"The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara

Author Background
1. Toni Cade Bambara, b. 1939, New York, NY, d. 1995.
  1. In 1974, she moved to Georgia.
  2. She was interested in all kinds of topics and went to school in several New York colleges, as well as Italy and France.
    1. Much of her contributions to literature centered around African American culture.
      1. In 1970, she was the first person to anthologize the writing of African American women.
      2. She taught at the City College of New York, Scribe Video Centre, Rutgers University, Atlanta University, and Spelman College.
        She had a notably different writing style from other authors of her time.
        Her story plots were not always linear. She also used a lot of dialectical speech. –> Critics described the conversational tone of her stories as “being black.
Story Background
1. The Lesson was written in 1972. The story was probably set around that time, too.
  1. Written in 1st person, from the perspective of Sylvia.
    1. Set in Harlem, but during an unspecified time only described as “Back in the days when everyone was old and stupid or young and foolish and me and Sugar were the only ones just right.”
      1. Probably sometime in the 1970s (based on prices of items in story and the year it was published)
      2. It is very specifically summer. –> Sylvia mentions how they are out of school.
Characters
1. Sylvia – a sassy, young girl
  1. Sugar – Sylvia’s cousin
    1. Junior – another cousin/young person in Sylvia’s neighborhood
      1. Miss Moore – a young, college-educated woman who comes into Sylvia’s Harlem neighborhood with the goal of educating the youth
        Aunt Gretchen – the main gofer
        Other children: Flyboy, Fat Butt, Junebug, Q.T., Rosie Giraffe, Mercedes
        “You got some ole dumb shit foolishness you want somebody to go for, you send for Aunt Gretchen.”
        She is described as having “nappy hair and proper speech and no makeup.”
        She didn’t use her first name. (Always the proper “miss”)
        She had a very dark skin tone – “black as hell”
        “always looked like she was going to church though she never did.”
    2. “me (Sylvia) and Sugar were the only ones just right”
      1. Sylvia is very close with her, but also seems to be the dominant one between the two.
  2. Her inner thoughts are often crude and rude.
    1. We don’t learn her name until Miss Moore says it very late in the story.
Main Ideas & Themes
1. Wealth Inequality
  1. Miss Moore’s big lesson in the story is that of wealth inequality.
    1. The gap in wealth between certain neighborhoods, especially Black and minority areas, is shown to be a flaw.
      1. She goes out of her way to show kids who have not been exposed to the difference in their socioeconomic situation.
      2. Wealth Inequality in the US Visualized
2. Insulated Community
  1. The neighborhood that Sylvia lives in is distrustful of people like Miss Moore; she is college-educated, plus she doesn’t fit in well thanks to her proper manners and prim clothes.
    1. The treatment of Miss Moore shows that this place is a community that is largely insulated from anything besides its own people and their lives.
      1. It is also worth noting that the group of children appear standoffish to Mercedes (who seems to be from a slightly wealthier household) and Flyboy (who they claim lies about his homelessness to gain sympathy).
        They even separate each other into smaller groups based on income disparity despite the fact that they probably belong in the same social class.
3. Condescending Lessons
  1. Miss Moore, as an outsider, is not seen as the best person to be teaching this lesson about wealth inequality to these kids.
    1. Sylvia, who is sassy and rebellious, is resistant to Miss Moore and her lessons.
      1. However, by the end of the story Sylvia determinedly mulls over the day and the lesson.
        Her last thought is that nobody will beat her at nothing. She seems determined that the inequality she saw in the toy store will not be the story of her life.
Style and Tone
1. Long paragraphs eventually give way to dialogue
  1. Bambara’s work was noted for its great use of dialectical speech.
    1. EX: “So this one day Miss Moore rounds us all up at the mailbox and it’s puredee hot and she’s knockin herself out about arithmetic. And school suppose to let up in summer I heard, but she don’t never let up.”
Summary
1. Sylvia tells a story about when she was young and Miss Moore moved into her neighborhood of New York City.
  1. Miss Moore decides to take the children of the neighborhood on an outing.
    1. She talks to them about money and the cost of living.
      1. Miss Moore bundles them all into taxis and they end up on Fifth Avenue.
        “Then we check out that we on Fifth Avenue and everybody dressed up in stockings. One lady in a fur coat, hot as it is. White folks crazy.”
        They visit FAO Schwarz in Manhattan (a famous toy store).
        Miss Moore has them read the prices for crazy things like microscopes and paperweights made with semi-precious gems.
        Before heading in, Sylvia and Sugar seem to hesitate.
        “But I feel funny, shame. But what I got to be shamed about? Got as much right to go in as anybody. But somehow I can’t seem to get hold of the door, so I step away from Sugar to lead. But she hangs back too. And I look at her and she looks at me and this is ridiculous. I mean, damn, I have never ever been shy about doing nothing or going nowhere.”
        Sylvia becomes angry after considering the prices of many of the toys in the store. She realizes that for the same price as a small, silly toy in this store, she and her family could afford so many amazing things.
        Sylvia is mostly mad at Miss Moore for making her think hard about these things and how unfair they are. Later, she can’t seem to figure out where to direct her anger – Miss Moore, Sugar, white people?
        Miss Moore asks what they’ve learned.
        Sugar says “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?”
        Last line: “But ain’t noboby gonna beat me at nuthin’.”
Selected Quotes
1. “And she was always planning these boring-ass things for us to do, us being my cousin, mostly, who lived on the block cause we all moved North the same time and to the same apartment then spread out gradual to breathe.”
  1. Bambara is probably making a reference to the Great Migration. This was the movement of about 6 million African Americans from the rural South to cities in the North between 1916 and 1970.
    1. “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? Where we are is who we are, Miss Moore always pointin out. But it don’t necessarily have to be that way, she always adds then waits for somebody to say that poor people have to wake up and demand their share of the pie and don’t none of us know what kind of pie she talking about in the first damn place.”
      1. This is wealth inequality seen through a child’s eyes. There is an innocent quality to Sylvia’s outrage.
        “We start down the block and she gets ahead which is O.K. by me cause I’m going to the West End and then over to the Drive to think this day through. She can run if she want to and even run faster. But ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nuthin.”
        Something has changed with Sylvia from the beginning of the story to the end. She is not able to jump into her old habits of running around the neighborhood without a care in the world.

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"The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara

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