In many pieces of classic literature, the theme is often misinterpreted. Poems, sonnets, and short stories frequently have misleading titles that put false ideas into the readers’ minds. Readers often begin reading a work with a biased opinion of the contents of the story. The superficial theme of a story is obvious, but the less obvious theme can have the most powerful message. In Toni Cade Bambara’s short story, “The Lesson,” the apparent theme is poverty and wealth, but the true theme is the misapprehension…

Throughout the years knowledge and culture has been passed down within generations. Elders within the community often teach life lessons to the young adults growing up in the neighborhood. This idea still holds true today, especially in low-income communities. People from different socioeconomic backgrounds live different lifestyles they also have different opportunities made available to them. Because of this idea, people with a higher social standing have an advantage over those in lower class…

"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…

“The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara is not just about a sassy, defiant, ungrateful poor girl that is out of place in an overpriced expensive toy store. “The Lesson” is a short story about a young black girl who is struggling with her increasing awareness of class inequality. When Sylvia’s new neighbor, Miss. Moore, a smart college educated woman introduces the reality of social inequality to Sylvia and her group of friends, they become cynical. Sylvia has always known in the back of her mind that she…

the hardest because the kids just want to play, goof around and don’t listen. Elementary teachers have hard time teaching young uneducated students just like Miss Moore with her uneducated children from the neighborhood, in the story “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara. Miss Moore teaches the students how to take the first step toward a better education just like elementary teachers, her teaching method were to show how the upper class lived in comparison to the children but she could have though them…

Caroline Bergsagel Professor Reichardt English 1101/1102-681 14th April, 2015 In the story “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara, the author uses symbolism, irony, setting, and black vernacular diction to show the children -the “other side of the street”- and the economic disparity and inequality they face. When a well educated teacher takes the the children on an allegedly fun and frivolous field trip to a toy store, it is there she shows the children the disparity they face in their neighborhood. By…

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…

to write about the story “Shiloh” by Bobbie Ann Mason, “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara and Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes. I chose these works because all of them are about values, morals, beliefs and custom culture. The story “Shiloh” is about a community / couple who discover that they had different values, morals and beliefs; “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara is about a teacher who tries to facilitate the youth in her community and Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes questions one’s values…

the story ‘The Lesson’, Sylvia and her friends’ receives a chance to take a look at the upper side of town and compare how the two communities differ from each other. The author uses social conflict to explain the racial and social divide between the white and black community. In the story, the reader sees how social classes effect how adults and even children see the world. The author, Toni Cade Bambara, compares how blacks and whites live these times. In the story, “The Lesson”, a woman by the…

In, The lesson by Toni Cade Bambara, Miss Moore, an African American women that lives in Harlem, takes a group of African American children who lives in her neighbourhood to a toy store called F.AO. Schwarz in Manhattan. Though Miss Moore teach the children many lessons, such as residential racial segregation, socio-economic inequality, and the children are apathetic of the severity of the effects of discrimination against African Americans as it is something that they do not notice due to their…