Point Of View: The Lesson Essays

We realize that Mrs. Moore is trying to open their eyes to the world around them, when she takes them on a trip around the expensive shopping complexes of the city. As Mrs. Moore takes them through these areas, we get the distinct impression that Sylvia gets angry. She discovers a fiber glass boat that is worth a thousand dollars. Sugar touches the boat, at which she gets jealous. She does not realize at first the reason for her anger, and almost directs it at her cousin, Sugar. Yet she stops herself and realizes that she is not angry with Sugar, rather that something else is wrong.

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

Point of view is described as the perspective from which a story is told (Literature, G25). In the story "Everyday Use" the point of view is that of first person narrator or major character. The story is told by the mother in the story. The theme of this story is that of a mother who is trying to cope with changing times and two daughters who are completely different. Having the story told from momma's point of view helps to reveal how momma feels about herself and how she defines her daughters Dee and Maggie.

In "The Lesson" it talks about a group of children who lives in the slum of New York City in the 1970s. Sylvia the main character is ignorant, rude and stubborn. In the summer all she wanted to do is have fun with her friends however, Miss Moore a well educated black woman took it upon her self to take Sylvia and her friends to a toy store called F.O.A schwarz in manhattan. On the trip Miss Moore is trying to show them a different world , the "real world" something the children are not accustom to seeing. She's helping them to figure their identity and how they are as a person. At the end Sylvia realizes that she is a strong and intelligent individual.

I mean, damn, I have never been shy about doing nothing or going nowhere"(Bambara 5). Sylvia is about to be forced to rethink her perceptions of herself and her place in  society. She is too brave and too clever not to run away from the lesson she learned about the unfairness of social class with a new understanding  of  how the world works  she prepares her future .

Point of view is the narrator’s position in the story being told. Point of view changes the story drastically, since you are hearing different stories and opinions by different characters in a story. Even if the plot is the same, the point of view will change the entire story. Point of view can also create tension between different characters. For example, if you are hearing the thoughts of one character in the story, and the actions of another character who is aware of these rude thoughts, the reader knows that the two characters tension between each other will eventually rise up to a certain point that a problem will occur. Point of view creates a lot of tension in the two books, Confetti Girl and Tortilla Sun, between the narrator and their parent. Both books

Originally, in “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara, Sylvia shows signs of detachment towards Miss Moore due to

The reader can tell Miss Moore is not what Sylvia is used to. When Sylvia describes her as a “nappy head bitch and her goddamn college degree” (171). It indicated that Sylvia is not used to being around an educated people. Miss Moore had seen and experienced things in life that Sylvia has under no circumstances seen or heard of. Miss Moore is a college educated woman, something her mother, father,

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

In the short story “The School,” written by Donald Barthelme, many different literary devices are being utilize like order of events, phraseology, point of view etc. The literary device that stands out the most in the short story “The School” is point of view. Barthelme uses point of view by making the teacher the story teller which gives the story a different mood than it would if it was told from a distinct perspective. Point of view is a position or perspective from which something is considered or evaluated (Merriam-Webster, n.d.)Barthelme’s use of point of view leads to the interpretation of the story in a totally unusual way which makes the story much less creepy than it should be.

At the end of the trip, Miss Moore leaves the children in front of the mail box, back where the trip started, thus creating a frame for the lesson of social equality. This frame is completed with Sugar and Sylvia's new understanding of the necessity of social equality for everyone. “And something weird is going on; I can feel it in

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.

We all walkin on tiptoe and hardly touchin the games and puzzles and things” (646). The toy store in the White neighborhood was not like the one she and the other children were use to in her Harlem community where thing were cheap and quickly replaced. To her this Toy store was something too pure to be touched and most precious because it belonged to those of wealth and it was not for her people of poor quality to demolish.

At the store, it is not long before the children begin seeing things that interest them. The first of these is a microscope that costs $300. Miss Moore comments on the educational value of microscopes but the children poke fun at the idea. “”Hey, I’m going to buy that there.”

This store really shows the kids that the value of a dollar is to what they use to think it was. By Miss Moore taking the kids to the toy store she shows them how money is going to take them through life. So that shows how smart she is because she knows the real value of a dollar. “But she ain't so smart cause I still got her four dollars from the taxi and she sure ain't gettin it Messin up my day with this shit. Sugar nudges me in my pocket and winks.” This quote how educated Miss Moore is because since she went to school, got her college degree, and now has a job as a teacher she has money to let Sugar and her cousin have. Miss Moore was maybe just testing the kids to see if she was going to l\get her left over change.