Attina Zhao Discussion 4

“The Lesson” consists of a story of when a group of youngsters is brought to an expensive toy store by Miss Moore in an attempt to start them thinking about the inequalities of the world.

Sylvia, the young narrator, responds to Miss Moore’s lesson with derision. She is a stubborn one, who is angered by both the audacity of this woman, to bring them to a store so clearly out of their league, and by her own response to it. One can clearly see that the lesson that Miss Moore was trying to instill was right at her fingertips, with how she said that the price of that sailboat “pisses [her] off,” and how she didn’t dare to touch it. By the end of the trip, she is upset at how she’s beginning to realize the lesson that Miss Moore was trying to teach, with how resistant she was in the beginning and how much she dislikes Miss Moore.

Sugar initially was a cohesive unit with Sylvia. The majority of her mentions in the story up until the very end are always with Sylvia saying “me and Sugar,” as if they were two peas in a pod. When Sylvia hesitates to open the door to the store, she steps aside for Sugar to do it, but Sugar hesitates as well. When looking at the sailboat, Sylvia is angered by the opulence, and the fact that Sugar is able to touch it when she can’t. However, at the end it takes a competitive note after Sugar betrays Sylvia in a sense by “pushing [her] off her feet like she never done before” and replying to Miss Moore’s question by telling her what she wanted to hear. Sugar seems to reject Miss Moore’s teachings to pander to upset Sylvia, though.