there. Sylvia makes an observation that everyone is in stockings, and one lady was wearing a fur coat in the middle of summer. Miss Moore proceeds to bring the children to a toy store called “F. A. O. Schwarz”, and right away the kids are looking at all the toys through the window. The children instantly start looking at a microscope in the window.
Not all the children knew exactly what the microscope was but they did know it was 300 dollars. Miss Moore ask June Bug and Big Butt how long it would take for them to save up their allowances and buy that. They responded with too long, and they would have outgrown it by that time. They moved on and found a paperweight made from semi precious stones that are fused together. The children thought it was an outrage to charge 480 dollars for a paperweight. Some of this kids didn’t even know what a paper weight was for. Miss Moore explains what a paperweight is for and the importance of a clean and organized workspace is.
As they continue through the store something really caught everyone’s eye, it was a sailboat costing almost 1200 dollars. The children were amazed that some one would pay that kind of money for something that they could get for a dollar. The children start asking Miss Moore why they had brought them into this certain store. Miss Moore did not answer their question, but instead put the spotlight on Sylvia, asking her why she looked so angry, and finished up with a smile. Sylvia didn’t want to give her the satisfaction, so she answered with “Lets
Go.” Once out of the store Miss Moore asks the children what they thought, and got the perfect response from Sugar who said that she does not think that all of them combined eat in a year what it cost for that one sailboat. Which was exactly her point that we live in a society in which some people can spend on a toy what it would cost to feed a family of six or seven. This message speaks great volume, especially to a group of kids that are not from wealthy families, and that live in the slums of the city. It is obvious that Miss Moore is a well-educated person, not to mention well traveled and cultured. She has seen and learned many things and feels the need to spread the knowledge. The reason Miss Moore picks these kids is because they are from an area that would be known for its people to be less educated, and less traveled. When reading the children’s dialect and how they spoke one could tell that they are from the lower end of town. Also the children had no idea what a microscope or paperweight was, showing their lack of seeing the world. She also may be from the exact area they are from, and wants the kids to prosper and live a full life.
After a long day of hard labor, Emily would gather her three children from Pete’s tent, and would march them to the boxcar outside of the carnival gates, which served as their home. Seldomly, after a long day of work, Emily would sometimes come and stand beside the piano Josh played, and listen to Josh’s music. Most of the times, Emily would smile and say nothing, but one particular night, Emily leaned forward and whispered to Josh, “You have a gift. Don’t let these hard times make you lose sight of it.” These encouraging words reassured Josh, a reassurance he desperately needed.The first couple of weeks working at the carnival, Josh slept restlessly. After Lonnie
involved troubling situations. Look at how she grew up. The book starts off during a time of Jim
One of Miss Moore's defining qualities is her intelligence. Her academic skills and self-presentation is noticeable through her college degree and use of “proper speech” (Bambara, 385). Miss Moore also makes her intelligence evident from the methods she uses to teach Sylvia and the other children. Unlike planting them in classrooms, she takes them out on trips to show them the real world. Despite all the insults she receives from th...
...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).
leader of the group of neighborhood kids gives Miss. Moore that challenge and not give
At the beginning of the story, the author gives us the feeling that a child is narrating this story. She also shows that the child, Sylvia, is at that age where she feels that adults are silly and she knows everything. “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.” (Bambara 470) Sylvia also tells us about her environment while referencing Miss Moore. “And we kidna hated her too, hated the way we did the winos who cluttered up our parks and pissed on our handball walls and stank up our hallways and stairs so you couldn’t halfway play hide-and-seek without a damn gas mask. Miss Moore was her name. The only woman on the block without a first name.” (Bambara 470) This is our introduction to Miss Moore. She is an educated, well groomed person and the children resent her because she is different and their parents force them to spend time with her in the interest of education.
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...
The plot unfolded when a messenger arrived at the seminary to notify Miss Minchin that Captain Crewe died and his estate had been seized. Miss Minchin would not be receiving any compensation for Sarah’s care. Miss Minchin, emensly disturbed by the news, immediately ended Sarah’s elaborate Birthday party and divulged to Sarah very unsympathetically that her father died several weeks ago. Sarah was being held responsible for paying back the expenses that were incurr...
To begin with, the reader gets a sense of Sylvia's personality in the beginning of the story as she talks about Miss Moore. Miss Moore is not the typical black woman in the neighborhood. She is well educated and speaks well. She has 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. Sylvia's opinion of her is not one of fondness. She says that she hates Miss Moore as much as the "winos who pissed on our handball walls and stand up on our hallways and stairs so you couldn't halfway play hide and seek without a god damn mask”(357). By comparing the hatred with something she enjoys, we get to see what a child does in the slums for amusement. Sylvia feels t...
Marianne Moore graduated from Metzger Institute in 1905. She then went to Bryn Mawr College. She majored in history, law, and political science. Since she loved laboratory courses in biology and histology, she wanted to become a physician. She graduated in 1909 with a B.A degree but did not become a physician, lawyer, or a painter like she wanted. Instead, Moore enrolled into a one-year course at Carlisle Commercial College. After graduating, she started working at the U.S. Industrial Indian School in Carlisle. Marianne and her mother traveled together, visiting cities they had dreamed of and spent hours in art museums. She taught Native American students the standard secretarial skills of the time book home in Carlisle. She taught there for four years successfully (Parrish 1). She learned a verbal decorum and precision from her mother. And Moore had never married (Stone 2).
Mary Moore, Marianne's mother believed in getting a good education no matter your sex. She expected her kids to attend college just as she had done. When Mary went to college very few women at the time had the ability or desire to attend college. Mary did all in her power to get her kids as prepared for college as possible by allowing her kids the privilege to attend private school in Pittsburg. Mary even went to the extent of sending her daughter to a family friend in the summer of 1905 to tutor and prepare her for the intense and in-depth examination for expectancy into Btyn Mawr. All of Mary's attempts to prepare her d...
Station Eleven illustrates the world after a devastating pandemic where Clark strives to preserve items of the past in his “Museum of Civilization”. As a naive reader, I initially believed that our society would never reach a state where mundane items such as laptops would need to be protected. As the story progressed, I realized that we were undergoing our own Georgia Flu-- technology. Advancements in technology change the education system and slowly deplete us of learning tools such as pencils, books and chalkboards; all of which I would preserve in my own “Museum of Civilization”.
The narrator of the story is a young, black girl name Sylvia and the story is also told from her perspective. The setting is not clear. Perhaps it started in Harlem and then to downtown Manhattan on Fifth Avenue and the time of the story took place is also unclear. Bambara uses a great deal of characterization to describe the characters in the story. For example, Bambara describes Miss Moore as “black as hell” (Bambara 330), “cept her feet, which were fish-white and spooky” (Bambara 330), and “looked like she was going to church” (Bambara 330). She later tells us that she’s been to college and her state of mind is she believes it’s her responsibility for the children’s education. The plot started when Miss Moore rounded up all of the children by the mailbox. Then she gets the kids in a cab and took them to Fifth Avenue to a big toy store where the rich people would shop. The story then continues with the children and Miss Moore in the toy store and the kids looking around and noticing they can’t afford anything. Which will soon end the plot with a lesson that society is not fair, “that this is not much of a democracy if you ask me. Equal chance to purse happiness means an equal crack at the dough, don’t it?”(Bambara 330). Hence, the lesson Miss Moore is trying to teach these
The first character we meet is Ruth, the narrator of this story. She talks about her childhood and how she and her sister were abandoned by their two aunts that were given the responsibility of parenthood
What is the story about? If you were to read the story once you would