Tony Cade Bambara The Lesson Summary

In Tony Cade Bambara’s short story “The Lesson”- the main character Sylvia is a young African-American girl who lives in New York’s inner city. Sylvia, her cousin Sugar, and five other children live in an impoverished neighborhood. Miss Moore, who is also African-American, moves into the neighborhood and takes it upon herself to educate these children because she went to college. One of the lessons Miss Moore teaches the children is about money, so she takes them to a toy store on Fifth Ave. The two settings in this story, the impoverished inner-city neighborhood and Fifth Ave, help explain Sylvia’s journey of her education and awareness of economic inequality. The first setting described is Sylvia’s impoverished neighborhood. In the beginning, Sylvia compares hating Miss Moore “the way we did the winos who cluttered up our parks and pissed on our handball walls and stank up our hallways and stairs so you couldn’t

This is where Sylvia begins to wonder how the amount of money a toy costs on Fifth Ave could be used to help her family. She explains that if she asked her mother she would say “Thirty-five dollars would pay for the rent and the piano bill too” (Bambara 59). Among several things, only thirty-five dollars could make an enormous difference in Sylvia’s family. They would need it to have a roof over their heads, compared to the people on Fifth Ave who would use that money to buy a toy. She then beings to question “Who are these people that spend that much for performing clowns and $1000 for toy sailboats? What kinda work they do and how they live and how come we ain’t in on it?” (Bamabara 59). After visiting Fifth Ave and seeing the prices on the toys, Sylvia begins to compare herself to the rich White people. She understands that they are different, but still questions why these people have an advantage. She wants to learn who these people are and what they had to do to be able to afford nice