Rebecca Logan

Mr. Neuburger

Composition 102-Afternoon

February 8, 2011

Toni Cade Bambara-The Lesson

Who We Are

In Toni Bambara’s story “The Lesson” it is narrated by a young school girl named Sylvia

that is growing up in the slums without her mother and carelessly learning from Miss Moore’s

teachings. Bambara intuitively reaches the reader at a greater significance than first thought out

by the reader. Sylvia whom is very bluntly outspoken and rude in character is taught a lesson that

she grasps only with jealousy and anger. When Miss Moore takes her to a toy store where toys

cost more than what she can fathom she thinks aggressively in behavior. Sylvia states, “Where

we are is who we are, Miss Moore always pointin out…poor people have to wake up and

demand their share of the pie and don’t none of us know what kind of pie she talkin

about…”(13). Miss Moore is obviously teaching good lessons to learn about life but Sylvia does

not see past the slums and is only concerned of the present. The reader is the real student in

seeing through Sylvia’s behavior and grasping what is meant by Miss Moore’s teachings of

“where we are is who we are.”(13)

Works Cited

Bambara, Toni Cade Power of Language: A Collection of Readings

New York: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2009. Print