Social Class and Economic Inequality in America in “The Lesson”, a Short Story by Toni Cade Bambara
"The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara is a lesson on social class and presents the choice of which society we choose to live in. It examines the realization of economic inequity within America. Bambara creates Ms. Moore, the antagonist, who strives to teach the children what their life could be like. With their consent and desire to achieve, their eyes could be opened to the oppression of the world. Bambara creates a host of characters. These characters help explore and demonstrate the issues that face the poor and the minorities in the United States. Ms. Moore feels that it is, "her responsibility for the young ones' education."(364) Helping the underprivileged children learn is important to her because she was the only woman in the neighborhood to earn a degree.
The children are proud of themselves and of their life. They do not know anything other than what they have been exposed to. Ms. Moores' purpose for taking the children to the toy store is to show them the value of money and express to them the poverty in which they really lived. Outside the toyshop, the children glare at a number of very expensive toys, which include a paperweight and a sailboat. None of the children realized what the paperweight was actually used for.
Sylvia, the protagonist states, "My eyes tell me its' a chunk of glass cracked with something heavy, and different-color inks dripped into the splits." "But for $480.00 it don't make sense." (366) A paperweight is used to hold something of value, something that one wishes not to lose. The neighborhood children have never known or owned anything as precious.
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The poverty the children experience is shown in a more optimistic light. Ms. Moore wants the children to understand that with a strong desire in the heart and mind they can acquire the strength to rise above destitution. Poverty forces the children to value what the rich take for granted. The children possess the ability to take pleasure in simple things, something that the rich person seldom does. The rich child takes for granted the thousand-dollar sailboat, not able to appreciate the money that the sailboat costs or the fact that this one toy could feed a family for months.
The rich adolescent is not able to appreciate ice cream, candy, and simple games, the very things that would excite the less fortunate child. Sugar exclaims to Sylvia. "Well, we got four dollars anyway, we could go to Hascombs and get half a chocolate layer and then go to the Sunset and still have plenty of money for potato chips and ice-cream sodas." (369) Sugar is as happy with the notion that she has enough money to buy all of these treats, as the rich child would be with sailing the posh sailboat across the water.
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?" (368) in which Ms. Moore could not be more pleased. Sugar shows her that she has an understanding of the truth-seeking lesson that she 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.
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Social Class and Economic Inequality in America in “The Lesson”, a Short Story by Toni Cade Bambara. (2023, Apr 20). Retrieved from https://phdessay.com/social-class-and-economic-inequality-in-america-in-the-lesson-a-short-story-by-toni-cade-bambara/
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