Angel Gomez

In my research paper i will be writing about Toni Cade Bambara’s “The Lesson”. This story is about a group a students learning the racial inequality on the meaning of money. For my research i will be using the article called “The role of dialect representation in speaking from the margins: “The Lesson” of Toni Cade Bambara” by Katy M. Wright. When reading this article, the author mentions how Toni Cade Bambara uses foul language with the character named Sylvia to show stronger emotion when talking about the trip to the toy store. I am using this article as it was one of the articles that stood out the most when describing the emotions of the characters in “The Lesson” and the way Toni Cade Bambara uses them. In “The Lesson” Toni Cade Bambara likes to have their characters do most of the talking instead of the teacher named “Miss Moore” because the students are the ones learning. https://go-gale-com.bmcc.ezproxy.cuny.edu/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&u=cuny_mancc&id=GALE%7CA181406651&v=2.1&it=r

In the poem “The Wife” it talks about a woman who is not married, depict herself as a wife and describes what it is to be a woman and what it is to be a married woman. The story “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is about a married woman named Louise Mallard who’s husband passes away due to a railroad accident but she learns to be herself because being married made her feel as if her some of her freedom was taken away. The two main characters have similar life aspects as to feeling like a free person when not married. In the poem “The Wife” it says “She rose to his requirement, dropped The playthings of her life To take the honorable work of woman and of wife”. The beginning of this section of the poem shows that the woman when being married takes the personal fun of her life to take on the more responsible tasks of a married woman.

The Lecture “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Flannery O’Connor is about the suspense and selfishness the grandmother conveys when she convinces her family to go on a trip to Tennessee instead of Florida just for her own interests. The way she convinced them to take a trip to Tennessee is by telling them that the Misfit had escaped the penitentiary. In the lecture it states “Then, in what ends up being a fatal act of selfishness she brings her cat along on the trip even though she knows Bailey doesn’t like to travel with the cat”. The grandmother has such a big ego that anything she does not want to happen, she will get an idea on how to avoid it. Also, in the lecture it says “Along the way she regales them with a story from her youth when she was courted by Mr. Edgar Atkins Teagarden. She would have done well to marry him, she says, because he became a very rich man. Through the Grandmother ’s nonstop chatter we see how superficial, small-minded, ignorant, hypocritical, and self-satisfied she is”.

The section from the chorus i decided on is 540-580 ” who is the man proclaimed by Delphi’s prophetic rock as the bloody handed murderer. The augur has spread confusion, terrible confusion; I do not approve what was said nor can I deny it. I do not know what to say; I am in a flutter of foreboding; I never heard in the present nor past of a quarrel between the sons of Labdacus and Polybus, that I might bring as proof in attacking the popular fame of Oedipus, seeking to take vengeance for undiscovered death in the line of Labdacus”. Teiresias is referred as the fate teller when he is the one who is responsible for indicating what happens to Oedipus. No one can comprehend how Oedipus is involved with the suffering that happens in the future when he is the responsible ruler for stopping Sphinx with the well known riddles. Oedipus was an exemplary character due to his help for the city, which is why it was others who were shocked and fearful that they would paint him as a killer.

The short story “Araby” by James Joyce, is about the love that a young boy has about a girl. This short story is told by questions to lead on how the boys obsession is about the girl. In the story, the narrator asks a question “What is the significance of the extinguished light at the end of the story that leaves him burning with anguish?”. This question leads to the idea that the boy is very eager and obsessed to find out what will happen between him and the girl. The reason i believe this is because in story on page 4, it says “Notice how the only light seems to be associated with appearances of the girl with whom the boy is infatuated”, this quote shows that the boy sees the girl as the most beautiful girl by saying that the light is associated by her appearances. Furthermore, in the story it mentions “In all his descriptions of her, she is edged in an almost holy light”.

The story “The most Handsomest Drowned Man” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez was a story about how the discovery of Handsome drowned man changed the atmosphere of a group of people in a small community of 20 wooden houses who helped the drowned man. In the story it mentions “They noticed too that he bore his death with pride, for he did not have the lonely look of other drowned men who came out of the sea or that haggard, needy look of men who drowned in rivers. But only when they fnished cleaning him of did they become aware of the kind of man he was and it lef them breathless. Not only was he the tallest, strongest, most virile, and best built man they had ever seen, but even though they were looking at him there was no room for him in their imagination”. This quote shows that the village in where the drowned man appeared, the people were more than happy to help him but their village was not going to fit the drowned man because of his size and his appearance.

In the excerpt “Salvation” by Langston Hughes, Langston was a boy who was being put up on the mourners bench along with other kids who had sinned. This was sort of a test for Langston because while sitting on the bench, Langston is seeing every other kid leave the bench ready to see Jesus but Langston was the last one still sitting on the mourners bench. In the story it says “Let’s get up and be saved.” So he got up and was saved. Then I was left all alone on the mourners’ bench. My aunt came and knelt at my knees and cried, while prayers and song swirled all around me in the little church. The whole congregation prayed for me alone, in a mighty wail of moans and voices. And I kept waiting serenely for Jesus, waiting, waiting – but he didn’t come. I wanted to see him, but nothing happened to me”. This shows that Langston wanted to be saved by Jesus but due to the sins he committed it was taking longer than expected.

In the story “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara, the 2 characters that stand out the most in the story are Sylvia and Sugar. The reason Sylvia stands out the most is because she shows in the story that she does not want to be part of the wrong doings. In page 5, it says I just couldn’t go through with the plan. Which was for me to run up to the altar and do a tap dance while Sugar played the nose flute and messed around in the holy water”. This shows she acts sort of like an adult due to that she does not want to do anything wrong. The reason why Sugar is another character stands out is because in the story she is pictured as a girl who characterizes herself as someone who wants everything to herself. In the story it says “Can we steal?” Sugar asks very serious like she’s getting the ground rules squared away before she plays. “I beg your pardon,” say Miss Moore, and we fall out. So she leads us around the windows of the toy store and me and Sugar screamin, “This is mine, that’s mine, I gotta have that, that was made for me, I was born for that”.