In a person’s lifetime childhood is a stage of exploration. Through the teachings and experience of our elders and experienced people around us, a person can learn a lot about the world around them. These influential factors help in the creation of a stronger adult in the future. In The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara and Girl by Jamaica Kincaid the characters are guided by dominant mother like figures in order to learn valuable lessons and morals that shape the children as better individuals.
The lessons are taught early on in the story. In the short story Girl By Jamaica Kincaid, the protagonist of the story is perceived as young girl who is in her early teenage and she needs to always be seen as a woman and not a slut as her mother says to
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For instance, in The Lesson Toni Cade Bambara, the author is trying to show us the economic inequality within the society. As suggested in the story that the main protagonist of the story comes from a low income background who lived in Harlem New York City. She was amazed when her teacher took them on trip to an expensive store and there Miss Moore makes a powerful statement. As stated “Imagine for a minute what kind of society it is in which some people can spend on a toy what it would cost to feed a family of six or seven.” This shows that economic inequality existed within the society and it was ironic how some people might spend so much money on unnecessary things without knowing that money can be spend to feed people who don’t have enough money to buy a meal. Furthermore, in the story Miss Moore is the symbol of education as she is trying to educate her own society. For instance, she is trying teach the kids that world is unfair and economic inequality exists within the society. Therefore she is trying to teach the kids how to face the world with courage. But different themes are explored in Girl by Jamaica Kincaid. For instance, the set of instructions by her mother represents the knowledge that she needs in order to be the powerful person in the household. Her mother wants her to be the women who is respected by the society and her family members. Furthermore, in this story culture and tradition is emphasized. As we see throughout the story her mother is passing her knowledge onto her
Our class has been reading a book called “Brown Girl Dreaming” for the past two weeks. The author, Jacqueline Woodson talks about her life growing up. For example she talks about how her mom and dad divorced when she was young. She talks about how she moves to Greenville and how her grandpa is like a dad figure, and how her mother came back with a pale skinned baby after she went to New York. Character traits make up a person, and while reading the book, you can see what Jacqueline is like during her childhood. Jacqueline has many character traits, such as being jealous of her older sister, being naive, and she is also respectful.
The world has experienced many changes in past generations, to the present. One of the very most important changes in life had to be the changes of children. Historians have worked a great deal on children’s lives in the past. “While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.”- Author Unknown
It encompasses everything from prejudice, social class, gender, and empathy. The benefits of reading about these themes in a story versus just hearing about them from a teacher are enormous. Reading from a story allows you to relate these issues to real life because you can understand what the characters feel and recognize how the themes apply to your own life. For example, Scout, a young girl in the novel, can be easily related to because we can look back on our own childhood and remember the times, when, like Scout, we were worry free and so innocent.
Child had some arguments against the education system for girls. As the class learned, girls would go to school and dip their toes into many of the sciences rather than focus their education on the classics to prepare for college entrance exams like their male counterparts. Child also argued that once young women graduated, they got caught up in going to balls and parties to live out their youth while they still could. The author thought that young people should be taught about frugality and industry in case they became impoverished at some point in their lives, like the struggles that she faced with David’s debts. Within the text, Child visited with the mother of an impoverished family. The mother hired a seamstress to sew and patch their clothing because the sixteen year old daughter did not have enough sewing skill. Child was taken aback by the statement because she thought that the young woman would have been able to sew to bring in money for her family. But, the mother replied that school, music, and dance took up too much of the daughter’s time during the school year and during winter break she would be spending time with her friends. “Now is her time to enjoy herself, you know. Let her take all the comfort she can, while she is single!,” stated the mother. Since young women did not learn domestic tasks in school, they did not enjoy them later in life. The arts
As well she responds to most situations with a maturity most adults’ lack. These books all describe how the adult world is often complicated and difficult, as well as full of lies, deceit, and phoney people. The books also describe how sometimes an innocent child’s opinion can be smarter than a full grown
"The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara is not just a spirited story about a poor girl out of place in an expensive toy store, it is a social commentary. "The Lesson" is a story about one African-American girl's struggle with her growing awareness of class inequality. The character Miss Moore introduces the facts of social inequality to a distracted group of city kids, of whom Sylvia, the main character, is the most cynical. Flyboy, Fat Butt, Junebug, Sugar, Rosie, Sylvia and the rest think of Miss Moore as an unsolicited educator, and Sylvia would rather be doing anything else than listening to her. The conflict between Sylvia and Miss Moore, "This nappy-head bitch and her goddamn college degree" (307), represents more than the everyday dislike of authority by a young adolescent. Sylvia has her own perception of the way things work, her own "world" that she does not like to have invaded by the prying questions of Miss Moore. Sylvia knows in the back of her mind that she is poor, but it never bothers her until she sees her disadvantages in blinding contrast with the luxuries of the wealthy. As Miss Moore introduces her to the world of the rich, Sylvia begins to attribute shame to poverty, and this sparks her to question the "lesson" of the story, how "money ain't divided up right in this country" (308).
The lessons that are taught through experience are usually the ones that stick with children for a lifetime. In Toni Cade Bambara's “The Lesson”, Miss Moore, a prominent character in the story, teaches a lesson to underprivileged children growing up in Harlem. Bambara's work is described as “stories [that] portray women who struggle with issues and learn from them.” (Vertreace, Par. 48) Bambara uses Miss Moore and her characteristics to teach Sylvia and the other children about social inequality and the idea of pursuing personal aspirations regardless of social status. Miss Moore has many admirable characteristics; she's intelligent, patient and caring.
¨If¨ by Rudyard Kipling and ¨Girl¨ by Jamaica Kincaid are both letters to a child written by their parents in the form of a poem. In the letters the parents set expectations the child is expected to follow in the future. They are very similar with some differences. The goal of this essay is to compare and contrast the two texts.
Parental influences can negatively impact a child’s life. An example of this is in the novel
The rifts between mothers and daughters continue to separate them, but as the daughters get older they become more tolerant of their mothers. They learn they do not know everything about their mothers, and the courage their mothers showed during their lives is astounding. As they get older they learn they do not know everything, and that their mothers can still teach them much about life. They grow closer to their mothers and learn to be proud of their heritage and their culture. They acquire the wisdom of understanding, and that is the finest feeling to have in the world.
Within every story or poem, there is always an interpretation made by the reader, whether right or wrong. In doing so, one must thoughtfully analyze all aspects of the story in order to make the most accurate assessment based on the literary elements the author has used. Compared and contrasted within the two short stories, “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, and John Updike’s “A&P,” the literary elements character and theme are made evident. These two elements are prominent in each of the differing stories yet similarities are found through each by studying the elements. The girls’ innocence and naivety as characters act as passages to show something superior, oppression in society shown towards women that is not equally shown towards men.
The second person point of view helps the reader to connect with the girl in this story. It shows the reader a better understanding of this character and how she is being raised to be a respectable woman. This point of view also gives us an insight on the life of women and shows us how they fit into their society. Through this point of view, the reader can also identify the important aspects of the social class and culture. The daughter tries to assert a sense of selfhood by replying to the mother but it is visible that the mother is being over whelming and constraining her daughter to prepare her for
In this way, Julian tries to teach his mother that now it is not time for difference but equality, and her thoughts about those blacks should be changed to fit in with the society. Not only that, but the author also shows equality with the background of the story. Julian graduated from university and his mother is an heir of a rich family, yet he is still to-be-a writer, he is poor and has no job at the moment and is desperately in need of money because of his mother's illness.
This short story makes the gender roles in the Southern culture very clear. Even though the grandmother is very talkative it is her mouth that put them all in danger. If she had not claimed to recognize the Misfit he probably would have let them go, but the grandmother also foreshadowed the dangerous situation happening before it happened. This irony is what I believe the author uses to draw attention to the gender roles within Southern culture. I believe the author allows the grandmother to have insight of how this misfit she saw the newspaper would be ultimately the end of their lives. If her son would have considered what she said about encountering the Misfit, he could have prevented their death. When her son chose to ignore her, it was a representation of how women’s opinion was ignored in society. The short story didn't seem to have much tension or mention about race other than the display of how the family interacted with themselves and with other African Americans. Finally, this story raises questions about class because it shows how the children treated people with a lower economic status. This family is portrayed as a working or middle-class family because the daughter knows how to tap dance, and their family is going on a vacation. The children treat people with a lower economic status poorly with a lot of disrespect. On page 4 the daughter speaks disrespectfully
Child-rearing is an important part of a child’s life as it should guide children in the right and productive direction. In the sense that because many of the characters discussed in the readings were poor and working class, much was concluded that if they were not poor, they would not be at as high of a risk for so many potential failures. This is heartbreaking in the sense that if one is poor, there is not much that one can do other than to persevere past it all. I for one know how that life is, living poor, but with motivation and determination, nothing should get in the way of prevailing. These two articles showed hope for the individuals, which is something that I haven’t come across.