In the short story “The Lesson” by Toni Bambara you are introduced to a wide variety of characters. There are 3 characters that stand out to me for how much they contrast in the toy store. Sylvia, Mercedes, and Miss Moore all stood out to me. Sylvia stood out for how headstrong she is always wanting her 2 cents in every conversation, wanting to be the leader and drag Sugar with her to any event that Sylvia had planned for the two. She has a very negative view of the world due to the environment that she is growing up and seems to not care much about others and only cares for herself and Sugar since she was “just right”. Miss Monroe was an educated woman who graduated from college and took it upon herself to look after the young ones’ education. Mercedes as she contrasted Sylvia as she seemed the nicest and most caring out the bunch. Miss more decided round up all the kids by the mailbox and wanted to take them on a trip down to the toy store. Once they got into the cab and started making their way to the store Miss Moore decided to hand Sylvia a 5 dollar bill and told her to give the cab driver a 10% tip of what the total come out to. Once they got to the destination the meter came to 85 cents and for a while Sylvia tries to calculate the 10% until Sugar tell her to give the cab driver a dime. Sylvia thought to herself that the man didn’t need the tip and kept it for herself. Once everyone got out the cab they decided to look into the windows before heading into the store. For every item that each kid wanted Sylvia had […]
Nicholas Martinez
In the story “Salvation” by Langston Hughes we see how the affects of one’s personal strife and pressure from your peers and elders compelled a young boy into lying to his Auntie. Before even arriving to the church weeks in advance his Aunt was giving him ideas on how being “saved” would feel and look like that you will know that you were saved when you saw a bright light and felt a feeling inside that once that happened you knew that Jesus was in your life. This set an expectation on what to expect on the night of the mass that he would know he has saved if only these 2 things happened to him. On the night the preacher talked about a story one little lamb left out in the cold and it’s refusal to come and be welcomed by Jesus. This story stayed with the boy as he did not want to be the one lamb who was left out in the cold. As the mass progresses all the kids were brought to the front where they sat at the mourners’ bench as the sermon went on more and more kids left the bench to come to Jesus until all was left was westly and the young boy. After sometime the boy whispered into his ear stating “let’s get up and be saved”. This affected the boys beliefs as he was all alone and the boy who did not see the light and be touched be Jesus was able to walk to the alter and be saved an no one was able to tell that he was not truly saved. The young boy still holding onto his Aunt’s words waiting to see the light and be saved stayed alone as the preacher now focused his attention onto […]
I believe the professor decided to have the “Handsomest Drowned Man In The World” as the first story as it makes you think about how people tend to view someone so much based off appearances. In the story it talks about how the woman though of the man as beautiful and strong how he would have the happiest wife, the biggest house, and that the fish would rise out of the sea at his beck and call. It made me think how could someone come to such conclusions based solely off how one may look they were unable to have a single conversation with the drowned man but somehow they were able to imagine so many aspects of how his life could have been in the village. I’d like to think as the reader if pushed into a similar situation as in the story that I would not think much of what kind of life the man lived but rather how he died and how he would be if he was alive to engage in a conversation rather than assume based off his physical attributes that he was this amazing man who could do everything perfectly.
