"The Lesson"

By: Toni Cade Bambara

 

The other day in my AP lit class we were put into groups and given an assignment. we were instructed to read a short story, which was assigned to us, and after reading it, to apply a certain critical approach to it and determine if that approach worked or not. My group read "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara. While my group each presented their input and their approaches, I was still trying to think of what I was going to say. I had had it all planned out perfectly the day before; However, of course, I left all the notes I had jotted down at home the night before. So when everyone else in my group had finished and my turn was up, naturally, I became a little nervous. I'm not usually nervous when talking to a group, in fact, I actually like public speaking. That day though, my voice was definitely shaky. I just hate not knowing exactly what I'm going to say, in fear of sounding unintelligent. But before I get to side tracked, back to the main point of this blog, the story. So in "The Lesson" a group of kids are carted around by a character Ms. Moore, who has beaten the economic system and social stereotype of her class. She is trying to teach the kids in the story a lesson about money and how important money is, and how they, if they apply themselves, can beat the system as well and make money in life. My approach was archetypes. I said that, for this story in particular, it didn't really work. The characters, if anything, were symbols based off stereotypes. For example Ms. Moore was a symbol of success, Sylvia(the group leader) was a stereotypical symbol of failure and the fact that most of these kids simply don't even try to succeed, Sugar(Sylvia's right-hand man) is a symbol of potential because she hears Ms. Moore's message loud and clear and decides that she does not want the kind of life her parents have but a life where she can make something better of herself, and lastly a toy sailboat that the kids see in an expensive toy store, is a symbol of hope that success is possible, it is an escape out of the system. Symbols helped me view this story in a different light and it helped me provide the class with some pretty good input and I felt like most of the class understood the meaning behind our story much more clearly once I had provided them with the meanings and symbols behind each of the simple characters in this short story. For me, "The Lesson", by Toni Bambara, truly did teach me some important lessons.