Democracy In The Lesson By Toni Cade Bambara

“The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara is about a young African-American girl who is born into a poor society. Her name is Sylvia. Sylvia has not had experienced much outside of her neighborhood. She believes her family’s way of living is the way it is for everyone. This changes when a college educated African- American lady moves into the neighborhood.

The Lesson, by Toni Cade Bambara, portrays a group of children living in the slums of New York City around 1972. They seem to be content living in poverty in some very unsanitary conditions. One character, Miss Moore, the children’s self appointed mentor, takes it upon herself to further their education during the summer months. She feels this is her civic duty because she is educated. She used F.A.O. Schwarz, a very expensive toystore, to teach them a lesson and inspire them to strive for success and attempt to better themselves and their situations.

Toni Cade Bambara wrote the short story, The Lesson, in 1972. The Lesson is considered by the Literary Canon to be a wonderful work of fiction because of its use of language, humanistic theme, symbolism, and non-genre plot. Two essential elements that add to the depth and enhance a reader?s comprehension of The Lesson are Bambara?s use of symbolism and theme.

Toni Cade Bambara's The Lesson is a very well written piece of history. This is a story from yesterday, when Harlem children didn't have good education or the money to spring for it. Bambara's tale tells about a little girl who doesn't really know how to take it when a good teacher finally does come along. This girl's whole life is within the poverty stricken area and she doesn't see why she must try hard. The teacher, Miss Moore, shows them what it is all about by taking them to a rich toy store, one in which a single toy costs more than year's supply of food.

The theme in "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara appears to be a lesson on

Toni Cade Bambara addresses how knowledge is the means by which one can escape out of poverty in her story The Lesson. In her story she identifies with race, economic inequality, and literary epiphany during the early 1970’s. In this story children of African American progeny come face to face with their own poverty and reality. This realism of society’s social standard was made known to them on a sunny afternoon field trip to a toy store on Fifth Avenue. Through the use of an African American protagonist Miss Moore and antagonist Sylvia who later becomes the sub protagonist and White society the antagonist “the lesson” was ironically taught.

INTRODUCTION The chapter By the People: Becoming a Practitioner of Democracy by Kenneth Winston discusses the quest of staying true to personal beliefs while establishing a career and achieving goals. Winston addresses the story of Aruna Roy’s career path and quest for equality in India. Roy has a strong passion for human rights in India, and she sought to raise the voices of the rural poor. Roy stopped at nothing to ensure that her morals, ethics and beliefs were not sacrificed in the name of a job security or the safety of an organization’s reputation. As a result, we see in this chapter, Roy’s ‘non-linear’ career path that includes changes in organizations and living situations.

The predominant theme in “The Lesson” composed by Toni Cade Bambara is creating an understanding to adolescents of all the opportunities life has to offer; a lesson on social class and having a choice which society you choose to live in. Miss. Moore who takes on the responsibility to educate the young ones has intentions of more than just taking the children to the store for amusement. Miss Moore 's informal lessons are aimed at educating the neighborhood children

A work of fiction, Democracy: An American Novel, is a novel in which Henry Adams skillfully addresses many social commentaries through satire and interesting characters. This novel can simply be described as a political love story. The main character, Mrs. Madeline Lightfoot Lee, originally leads her life as a “private philanthropist, amateur philosopher, and socialite” in New York (Adams v). After her husband and child died she lost her “taste for New York society” and everything that was in it (Adams 14). Eventually she became tired of her life in New York and decided to go to Washington D.C. to see what life had to offer her. The book has many parallels to Henry Adam’s own life. For example, when Mrs. Lee moved to Washington she lived on Lafayette Square, as did Henry Adams (“Washington, D.C.”). Madeline Lee is the kind of character who loves power, and she knew exactly where to look. Aside from finding out what exactly lay at the center of democracy and government, she wanted to see “the clash of interests, the interests of forty millions of people and a whole continent, centering at Washington; guided, restrained, controlled, or unrestrained and uncontrollable, by men of ordinary mould; the tremendous forces of government, and the machinery of society at work. What she wanted was POWER” (Adams 18). She was not the only one to travel to Washington, however. Madeline’s sister, Miss. Sybil Ross, came along with her. The two would much rather describe themselves as

Toni Cade Bambara addresses how knowledge is the means by which one can escape out of poverty in her story The Lesson. In her story she identifies with race, economic inequality, and literary epiphany during the early 1970’s. In this story children of African American progeny come face to face with their own poverty and reality. This realism of society’s social standard was made known to them on a sunny afternoon field trip to a toy store on Fifth Avenue. Through the use of an African American protagonist Miss Moore and antagonist Sylvia who later becomes the sub protagonist and White society the antagonist “the lesson” was ironically taught. Sylvia belong to a lower economic class, which affects her views of herself within highlights the

Everybody once was facing hard and struggles through at a young age learn acceptable differently. In Toni Cade Bambara’s “The Lesson” and Sandra Cisneros “The House On Mango Street,” the protagonists are both young girls and lives in a bad neighborhood who assent to faith in growing up quickly and learning the outside world that they live. In “The Lesson” Miss Moore opens her mind to exposing the level -class status by taking her and her friends to the toy store in wealthy part of New York City. In “ The Mango

Some experiences can change people as individuals and how they view things. The process of people growing up can take time but when a transformation occurs it  can be difficult to handle. Sylvia, the narrator in Toni Cade Bambara's "The Lesson," learns a lesson about social class how the rich are different from poor ,she realizes that the money rich people spend for their kids toys can feed a whole household of poor families.In the process, she loses some part of her pride that characterizes her childhood because she thought she was living a good life  till she realizes that rich kids toys can feed her entire household so she  begins to look for hints  or ways of being wealth so that she can  have better life than her family. She

Democracy has become the most widespread political form of government during the past decade, after the fall of all its alternatives. During the second part of the 20th century, the 3 main enemies of democracy, namely communism, fascism and Nazism, lost most of their power and influence. However, democracy is still only to be found in less than half of this world's countries. China with a fifth of the total population "had never experienced a democratic government" and Russia still doesn't have a well established democracy. By adopting a democratic perspective, 3 types of governments emerge, non-democratic, new democracies, and old democracies, and all have a different challenge to overcome: either to become democratic, to "consolidate"

The major theme of the story was creating awareness in adolescents about what life has to offer. The nature of human beings of accepting the realities of life to such an extent that apathy and lethargy sets in, is what proves to be destructive for the social fabric of today’s world. In this stagnation, Mrs. Moore provides the impetus required for people to realize their god given right to something better. We are told that Mrs. Moore has a college degree, is well dressed most of the times, and has a good command on her language. She seems to be a kind of a person who has seen the world. She has experienced life, and wants to use that experience in providing the children with an opportunity to broaden

Democracy to me always had a propagandist sort of vibe to it. When presented pop culture and movies, every instance the subject of democracy arises, it is also accompanied by some US plot to overthrow some South American communist regime. I identified democracy as a political form, a political tool, and my most preferred system of government. The American philosopher John Dewey, however, looks past the veil that democracy’s political and economic purposes produce and examines democracy instead as a way of life. Dewey identifies democracy as a truly human way of living, because it demands the participation of all the human beings that reside within its form to contribute to the values the system is purposed to provide for. Voting is the mechanism that allows the participants of a democracy to contribute and maintain those values, and honor the foundations that allow democracy to survive, while giving their participants’ equal opportunity to live and be their best.