“The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara is a short story that portrays and discusses the social issue of inequality in America. Throughout the short story, Bambara focuses on teaching and showing inequality by portraying how characters relate in an improvised neighborhood. To better understand how Bambara achieves to get her theme home to the audience, comparing the experience of Miss Moore and Sugar when they visited the toy store will be vital to enhance how the theme of inequality is arrived at. Miss Moore is presented as a woman well-educated with a college degree and perceived of a higher status in the neighborhood (Bambara, 1972 pp. 1). She is aware of the community’s inequalities as she acknowledges that money is not equally distributed in America (Bambara, 1972, pp. 2). However, she sees the trip to the toy store with the children as an opportunity to expose them to a world different from their neighborhood. By encouraging them to calculate the cost of the toys they are interested in and compare them to the limited resources of their family, Miss Moore hopes the children will understand some people exist with such potential and see the inequality that exists. Conversely, Sugar is a young girl from an improvised neighborhood who is impressed by the toy store’s products, costs, and elegant wealth. However, she is later disappointed and frustrated since she cannot afford to purchase one and asks if they can steal (Bambara, 1972 pp. 2). Sugar is also perplexed with what some individuals could spend on toys alone that could feed a certain family of seven(Bambara, 1972 pp. 6). In summary, the conduct and experience portrayed by Miss Moore and Sugar reflect the social and economic inequality that people encounter daily on the grass root. The author exposes the gap between those […]
Rachel
Various ways can be used to analyze the boy’s character, as stated in Langston Hughes’ “Salvation.” First of all, the boy can be considered susceptible and naive. At barely twelve years old, he is readily persuaded by his aunt and the elderly members of the church who preach about salvation. He patiently waits for this experience to occur since he also believes in seeing Jesus and experiencing him in his soul (Sharpe, 2020). However, he feels dissatisfied and disillusioned because this doesn’t happen. The inner conflict the youngster experiences between his wish to blend in and be accepted and his sense of honesty and truth is another part of his character to be analyzed. Even though the boy doesn’t have much faith at first, he is surrounded by individuals who have a strong faith in salvation, and he feels compelled to live up to their standards. This ultimately causes him to lie and claim that Jesus has appeared to him, even though he has had no such encounter. Hughes depicts the boy’s disappointment in the religious experience of being saved from sin. The boy is pressured into pretending to be saved to fit in with the other young sinners and avoid being the only one left on the mourners’ bench. Despite his efforts, he doesn’t feel any connection to Jesus and feels like he has deceived everyone in the church (Sharpe, 2020). Therefore, disillusionment, pressure, pretense, disappointment, and dishonesty can be best used to describe him. At the story’s beginning, he is a young boy whose aunt has taught that salvation is a real and tangible experience that one can see, hear, and feel. He believes in this and eagerly awaits the moment when Jesus will come to him and save him from sin. At the end of the story, […]
