ipl-logo

Toni Cade Bambara The Lesson Essay

811 Words4 Pages

After reading and analyzing “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara I discovered that the short story not only showed the struggles of economic inequalities but also showed critical points of African American culture from the twentieth century and Marxism in economics. The author, Toni Cade Bambara, grew up in two of New York’s poorest neighborhoods, Harlem, and Bedford-Stuyvesant. Bambara’s childhood gave her vision and insight into her writing. The short story “The Lesson” is based on the experiences of the author living in Harlem, how economic inequality can form a different viewpoint on the world, and how those viewpoints can be the deciding factor on children deciding and trying to be better and strive for greatness. The introduction of …show more content…

Miss Moore leads the children to a shop called FAO Schwarz, a toy shop on Fifth Avenue, where they gaze at the toys on display and wonder about the prices. It’s a moment like this when the children start to realize that some people have way more money than they probably need. One of the kids, nicknamed Big Butt because of his weight, spots a microscope and exclaims that he is going to buy that until he reads the price tag which reads $300. This prompts Miss Moore to ask how long the children would take to save. Obviously, they are from the slums and are poor so it would take them months if not years to save whereas the rich families would be able to come in and pay for a toy with less savings required. Regardless though, the store also sells a fiberglass boat for $1195 which makes the kids stunned as to why anyone would spend that kind of money when they can make a sailboat for ‘“about fifty cents.”’ When they try to enter the store, Sylvia stops in shame. She knows that she doesn’t have that kind of money and has no business being there. After being in the store, Sylvia asks Miss Moore why she brought them to the shop for. Miss Moore believes her to be angry, who wouldn’t be, it’s embarrassing to be somewhere that isn’t affordable by the economic class of which a person is a part

Show More
Related
239 Words | 1 Pages

She entrusts her son with sixty five hundred dollars (about $61,000 today) because she trusts her son will use the money well. ”that leaves sixty-five hundred dollars... it ain’t much, but it’s all I got in this world and I'm putting it in your hands”(107). This

Read More
930 Words | 4 Pages

Many people rather work than go to school to better themselves but drive to work is lost in recession and we can see a never-ending poverty cycle for many people. The public school system is also described as a subpar institution that often contributes to Harlem’s problems. Bullying and rapes play into street culture and subjugation of women. As you move into the inner city the author describes that traditional patriarchal lines are redrawn as women are becoming more independent. Many males use violence against women to try and keep

Read More
1250 Words | 5 Pages

As Sylvia is shamefully walking through the mazes, she sees a toy clown that does tricks priced at $35. She says that she could herself asking her mother for it as a birthday gift. In response, she is sure her mother would be informing her that that amount of money could be spent on getting new bunk

Read More
1284 Words | 6 Pages

“If I Was a Poor Black Kid,” By Gene Marks (published in Forbes magazine December 12, 2011) presents the argument that “…the opportunity is still there in this country for those who are smart enough to go for it.” (Marks) Mr. Marks makes this argument about education based on a speech given by President Obama. The President spoke about our economy and how the middle class is working to be able to afford families, homes, and a retirement. “The world is not fair to those kids mainly because they had the misfortune of being born two miles away into a more difficult part of the world and with a skin color that makes realizing the opportunities that the President spoke about that much harder.”

Read More
2141 Words | 9 Pages

Bettina Love supports her thesis that the education system is broken and unsupportive of dark children through history. The reason we learn history is to learn from the mistakes and successes of others; Dr. Love points out that the negative aspects of American history are still prevalent today. After the Civil War, former slaves worked as sharecroppers for plantation owners in hopes of repaying debt. The debt was impossible to pay, and the plantation owners continued to put the former slaves to work without fair pay. Love analogizes the situation to the broken education system, saying that, “black students are sharecroppers, never able to make up the cost or close the gap because they are learning in a state of perpetual debt with no relief in sight” ((Love, 2019, p. 92).

Read More
1189 Words | 5 Pages

This anecdote introduces the article, to show that black people should not be associated with poorness. The main idea of this article is to explain the life of the white working class. They are very poor, and others do not realize this because of the association between black people and poor people. The next example of anecdotes used in this article is when the author talks about when his grandparents emigrated to the northern states to have a better life. The author says: “ That region is my ancestral homeland, the place from which my grandparents emigrated [...]

Read More
1361 Words | 6 Pages

In “The School of Failure”, author D. Watkins gives an address to the problem of disparities in black education. Watkins grew up in Baltimore, a city with extensive problems within the school system. We begin the story by looking at his 13 year old nephew Butta, who is currently enrolled in a Baltimore middle school. Butta spends his day in a room with about 30-35 other kids, run by a sub where they can do anything they want. He is not receiving an education, along with countless other children in Baltimore.

Read More
748 Words | 3 Pages

In this era of colorblindness, it is not acceptable to talk about race nor class. Conversations about class, Alexander argues, tend not to be talked about because one tends to see class as a reflection of one’s character. With that, the premise of American ideology is the idea that if one can work hard enough it is guaranteed that one will make it—AKA meritocracy. Hence, when one does not have the “proper discipline” nor “drive” to move from the lower to upper class—it is a reflection of one’s moral character. Alexander maintains that what is missed in this debate is that Blacks are not free to move up at all; yes they also do not have the same opportunities and are plagued by poverty, but they are prevented by institutions to move up.

Read More
1200 Words | 5 Pages

The primary character, Sylvia, is a fourteen year old African American young lady, who recounts the story in a first individual account. Sylvia notices Miss Moore, an educator who felt that it was her obligation to help underprivileged kids learn. Miss Moore felt there was a lesson to learn at FAO Schwartz, an exceptionally costly, high society toy store in downtown Manhattan. The reason Miss Moore conveys the kids to FAO Schwartz is caught in Bambara's utilization of imagery. Miss Moore utilizes the toys in FAO Schwartz to pass on to the children where they are on the social stepping stool.

Read More
923 Words | 4 Pages

Estelle, Jefferson’s cousin, brought around a small metal bucket, and her siblings did the same. “Could you spare some change, Ms.Wiggins?” she asks, pushing the bucket towards me as she made puppy eyes. I reached into my pockets to see what change I had.

Read More
518 Words | 3 Pages

The group of kids and Miss Moore make it to the toy store, and note that everything there is very expensive. It is so outrageously expensive to the children, they don’t even want to go into the store, but Miss Moore insists. A fiberglass sailboat costs over one thousand dollars, which is a ridiculous amount of money to the children. Miss Moore askes the kids what they think about the store prices. Sugar tells Miss Moore that she believes that all the children’s combined food intake for a year wouldn’t even come close to the price of the toy sailboat.

Read More
1393 Words | 6 Pages

When people are poor, they often have a lot of problems in their life. They struggle through every day, but they learn to appreciate everything that they have. However, when people are going through tough times, they often think that money will solve all of their problems. In “A Raisin In The Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry, she guides the audience through a black family -- impacted by the need for money -- living on the south side of Chicago. The Younger family gets Lena Younger’s dead husband’s insurance check and buys a house in a white neighborhood, and they save the remainder of the money for Beneatha’s medical degree and for starting a liquor store.

Read More
1311 Words | 6 Pages

On top of this, he argues that the white middle class are unrelenting with their methods of depriving black advancement in American society. Knowledge of this incites many blacks to occupy dead-end jobs, or to settle for mediocrity in the face of adversity. A large number of black males in America find themselves forced to take jobs that offer no security, or socioeconomic growth. He also contends that many blacks are not very literate and therefore left behind in cultural revolutions like the information age. For twelve months between 1962 and 1963, Liebow and a group of researchers studied the behavior of a group of young black men who lived near and frequently hung around a street corner in a poor black neighborhood in downtown Washington, D.C. Liebow’s participant observation revealed the numerous obstacles facing black men on a day-to-day basis, including the structural and individual levels of racial discrimination propagated by whites in society.

Read More
700 Words | 3 Pages

Later in the story, he proved his love by borrowing the money needed to symbolize the love he had for her in his heart. The main idea of the story is that a young couple love each other, which is the most important thing in their lives. They loved each other so much that they were willing to sacrifice their most valuable possessions to find Christmas gifts for each other. The home they make together differs with their poverty and the world outside. Their love seems to be never ending, though Della worries about how her sacrifice will affect her husband because of how it affects her looks.

Read More
1207 Words | 5 Pages

Broken into two sections, the book’s first is of a theoretical approach and

Read More

More about Toni Cade Bambara The Lesson Essay

Related Topics

Open Document