Social Classes as Presented in "The Lesson"

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In Toni Cade Bambara’s short story “The Lesson” there is no hiding what she intended to portray to the audience, the fact that there is a huge gap between the lower class citizens and the higher class citizens. This becomes apparent during one of Miss Moore’s infamous outings with the kids when she takes them to FAO Schwartz in Manhattan to teach them about money. Through this outing with Miss Moore the children realize that their way of life is far different than of those in Manhattan and that they belong to a different class of people altogether. Miss Moore, a prominent figure in Bambara’s story, was a lady who had just recently moved into the neighborhood “with nappy hair and proper speech and no makeup” as Sylvia, the narrator of the story, described (Bambara 96). However, despite the fact that this was how she was looked at by her new neighbors she still said that since she had been to college “it was only right that she should take responsibility for the young ones’ education” so that is exactly what she did (96). During the summer, Miss Moore would gather the neighborhood children around the mailbox and have some sort of educational activity for them. The children were always less than thrilled about her said activities as they would rather enjoy their summer doing fun things like playing outside, going to the neighborhood pool, and just enjoying being out of school for a bit but their parents made them participate. On this particular day Miss Moore took the neighborhood children to a popular upscale toy store intending to teach them about money, however her what she taught them that day far exceeded that of just money. That day Miss Moore exposed the children to a whole new world, the world that is high class living... ... middle of paper ... ...f Bambara had continued the story and showed how it affected life after that they would have longed for those toys they saw for a while then directed their attention to other things. Since they were children, they probably did not have the full understanding of what they saw, like Michael did, however they were old enough to recognize that it was much different than what they were accustomed to back home. Through the story “The Lesson” we see that social class and standing can have a huge impact on someone’s life. While we still have problems with this today, not all hope is lost. It is shown in the movie “The Blindside” that someone can prevail and get out of the class they were in and their life will change. Hopefully one day the social standing issue will no longer be an issue but just another characteristic that makes each and every person unique and different.

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