The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara - Essay Example

The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara The short story, The Lesson, by Toni Cade Bambara was written in 1972. The story focuses on a young, black girl who lives in a poor neighborhood. The girl, Sylvia, is a sullen, sassy girl, who hangs around with other children from her neighborhood. This story is about the transition that takes place in the girl’s personality. The girl is an escapist of sorts, who hangs around with her friends, whiling the time away and not giving much thought to her position and place in the society. The girl’s impudence is quite evident from the start. When describing Miss Moore, her new neighbor, the protagonist, Sylvia, uses a scornful tone. Miss Moore’s very tightly curled hair, her perfect diction and the fact that she does not wear makeup are laughable traits – Sylvia compares her oddities with those of the junkman of the neighborhood. A junkman who goes about his business in a self-important way is just as odd or laughable as Miss Moore’s and oddities are; in a mostly uneducated neighborhood where most of the women are called by their first name, someone who holds on strongly to her black identity by refusing to straighten her kinky hair and having really black skin, yet speaking in an educated diction is very odd indeed. All such things about Miss Moore cause Sylvia to make fun of her as they create a sense of dislike in the little girl. Among her other oddities is Miss Moore’s attitude towards her neighbors, not only is she helping around and giving presents to her neighbors, she has decided to give back to her community in her own way – by helping to educate the kids who normally just hang around the neighborhood or getting into trouble. This is another habit that Sylvia despises; she does not feel the need to be educated, especially now that summer holidays are here and there is no more school. In her own words, “school suppose to let up in summer I heard, but she don’t never let up” (Bambara). Miss Moore, oblivious to this, has a mission of her own. She wants to teach the children the inequities of their society and to teach them the value of hard work and money. Though she talks about it to the children, she can evidently see that the children are not responding to her. Seeing this, she takes them to a famous toy store on Fifth Avenue, a rich district. The prices of the toys there grab everyone’s attention. The first change in Sylvia, at this point, is that she includes herself in the conversation by commenting on the absurdity of someone buying a very expensive toy sailboat for their children – the sailboat costs all of one thousand, one hundred and ninety five dollars. Miss Moore does not answer Sylvia satisfactorily, which irks the latter and puts her back in the position where she dislikes Miss Moore and does not want to converse anymore. Soon thereafter, Sylvia feels another change in her; when Miss Moore decides that all of them should go inside the shop, Sylvia feels ashamed to go in. While she had never felt class consciousness before, she now feels reluctant to go into the toy store where “rich people shop” (Bambara), as one of her friends had put it. In a strange way she feels that stepping into the shop would amount to a sacrilege at par with being rowdy at church – something Sylvia and a friend of hers had been dared to do in the past, but failed to go through with. This change is really unpredicted; Sylvia who had “never ever been shy about doing nothing or going nowhere” (Bambara) now has to be pushed into the store by her friends. She does not know why she feels ashamed, and she is not aware that it has anything to do with her being poor. A little while ago Miss Moore had breached the topic of them being poor, but it had not registered fully with Sylvia until now. She feels anger building up inside her and it makes her question Miss Moore for bringing them to that toy store. However, she still feels sullen and refuses to let Miss Moore find out her feelings or the reasons thereof. Nonetheless, she cannot help but wonder what sorts of people have enough money to buy such expensive gifts for their children. She has never been aware of anyone who can afford to buy such toys; in her neighborhood and family, people do not have enough to eat and normally end up spending all their money on the necessities of life, and buying such toys is considered a luxury, which none can afford. Although she still is not fully aware of it, but the trip to the toy store and the inequality that she felt, as well as the shame, have made Sylvia think about her social status and class inequality; they have opened new questions in her, questions she needs to think through. She is no longer the sullen and impudent girl that she was before the trip. Now she feels resolute, she does not want to be the same as her parents. She is determined that, in her words, “ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nuthin” (Bombara). Sometimes we try to run away from the truth, but in the end it does catch up with us. Then there are two choices left to us, whether to ignore it, or to make choices and act in a way that enables us to overcome the hardships that have been made our lot. Sylvia, an escapist of sorts in the beginning, has been transformed into someone who decides to think about her situation and make sure that she does not get left behind in the economic and social battle of her society. Bibliography Bambara, Toni Cade. “The Lesson” in Gorilla, My Love: Short Stories, New York: Random House, 1972 via Computer-Aided Instruction in the U. C. Davis University Writing Program, http://cai.ucdavis.edu/gender/thelesson.html Read More