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The tonal expression of the short story “The Lesson” sets a melancholic and disdainful tone throughout the story through the narrative of the main character Sylvia. Sylvia is a very critical and humorous character that derives her personality through her rebellious ways and her dark sarcasm. The tone of the setting around Sylvia is a resignation of her surroundings where poverty plagues her community and the lesson about issues such as racism, poverty, and how poverty sadly limits her community to opportunities.

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1. Kenshin Lin, Kalani Martin, Ethan Gutierrez, Merrick Donovan

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1. What do you think the kids learned after the toy store?

2. What does the language/dialogue between the characters symbolize about them?

3. What were Miss Moore’s motives to teach the kids about economic inequality?

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1. Exposition

1. The main character Sylvia recalls earlier in her life about a teacher figure named Miss. Moore, continuing the characters pile in with a main focus on Sylvia being resistant to Ms. Moore and not waiting to learn.

2. Conflict (inciting incident)

1. Getting the museum and incurring the price of objects in there

3. Rising Action

1. Asking and figuring out the price of some objects such as the boat, as some extatentialism about how much money they dont have.

4. Climax

1. The toy store finding out even more they cant affored certain things and some people are above them; furthermore, the fact theat they aren;t as well off becasue of some certain reason they dont know.

5. Falling Action

1. WIth four dollars in hand they innact what they want to do with that

6. Resolution

1. Slyvia and ugar go run to get some food sybolically and literally racing as “She can run if she want to and even run faster. But ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nuthin” (Bambara).

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The children in The Lesson are symbols of the oblivious and/or helpless oppressed minority populations that slowly come to the realization of their abilities and what change could be done to improve their lives. At the beginning of the story, all the children are unaware and don't care about the world beyond their lives or what they know, and ignore Miss. Moores attempts to reveal it to them. Throughout the story as they get to the Toy Store, they come to the realization of what goes on beyond their own lives and gain a sense of desire for the toys that are restricted from them but others have access to, the rights possessed by others. By the end, at least one child has come to the realization of the inequality faced and what change is needed for equality and justice.

Miss. Moore represents activist leaders and reform protests that push for changes and try to spread their realizations to everyone to help the cause. Throughout the entire story she made repeated attempts to teach the children of the injustice and inequality of their world and help them really come to that realization and genuinely consider it. She demands change and criticizes the current system for how it blocks access to happiness or education from minorities.

The microscope represents the lack of access to education by minorities as it is so highly priced out of the range affordable by them and thus practically impossible. A microscope is also an educational instrument used for science, and without the ability to afford it there is no ability to access it and use and gain from it like others could easily do.

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The characters in this story are Sylvia(main narrator), Sugar, and Mercedes. Sylvia is a character that is portrayed to have a strong minded, aware, and rebellious mindset. We pick these elements up from the beginning of the short story that overall Sylvia is a static character that lets her opinion be known and stays a pretty judgemental character throughout the story. Although, we could see a drift in Sylvias mindset at the end of the story. Sugar is Sylvia’s cousin and close friend. Sylvia explains her loseness at the beginning of the story to Sugar, but throughout the story realizes that Sugar's draw to Mrs. Moore’s lessons are opening her mind to different perspectives, taking away from that tight knit feeling of close mindedness they both acquire. Mercedes is portrayed as an intelligent and neat girl that is a little more privileged than her peers and owns a desk at her home unlike her peers. She is also very attentive to Ms. Moore’s lesson.

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The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara is comparative to it’s to own title with the intertwined story of a group of students under Ms. Moore’s watch. With a circumstance a majority of these kids don't know the weight of money and how much they are set with in life, a story of self actualization and awareness after a trip to a museum and a toy shop sets the main character who is not named to think different in his position in the world comparing his own circumstance to others. The lesson is a lesson upon where you are in life to the main character in which she gets a new motivation upon their own future as the last line, “She can run if she wants to and even run faster. But ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nuthin” (Bambara). Perhaps pertaining to now knowing that they are less fortunate that they won't be held to it.

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Toni Cade was born on March 25, 1939, in New York City. She later adopts the name “Bambra” when discovering it as a signature on a notebook in her great-grandmother's trunk. Not much is known about her childhood as she has remained quiet about the topic; however, she has revealed that her writing is inspired by two women named Miss Naomi and Miss Gladys. Throughout her life, she has been interested in movements regarding womens’ rights and black rights. This led her to pursue a career as a professor of English and African American Studies. Along with this, she went on to produce a number of short stories such as The Gorilla, My Love, and The Seabirds are Alive. She was then quickly recognized for her rhythmic, unorthodox style of writing by many critics such as the Saturday Review and the Washington Post Book World. After living such a fulfilling life, Bambra passed away in Philadelphia on December 9th, 1995 due to colon cancer; her last novel being Those Bones Are Not My Child, published after her death in 1999.