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Literay anylsis essay on the lesson by toni cade bambara
The lesson by toni cade bambara summary
Literay anylsis essay on the lesson by toni cade bambara
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The Lesson
Toni Cade Bambara’s ‘The Lesson’ starts with the Sylvia’s description about one African-American’s appearance, who is called Miss Moore. The story is focused on the the event of field trip that Miss Moore conducted for her students one day. She takes her students to pricy toy store which is called F.A.O. Schwartz, to let them see the reality of gap between poor and rich. The story took place in 1970s which was during the movements for civil and social rights, equality and justice swept the United States. According to university of California, during this time, the opportunity to African American was really limited in a lot of aspects, including the education. People often tend to interpret the most important main point of this
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However, what Toni Cade Bambara actually wanted to tell the readers was the importance of an education and the value of thinking, by showing the contrast of educational background between Miss Moore and Sylvia, and the process that Sylvia gets into the knowledge of the world.
In this story, Bambara indicates the distance between Miss Moore and Sylvia, by showing the contrast of educational background between them. As Sylvia said, Miss Moore has “her goddamn college degree (330-331)”, but most of people around Sylvia did not go to the college because they were too poor to go. At the beginning of the story, everyone in the class looked like they did not like Miss Moore, as Sylvia said “we kinda hated her (330)”. She also said that “I’m really hating this nappy-head bitch and her goddamn college degree (330-331)”. As these words represent, she was insulting Miss Moore and the readers hear that the sarcasm in Sylvia’s tone most of the times in the story. She also called Miss Moore “lady”. This depicts Sylvia treated Miss Moore as an outsider. According to Naderi, “Miss Moore’s state of being called ‘lady’, her educational background, her ‘proper speech’ (195) make
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This paragraph shows that Sylvia was trying to think about the meaning why Miss Moore took her students to there even though she knew that no one could buy anything there. Cartwright says, “Nothing could make Miss Moore happier than Sylvia’s commitment ‘to think the day through (Cartwright, 114).’” Miss Moore knew that Sylvia was trying to understand the real theory of this field trip. She did not say anything when she was asked what did she think about this field trip to Miss Moore because she did not understand exactly what the genuine purpose of this field trip at that point. Although Sylvia did not understand, Sugar seemed like she got the lesson of this trip, as she said “ 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? (336)”. Miss Moore expected more answers from Sylvia, since she looked like she was thinking so hard. This is the reason why Miss Moore looked at Sylvia when she asked to her students a same question again, “Anybody else learn anything today? (336)”. She said “anybody”, but she was expecting the answer from Sylvia in this scene because she looked like she was thinking about it harder than the other students as she got a lot of question such as “What kinda work they do and how they live and how come we ain’t in on
I enjoyed reading Disciplined Hearts by Theresa O'Nell because i find that many people today do not know a lot about the Native American culture and what they have been through. Their cultures history is not talked about as much the African American or Hispanic's are. Most Americans know about the hardships that the African American and Hispanics had to overcome to assimilate to the level that they are today. I think O'Nell is trying to talk about the history of the Native American culture because, she believes that the reason that their culture is not well-known because of the fact that they have chosen to keep living like their ancestors and not assimilate to the American culture.
Dennis Covington writes about a unique method of worship—snake handling, in his memoir, Salvation on Sand Mountain. He begins as a journalist, looking in on this foreign way of life; however, as time progresses he increasing starts to feel a part of this lifestyle. As a result loses his journalistic approach, resulting in his memoir, detailing his own spiritual journey. Upon the conclusion of his stay in this world, Covington realizes the significance of this journey, and argues in his memoir that we cannot entirely know ourselves until we step outside of our comfort zone and separate ourselves from our norm.
Bambara writes, “So right away I'm tired of this and say so. And would much rather snatch Sugar and go to the Sunset and terrorize the West Indian kids and take their hair ribbons and their money too. And Miss Moore files that remark away for next week's lesson on brotherhood, I can tell” (2). From this, we can see that Sylvia knew what she said was wrong and even why it was so. This also happens to be the passage that Cartwright uses to illustrate that the children require more than one lesson on a hot Harlem day; they deserve a thorough education. Cartwright explains “Rather than simply teaching a single lesson, the story is about the value of lessons themselves, the value of learning and thinking”
The negative attitude and bitterness makes Sylvia unreliable, she is prejudice against Miss Moore because she prevents Sylvia and the other children from having fun, which seems to be the only thing that matters to Sylvia. Sylvia states, “I’m really hating this nappy-head bitch and her goddamn college degree. I’d much rather go to the pool or to the show where it’s cool” (Bambara, 209). Sylvia is still young and naïve, so she doesn’t view getting an education as something she wants to do, she just wants to have fun and not learn anything but she eventually realizes that Miss Moore just wants her and the other children to
Opportunities came and went, but no one seemed to care about the challenges African Americans were facing. Success was complicated due to the fact that unfair chances are given and no one could be held responsible because of this. Thus, Harlon L. Dalton and Toni Cade Bambara conclude with the idea that success is hard because of unfairness towards certain things for example, opportunities and equality. However, in Dalton’s essay the myth states everything to be true and correct while he points out the key differences in making the statements false. Toni Cade Bambara uses the viewpoint of a young girl in her story named Sylvia to show the impact of how success changes the lives of every African American and how it represents inequality. In addition, success is not as easy as the myth claims it to be, it illustrates that African Americans are not given an equal chance, and the odds are stacked against them. Some might argue that opportunities are for everyone and they are equal, though this is a good point it is not accurate. Many problems like race is just one factor that took a while to solve, so it cannot be said that chances are equal. The subject of success is important because it is not easy to achieve, especially when chances are not even and distributed properly. African Americans had to fight their way towards getting
The most important aspect for a teacher to understand is that every student that comes through their door has their own experiences, history, and point of view. Mis-Education of the Negro is about how the euro-centrism-based learning has, in one way or another, crippled the African-American community and their pursuit for an equal opportunity in our society. Written by Carter Godwin Woodson in 1933, this African-American studies book is written so that everyone can understand what society has done and what they can do to correct their wrongs.
The essay, “Standing Up for the Power of Learning,” by Jay Mathews explained how one of many students was accused of academic dishonesty. During the regular school session of the year 2001, three fourths of 187 students at Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT) were found guilty of cheating. This was because they collaborated on an assignment in a computer science (CS) course with friends. By communicating with others about the project, the students violated the course honor code that prohibited the discussion among students for that particular class.
“The Lesson” and “Gorilla, My Love” were written in the 1970’s by Toni Cade Bambara, a female African American writer. In both “The Lesson” and “Gorilla, My Love” the stories are told in first person narration by young black girls who tell the story of their struggles. Sylvia in The Lesson is about twelve or thirteen years old. She comes from an urban neighborhood in Harlem and is being raised in a single parent home, as her mother finds more interest in hanging out with her friends leaving Sylvia to raise herself with guidance from the streets. One summer day Miss Moore, an educated black woman in the community who believes in the value of education takes the children on an educational outing to F.A.O Schwartz in hopes of teaching them the importance of education, economic inequality, socioeconomic class and the value of working hard to achieve their goals in life. On the other hand, Hazel in “Gorilla, My Love” is about a eight or nine years old. She comes from a middle class neighborhood and is being raided in a two parent home. Hazel hits a hardship when she is betrayed, once by her uncle as he decides to no longer be referred to as Hunca Bubba, but instead by his given name Jefferson Windsong Vale, and secondly when she anticipated seeing a movie called Gorilla My Love which had nothing to do with gorillas, instead what was playing was King of Kings a movie about Jesus.
Sylvia uses her daydreams as an alternative to situations she doesn't want to deal with, making a sharp distinction between reality as it is and reality as she wants to perceive it. For instance, as they ride in a cab to the toy store, Miss Moore puts Sylvia in charge of the fare and tells her to give the driver ten percent. Instead of figurin...
The Piano Lesson written by August Wilson is a work that struggles to suggest how best African Americans can handle their heritage and how they can best put their history to use. This problem is important to the development of theme throughout the work and is fueled by the two key players of the drama: Berniece and Boy Willie. These siblings, who begin with opposing views on what to do with a precious family heirloom, although both protagonists in the drama, serve akin to foils of one another. Their similarities and differences help the audience to understand each individual more fully and to comprehend the theme that one must find balance between deserting and preserving the past in order to pursue the future, that both too greatly honoring or too greatly guarding the past can ruin opportunities in the present and the future.
The narrator of the story is a young, black girl name Sylvia and the story is also told from her perspective. The setting is not clear. Perhaps it started in Harlem and then to downtown Manhattan on Fifth Avenue and the time of the story took place is also unclear. Bambara uses a great deal of characterization to describe the characters in the story. For example, Bambara describes Miss Moore as “black as hell” (Bambara 330), “cept her feet, which were fish-white and spooky” (Bambara 330), and “looked like she was going to church” (Bambara 330). She later tells us that she’s been to college and her state of mind is she believes it’s her responsibility for the children’s education. The plot started when Miss Moore rounded up all of the children by the mailbox. Then she gets the kids in a cab and took them to Fifth Avenue to a big toy store where the rich people would shop. The story then continues with the children and Miss Moore in the toy store and the kids looking around and noticing they can’t afford anything. Which will soon end the plot with a lesson that society is not fair, “that this is not much of a democracy if you ask me. Equal chance to purse happiness means an equal crack at the dough, don’t it?”(Bambara 330). Hence, the lesson Miss Moore is trying to teach these
Growing up as the young child of sharecroppers in Mississippi, Essie Mae Moody experienced and observed the social and economic deprivation of Southern Blacks. As a young girl Essie Mae and her family struggled to survive, often by the table scraps of the white families her mother worked for. Knowing little other than the squalor of their living conditions, she realizes this disparity while living in a two-room house off the Johnson’s property, whom her mother worked for, watching the white children play, “Here they were playing in a house that was nicer than any house I could have dreamed of”(p. 33). Additionally, the segregated school she attends was a “one room rotten wood building.” (p. 14), but Essie Mae manages to get straight A’s while caring for her younger sibli...
“I never found myself needing that piece of paper,” is a remark actor Johnny Depp made back in 2010 about his relationship with longtime partner Vanessa Paradis. Depp and Paradis have been in a relationship since 1998 and have two children together, Lily Rose and Jack. Another member of Hollywood’s elite, Latin singer Shakira, shares a similar view saying that marriage is like a contract, and that is unromantic. However, celebrities living like Shakira and Depp are also committing fornication and already view themselves as being married; the marriage is just not official. This draws comparisons to Ernest Gaines’ novel 'A Lesson Before Dying'. Two of the novel’s main characters, Grant and Vivian, have sex outside of marriage because they cannot be married since Vivian is still legally married to another man (Gaines 29). Even though of Vivian’s situation differs slightly from that of Depp’s, the act is still the same. These adults are conducting the act of sex outside of marriage; they are either ignoring what their religion teaches on the subject or do not care what religion has to say.
From the beginning of the reading, I was wondering what she was expecting of her students. At first, I didn’t recognize that the dialogue was in a class, I thought sibling or friends having a conversation. After that, I realized they were students in science class making an argument about the difference between the weight of water and ice. The reason that I didn’t expect students
Toni Cade Bambara’s "The Lesson" revolves around a young black girl’s struggle to come to terms with the role that economic injustice, and the larger social injustice that it constitutes, plays in her life. Sylvia, the story’s protagonist, initially is reluctant to acknowledge that she is a victim of poverty. Far from being oblivious of the disparity between the rich and the poor, however, one might say that on some subconscious level, she is in fact aware of the inequity that permeates society and which contributes to her inexorably disadvantaged economic situation. That she relates poverty to shame—"But I feel funny, shame. But what I got to be shamed about? Got as much right to go in as anybody" (Bambara 604)—offers an indication as to why she is so hard-pressed to concede her substandard socioeconomic standing in the larger scheme of things. Sylvia is forced to finally address the true state of her place in society, however, when she observes firsthand the stark contrast between the rich and the poor at a fancy toy store in Manhattan. Initially furious about the blinding disparity, her emotionally charged reaction ultimately culminates in her acceptance of the real state of things, and this acceptance in turn cultivates her resolve to take action against the socioeconomic inequality that verily afflicts her, ensuring that "ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nuthin" (606). "The Lesson" posits that far from being insurmountable, economic and social injustice can be risen above, but it is necessary that we first acknowledge the role that it plays in our lives, and then determine to take action against it; indifference, and the inaction that it breeds, can only serve to perpetuate such injustices.