Hope in The Lesson, by Toni Cade Bambera Essay -- The Lesson

After reading Toni Cade Bambaras, The Lesson, the reader is left with a smack of hope for the first person narrator Sylvia and her friends. Following her and her friends from the slums of New York, to a Fifth course F.A.O. Swartz, one gets an idea as to the kind of surroundings they came from, the type of education they received, and the sense of economic imbalance they bear find oneself to. Through this the antagonist, Miss Moore, is able to let the children evaluate for themselves the difference mingled with the Fifth Avenue world and the one they are from, at an be on where the impression made upon them might generate a spark of bank to find out how they might achieve the same rewards Fifth Avenue has to offer.The invoice is told from the point of view of the booster, first person narrator, Sylvia. Sylvia is a young African American girl, strong willed, intelligent, and the obvious leader of the pack. The storys p allot involves a college educated black woman who comes back to an economically disadvantaged neck of the woods on weekends and takes the local children on field trips of a sort. On this circumstance trip she lets the children experience their first ride in a political hack to a toy store in Manhattan. It is played out by a chronological series of events from the time they leave their neighborhood, until the time they perplex back there.The exposition introduces the reader to, Sylvia, Miss Moore, Sylvias friends, and the neighborhood. Sylvias friends consist of a bit of round characters, such as Junebug, Mercedes, Fat Butt, and Rosie Giraffe, as well as the stock characters Sugar, Q.T. and Junior. The setting is what seems to be a 1960 circa slum.As the story develops the reader gets a glimpse of Sylvias street smar... ...lack of proper education in the poorer areas of the country, the take on for parents to stand up and take responsibility for their children, and the inequality, and huge gap that exists amid the rich and the po or in the United States today.The use of Sylvia as the protagonist gave the story a real quality to it. The world as seen by dint of the eyes of a pre-teen, streetsmart kid, and the realization that there was still a lot to learn in an unfair world. Every character was well defined, and seemed to consecrate a life of their own. It was a very easy to comprehend story which I believe should be a staple, if not requirement, in both urban public schoolWork CitedBambara, Toni Cade. The Lesson. Literature and society An inlet to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Nonfiction. Pamela J Annas and Robert C. Rosen. 4th Edition. Upper Saddle River, N.J 2007. P. 647-653