Essay on Knowledge and Poverty in The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara

"The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara is a short story set in the inner part of New York City that gives the reader an opportunity to briefly see into the lives of children living devoid of wealth and education. It takes place in the early seventies, following the civil rights movement and during a time when the imbalance of wealth in terms of race was immense. Bamabara, through the use of narrative point of tone, symbols, setting and characterization, brings out and develops what I believe to be the two main themes of the story: materialism and social inequality.

Growing up as sharecropper her whole life, Fannie Lou had faced the struggles of a black sharecropper since the age of six, where she was tricked into picking cotton (Myers Asch, 54). Her family has a home of their own and animals when she was twelve, but soon lost it due to white farmers sabotaging them by poisoning their animals (Myers Asch, 55). Moving on, Lou had an education of her own, where she “[s]he had been a solid student at the local school, winning spelling bees and doing well in reading” (Myers Asch, 55). In addition, she raised two children while living in the Hamer home, where she tried her best to make condition for their sharecroppers “decent” by doing outside jobs (Myers Asch, 58). Due to these conditions and events in Lou’s

The Lesson, by Toni Cade Bambara, portrays a group of children living in the slums of New York City around 1972. They seem to be content living in poverty in some very unsanitary conditions. One character, Miss Moore, the children’s self appointed mentor, takes it upon herself to further their education during the summer months. She feels this is her civic duty because she is educated. She used F.A.O. Schwarz, a very expensive toystore, to teach them a lesson and inspire them to strive for success and attempt to better themselves and their situations.

Toni Cade Bambara wrote the short story, The Lesson, in 1972. The Lesson is considered by the Literary Canon to be a wonderful work of fiction because of its use of language, humanistic theme, symbolism, and non-genre plot. Two essential elements that add to the depth and enhance a reader?s comprehension of The Lesson are Bambara?s use of symbolism and theme.

Toni Cade Bambara's The Lesson is a very well written piece of history. This is a story from yesterday, when Harlem children didn't have good education or the money to spring for it. Bambara's tale tells about a little girl who doesn't really know how to take it when a good teacher finally does come along. This girl's whole life is within the poverty stricken area and she doesn't see why she must try hard. The teacher, Miss Moore, shows them what it is all about by taking them to a rich toy store, one in which a single toy costs more than year's supply of food.

The theme in "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara appears to be a lesson on

Toni Cade Bambara’s short story The Lesson told in first person by a character named Sylvia. Sylvia is a poor student who resides in the ghetto of New York with her friends and family. The story begins in the summertime in New York, where the children are out of school, playing and having fun; but when a new neighbor Miss Moore move in, things change. Miss Moore is an educated African American woman, who embarks on an educational journey with the children. She realizes that the children lack experience and knowledge of a world outside of poverty, so she takes them on a trip outside their

"The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara is not just a spirited story about a poor girl out of place in an expensive toy store, it is a social commentary. "The Lesson" is a story about one African-American girl's struggle with her growing awareness of class inequality. The character Miss Moore introduces the facts of social inequality to a distracted group of city kids, of whom Sylvia, the main character, is the most cynical. Flyboy, Fat Butt, Junebug, Sugar, Rosie, Sylvia and the rest think of Miss Moore as an unsolicited educator, and Sylvia would rather be doing anything else than listening to her. The conflict between Sylvia and Miss Moore, "This

Although America is often called the land of the free, where everyone has the opportunity to achieve greatness. There is a deep set system of inequality and unfairness a lot of people are born into. The majority of people, whether or not the inequitable case burdens them, choose to turn a blind eye. Nevertheless, the characters in “The Lesson” are born into this lifestyle and begin to realize it’s unfortunate and enraging complexion on their journey. In the short text “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara the children of the story experience firsthand the system of inequality they have been born into.

The predominant theme in “The Lesson” composed by Toni Cade Bambara is creating an understanding to adolescents of all the opportunities life has to offer; a lesson on social class and having a choice which society you choose to live in. Miss. Moore who takes on the responsibility to educate the young ones has intentions of more than just taking the children to the store for amusement. Miss Moore 's informal lessons are aimed at educating the neighborhood children

Toni Cade Bambara addresses how knowledge is the means by which one can escape out of poverty in her story The Lesson. In her story she identifies with race, economic inequality, and literary epiphany during the early 1970’s. In this story children of African American progeny come face to face with their own poverty and reality. This realism of society’s social standard was made known to them on a sunny afternoon field trip to a toy store on Fifth Avenue. Through the use of an African American protagonist Miss Moore and antagonist Sylvia who later becomes the sub protagonist and White society the antagonist “the lesson” was ironically taught. Sylvia belong to a lower economic class, which affects her views of herself within highlights the

It is consist of six kids including Sylvia, Sugar, Fat or Big butt, Flyboy, Junebug, Mercedes, Q. T.,and Miss Moore. The narrator is Sylvia who is an angary young African American girl whose age is not specified in story, but it was only mentioned that her friends and she are young kids. Also, Miss Moore, the kids' teacher, is an educated African American single woman who lives in the slums in a poor African Americans neighborhood; she likes to take the kids to a field trip to teach them a lesson every week. Miss Moore was described by Sylvia saying "And our parents would yank our heads into some kinda shape and crisp up our clothes so we'd be presentable for travel with Miss Moore, who always looked like she was going to church though she never did" (73). This implies that although Miss Moore lives in a poor neighborhood, but is not a poor woman and always dressed nicely. In about the middle of the story, Miss Moore and the kids split into two groups and take two cab cars to go for the field trip to this week to F. A. O. Schwarzto, which is a famous toy store on the Fifth Avenue of Harlem city. Miss Moore gave Sylvia five dollars to pay for the cab ride and asked her to calculate 10 percent for the tip. When they arrived to the toy store, Sylvia kept the four dollars the change with her and did not tip the cab driver and said "And I decide

In Toni Bambara’s piece “The Lesson”, we are given a sort of personal memoir of an experience she had with a childhood teacher in F.A.O Schwarz. Miss Moore, a college degree holding neighbor that educated children she lived near took a group of students to one of the biggest toy stores in New York. On the way to this toy store, Miss Moore was speaking a lot about money and what it truly is, how it adds up, etc. Upon entrance, Bambara writes about feeling unsettled about trying to go in the door. She writes further about her experiences and starts to sort of suggest her uneasiness and even anger about the cost of the toys she saw. She continues to list all of the different things that a $35 dancing clown could do for her family and starts to hint towards the idea of inequality between classes. Bambara mentions how Miss Moore talks about who you are is where you are and “waits for somebody to say that poor people have to wake up and demand their share of the pie” (78). Looking back now, Bambara probably sees exactly that Miss Moore was saying it isn’t fair that people can spend all their money on flashy toys when people are struggling for food although at the time she admits they had no idea what she was talking about.

Some experiences can change people as individuals and how they view things. The process of people growing up can take time but when a transformation occurs it  can be difficult to handle. Sylvia, the narrator in Toni Cade Bambara's "The Lesson," learns a lesson about social class how the rich are different from poor ,she realizes that the money rich people spend for their kids toys can feed a whole household of poor families.In the process, she loses some part of her pride that characterizes her childhood because she thought she was living a good life  till she realizes that rich kids toys can feed her entire household so she  begins to look for hints  or ways of being wealth so that she can  have better life than her family. She

The major theme of the story was creating awareness in adolescents about what life has to offer. The nature of human beings of accepting the realities of life to such an extent that apathy and lethargy sets in, is what proves to be destructive for the social fabric of today’s world. In this stagnation, Mrs. Moore provides the impetus required for people to realize their god given right to something better. We are told that Mrs. Moore has a college degree, is well dressed most of the times, and has a good command on her language. She seems to be a kind of a person who has seen the world. She has experienced life, and wants to use that experience in providing the children with an opportunity to broaden