In ”The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara, the themes that the story develops are appearance, fairness, social class, embarrassment, and education. The story unfolds through a young African-American woman named Sylvia. Sylvia is a restless and very stubborn young woman who wants to take her life into her own hands. Although Sylvia has a very special character, despite stealing Miss Moore’s money, she has a good analytical mind and a strong sense of justice. This is reflected in her anger at the unequal treatment of the toy store and her comments about her mother taking advantage of Aunt Gretchen. The worst thing about her is that she’s always quick to criticize other people’s faults, but she seems to be particularly concerned with gullibility and hypocrisy. In ”The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara, Mercedes’ character is one of the children of the Harlem community that Miss Moore decides to accept as her protection. This role shows that she has more understanding and maturity than other children. Also, she behaves differently than others. According to Mercedes’ comments, her situation is somewhat encouraging because, unlike the other characters, her financial situation is a bit better.
2 thoughts on “Walter A Macancela Week 4 Discussion”
I agree Sylvia is a stubborn person because all the time she seemed to have a hostility against Miss Moore. Before Miss Moore took the children to have a trip on FAO Schwarz, she was disobedient on her teaching style, which she thought was as if totally following the textbook and boring. Even after she learned the life meaningful lesson from Miss Moore, she still insisted on her attitude of never pressure Miss Moore, keep trying to avoid Sugar speaking out loud their thinking. However, I can see Sylvia’s stubbornness can affect her life goal of improving the poor’s situation and never stop.
Sylvia was definitely a character that was introduced in the story that held a grudge against Miss Moore since the very beginning and was hating her for everything quite literally. Sylvia was happy and content with the 4 dollars she had stolen from Miss Moores while they were looking at price tags of toys they may never be able to afford. This shows how enclosed she was in her little bubble.