Brian Chan

The two characters from “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara would be Sugar and Sylvia. These two characters response to the experience they had at the FAO Schwarz store were very different. Sugar’s first response at the FAO toy store was whether or not stealing was a viable option at the location. But before long she came to a realization that the price tags set up in the store for a toy was able to feed an entire family of 6-7 for a year, and this struck her hard as not everyone had the opportunity to get a cut out of the promised “equal opportunity” that democracy has offered. Sylvia on the other hand, was still hung up on the idea of the four dollars she was able to get and still didn’t seem to pick up the unfairness of society and was content with what she had in her little town.

I believe Professor Conway assigned “The Most Handsome Drowned Man,” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez as the first story for a few different reasons. One of the reasons would be due to the enthralling setting revolving around a dead man. This story was able to bring about a lot of discussion between the different analogies each student was able to come up with. Another reason would be the fact that this story was able to not only bring about imaginations to the villagers in the story, it also riled the entire class up with our own imaginations and stories. These are the reasons why I believed that Professor Conway assigned “The Most Handsome Drowned Man,” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez as the first story of our semester together.