Toni Cade Bambara's "The Lesson" Theme in Bambara's "The Lesson"

Toni Cade Bambara's "The Lesson" is a short work of fiction about a group of children in a working class African-American neighborhood who learn a valuable lesson. Through her descriptions and use of dialect, Bambara establishes the nature of her characters, especially the narrator, Sylvia, and the outsider, Miss Moore. Bambara then places the characters in a situation that showcases the chasm between the children, who live in poverty, and the world just blocks away from their homes on Fifth Avenue in New York City. The distinctions the author draws between her characters and those with money create the story's theme. Yet, Bambara does not let it rest there; she makes the message clear to readers that the children in the story can improve their lot in life.

The narrator and primary character is Sylvia. She is a young lady with an attitude as evidenced by her descriptions of other characters and her observations of the world around her. "Arrogant, sassy, and tough, with a vocabulary that might shock a sailor, Sylvia is also witty, bright, and vulnerable" (Hargrove). She appears to be a leader of the group of kids, but she is frequently in opposition to and critical of them. The characters called Mercedes and Big Butt take the brunt of the narrator's abuse.

Mercedes is interested in the finer things in life, which may be how she earned her nickname. Mercedes possesses "a box of stationery on (her) desk...There's a big rose on each sheet and the envelopes smell like roses" (Bambara 7). Sylvia mocks Mercedes...

Mercedes represents a behavior Sylvia will have to master in order to be successful in the white world (Korb).
Big Butt's unintentionally shows interest in education. This is the other key component to success the narrator must master in order to be among the haves of the world. While looking in the window of the toy store, Big Butt spies a microscope and is fascinated with it despite its three hundred dollar price tag. Miss Moore takes the opportunity to explain the value of a microscope for educational purposes regardless of age, and the narrator wants "to choke Big Butt for bringing it up in the first damn place" (Bambara 5). Nevertheless, the concept of the microscope lays the seed for Bambara's purpose in the story about education being the way to improve one's lot in life and reinforces the theme of the gap between the two worlds.

Miss Moore with her explanation of the necessity and value of education irritates the narrator who is already disposed to dislike "the only woman on the block with no first name" who is "always planning these boring-ass things for us to do" (Bambara 1). Miss Moore "is a symbol of changing times" (Korb). She has "nappy hair and proper speech and no makeup" (Bambara 1). The author makes Miss Moore both physically and intellectually different from other people in the children's neighborhood. A clear line is drawn between what African-Americans living and working in Sylvia's neighborhood…