“The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara Literary Analysis

There comes a time when everybody must experience the discomfort, either positive or negative, in a economic situation. If you come from a low-income family, have you ever found yourself shopping at Saxs Fifth Avenue stores? Or if your wealthy, do you find yourself worry about the prices of such objects? Is this impartial? In the story, “The Lesson” Toni Cade Bambara shows that the reality of the American economic system is unfair.

Bambara illustrates her point that class inequality is unjust through the main character, Sylvia. From the beginning of the story it is clear that Sylvia is a child living in the Harlem projects of New York. Being a part of a distracted group of city kids (Flyboy, Fat Butt, Junebug, Rosie, and Sugar), Sylvia is the most cynical. Poverty is a way of life for these children. Although they know they are poor, it doesn’t bother them because everyone they loved around is poor. It’s okay to be without when there isn’t any competition is that attitude Sylvia possesses. This character’s whole life is within the poverty area and she doesn’t see why she must try hard. The teacher, Miss Moore, introduced the facts of social inequality to the group of kids by taking them to F.A.O Schwarz, a rich toy store. The kids thought that “everyone was old and stupid or young and foolish but they were the ones just right”(576). Miss Moore showed them what they truly were. Sylvia knows in her mind that she is poor, but it never bothers her until she sees her disadvantages in contrast with the luxuries of being wealthy. As Miss Moore introduces the world of the rich, Sylvia begins to attribute shame to poverty and this makes her question the “lesson” of the story, how “money ain’t divided up right in this country”(577).

The F.A.O Schwarz store symbolizes unfairness. Sylvia separates reality as it is and reality as she wants to see it. When the children were talking of their study areas at home, only one of them actually had a desk and paper and the others think nothing of it. Instead they tell her to shut up. The children are proud of themselves and of their life. Miss Moore finally leads the children to the toy store. When they arrive at F.A.O Schwarz, the toys in the windows immediately dazzle the kids. They even start to pick out which ones they want to buy. While Sugar, Rosie, and Big Butt are asking questions and having fun, Sylvia is disturbed by what she sees in the store. She can’t figure out why the toys cost so much, when all the other k ids seemed to know they couldn’t afford it, but they didn’t know they were off by so much. When Sylvia looks at the paperweight, she doesn’t understand what is it, and why it costs so much, “my eyes tell me it’s a chunk of glass cracked with something heavy, and different-colored inks dripped into the splits, then the whole thing out in a oven or something, But for $480 it don’t make sense”(579).

The toys in the store cost to much, in her opinion and she can’t explain this, which makes her mad. Sylvia looks at a sailboat next and it costs $1, 195 and she can’t believe how expensive it is. The outrageous prices are more then she can make sense out of it. “Who’d pay all that when you can buy a sailboat set for a quarter at Pop’s, a tube of glue for a dime, and a ball of string for eight cents?”(581) Sylvia begins to compare these toys to what she has, and the comparison makes her angry. She criticizes paying that much for a toy sailboat when she could make it herself for about fifty cents. By finding fault in the rich lifestyle, Sylvia contrasts it with her poverty-stricken lifestyle, and she then alienates herself from being rich.

Sylvia begins to comprehend how she is separated from the wealth, she sees by comparing her own lifestyle with unlimited wealth. When she imagines herself asking her mom for on of the toys in the store, she compares wealth with her personal experience and sees the separation more clearly. Sylvia knows that is she asks her mom for a thirty five dollar birthday clown, her mom wouldn’t take her seriously, “You wanna who that costs what? She’d say, cocking her head to the side to get a better view of the hole in my head”(581). In Sylvia family that much money pays for beds and bills or trips for the entire family, not one’s birthday gift. The idea that someone else actually has enough money to spend that much makes Sylvia consider an uncomfortable question, “Who are these people that spend that much money for performing clown and $1,000 for toy sailboats?” What kinda work do they do and how they love and how come we aint in on it?”(582) Sylvia confronts her poverty because she is faced with evidence of wealth to which she cannot experience.

F.A.O Schwarz has shaken her from the denial of “the part about we all poor and live in the slums, which I don’t feature”(577). Miss Moore’s lesson on social inequality is alarming, “Imagine for a minute what kind of society it is in which some people can spend on a toy what it would cost to fee a family”(582). Sylvia doesn’t want to accept the fact that she can’t afford these luxuries, “Don’t none of us know what kind of pie she talking about in the first damn place”(581). Before Sylvia sees the toys in the store, she isn’t oblivious to the lesson she has never seen and acknowledged the luxury afforded by wealth, she has never been face with the reality of poverty.

Sylvia experiences conflict with her new awareness of social inequality. Her response to her new problem is retaliation. Sylvia struggles to resists knowing the “new world” by mocking one, and making fun of other character’s in the story who are interested in being apart of. The other kids’ interaction with Miss Moore maker her taunt and angry. It is as though Miss Moore herself symbolizes social awareness, and the other kids who make observations and agree with the lesson being presented are threatening to Sylvia. When sugar sums up Miss Moore’s lesson, “This is not much of a democracy if you ask me”(582) Sylvia says “I am disgusted with Sugar’s treachery”(587). And when Mercedes tell Miss Moore about her stationary with the big rose on each sheet and how the envelopes actually smell like roses, Rosie joins Sylvia in her rebelliousness saying, “who wants to know about your smelly-ass stationary?”(576). Mercedes then identifies with Miss Moore’s principles being chastised. Humiliating those who said with Miss Moore is in means of jeopardizing her lesson.

The conflict between Sylvia and Miss Moore, “This nappy-head bitch and her goddamn college degree” (577), represents more than everyday dislike of authority by an adolescent. Thought the entire story Sylvia does not relate to Miss Moore, when the other kid’s struggle to reason. This attitude started from the very beginning of the story. All the children at first did not seem interested in Miss Moore’s lesson, “she’s boring us sill about that things cost and what our parents make and how much goes for rent… and then she gets to the part about we all poor and live in the slums”(577). This shows that are initial thought about Miss Moore is educated and she feels that it is, “her responsibility for the young ones’ education.”(577) Helping the underprivileged children learn is important to her.

Miss Moore and Sylvia seem to battle throughout the story but she still helps Sylvia try to understand. Miss Moore puts Sylvia in charge of the taxi fare and tell her to give the driver a ten percent tip. Instead of figuring out the tip, she becomes sidetracked by sugar, Junebug, and Flyboy, who are putting lipstick on each other and hanging out the window, so Sylvia considers what she would rather do with the money. “So I’m stuck, Don’t nobody want to go for my plan, which is to jump out at the next light and run off to the first bar-b-que we can find”(577) When it’s time to pay the driver, Sugar has to tell Sylvia how much to give. Sylvia’s thoughts are divided between childish play and adult responsibility, her sidetracking conflicts with the desire to respond to situation that Miss Moore is trying to educate.

As Sylvia leaves F.A.O Schwarz, she battles with a ton of emotion. Sylvia is confused, angry, she is in denial, and she shows a little envy. The response she has to visiting the toy store awakens an internal struggle in Sylvia she has never felt. Through criticizing Miss Moore, and distancing herself from realizing her poverty is an initial response that is seen. In her responses to they toys, their prices, and the wealthy people who buy them, it is evident that Sylvia is confronting the truth of Miss Moore’s lesson. As Sylvia begins to understand social inequality, the realizations of her own disadvantage makes her angry. For Sylvia, achieving, class-consciousness is a painful enlightenment. For her to accept that she is underprivileged is shameful for her, and Sylvia would rather deny it than admit a wound to her pride, so she says “ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nuthin”(583).

“The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara is not just a story about a poor girl out of place in an expensive toy store, it is social economic consideration. Ms. Moore succeeds in teaching the children the lesson that she set out to teach. Sugar makes the statement, “I think that this is not much of a democracy if you ask me. Equal chance to pursue happiness means an equal crack at the dough, don’t it?” (582) in which Ms. Moore could not be more pleased. Sugar shows her that she has an understanding of the social inequality truths that Miss Moore has presented to them. The importance in life is to appreciate the things that you possess and to continue assigning greater values to items that most take for granted.