Toni Cade Bambara's The Lesson

Words: 962
Pages: 4

Reading literature is interesting, but sometimes it is not so easy to determine the theme of a literary work or, to be more precise, an allegory. An allegory is a literary work that has some symbolic meaning or moral hidden within its contents and in some cases, is not apparent. For example, Toni Cade Bambara’s “The Lesson” has several themes throughout its entirety, but the main theme is not evident. Bambara wrote this short story as though he wanted to distract the reader from the main point of the story, which prohibits thorough comprehensiveness. “The Lesson” focuses on a group of less fortunate neighborhood kids who spend a great deal of time under the leadership of Miss Moore, a well-educated, young woman who takes on a responsibility …show more content…
With Sylvia being the narrator, who is hot-headed and ornery, it clouds the readers’ judgement of the other characters, especially Miss Moore, and, in many ways, makes Miss Moore seem as an irrelevant character in the story. Based off her character’s dialogue, Sylvia seems to be more focused on indulging in lots of mischief, taking into account that she reflects upon the time her and Sugar bombarded the church and the way she refers to the other characters in the story. Despite the fact that her character may be used to keep the audience interested in the story with sassy remarks, Sylvia simply stands in the way of the audience’s conception of the story, which not only confuses the readers, but also disturbs their apprehension of the theme. A more suitable narrator would be Sugar because she pays attention to the lesson that Miss Moore is trying to teach. Near the end of the story, Sugar argues that “it is not much of a democracy,” given that an “equal chance to pursue happiness means an equal crack at the dough,” conceding that she is apprehensive to the reasoning behind the prices. The audience would better perceive the theme if the story were told in Sugars point of view because her logic and perception ties in with what Miss Moore is trying to get across to the kids, i.e. the