I choose Sylvia and Sugar. In “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara, we get to see when someone “less fortunate” sort of experiences a “more fortunate” person’s toy store or shopping day. At first, all the kids would bunch up at the window of the store to see the price tags when they saw something they were interested in. Then when it came time to go into the store, Sylvia and Sugar both felt like maybe they didn’t belong in that store. On page 5 of the text it states, “Only she don’t lead the way. So me and Sugar turn the corner to where the entrance is, but when we get there I kinda hang back. Not that I’m scared, what’s there to be afraid of, just a toy store. 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.” Based on this story, I could tell that Sylvia is usually not ashamed of her money or where she comes from. But here, I see how she felt intimidated to go into the store where she could not afford anything. It must have been so tempting, so aggravating, having to walk around the store seeing everything and not being able to have it. And seeing everyone, the type of people who can afford these things, buying whatever they wanted. This brings me to Sugar.
Sugar and Sylvia are very similar. What stood out to me though, was Sugar’s response to what she thought about the toy store. “Sugar surprises me by sayin, ‘You know, Miss Moore, I don’t think all of us here put together eat in a year what that sailboat costs.’ And Miss Moore lights up like somebody goosed her. “And?” she say… ‘Imagine for a minute what kind of society it is in which some people can spend on a toy what it would cost to feed a family of six or seven. What do you think?’ ‘I think,’ say Sugar…’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?'” (6) Sugar states that money equals happiness, by saying that if you are to be happy, then you have to have money. She says this because if she had money then she would be happy because she would be able to buy everything she wanted in the toy store.
Their approaches are different because, for example, even though Sylvia was intimidated by the store (or the prices in it) she did not show or say that she felt as if this should or could have been her. Sugar, on the other hand, became aware of what she would have to do towards the future in order to be able to afford anything in that toy store.
