RR 2 Essays (585 words) - Ballets, Creative Works,

Reading Reaction Reading Reaction on "The Lesson" The short story "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara is about a group of relatively young children who live in the same neighborhood and are mentored by an educated woman who also lives in their neighborhood. The setting for most of the story takes place on Fifth Avenue in the well-known toy store called F.A.O. Schwartz. The woman, Miss Moore, attempted to teach the children about the concept of "true/real money" and was able to do so with giving the main character, Sylvia, five dollars to pay the cab driver and asked her to do the math and give the driver a ten percent tip. After some chatter and discussion between the children and Miss Monroe, there was something taught to them, at least some of them. Without revealing the ending, there is definitely a lesson learned, as the title of the story would suggest. "The Lesson" has an array of characters that include children called Flyboy, Sugar, Junebug, Mercedes, Q.T., Rosie Giraffe, Big Butt, and Sylvia. The story is told from Sylvia's perspective and it can be assumed that she is not very old based on her vernacular and thought process; Sylvia is probably between the ages of eight and ten. She, being the main character, is considered to be the protagonist and her mentor, Miss Moore, is the antagonist. An antagonist is most often described as the villain or the opposing person within the plot. Some infamous antagonists come from fictional stories like the Joker (who is Batman's arch nemesis), Darth Vader (the evil one in Star Wars), or Lord Voldemort (from the Harry Potter series). What can confuse someone about the antagonist is that they may assume it is the character with bad intentions. However, in cases like the story of Deadpool, the protagonist has bad intentions or more of a villain-like character, but since he is the main character, he cannot be the antagonist. Miss Moore is not evil, but she does challenge Sylvia. With that, and the fact that Sylvia is the protagonist, Miss Moore is the antagonist. Miss Moore challenges Sylvia in many ways, but they are all strictly concerned with education, whether that be school subjects or real-life aspects. The first incident that Sylvia talks about is when Miss Moore asks the kids if they knew what real money is as opposed to monopoly money. Sylvia was turned off by that and even sounded offended because of course they knew what money was. Sylvia said, "And Miss Moore asking us do we know what money is like we a bunch of retards," (Bambara, 1972, p. 16). This sets a premise for the moral of the story in which is revealed towards the end of the story. Another question that Miss Moore posed to the children was asking if they had a desk at home to use. Some of them pipe in and say that they do or that they do not, but she attempts to explain how it's important to have a personal work space. Unfortunately, Flyboy interrupted, and she could not finish what she was going to say, however it was leading into something presumably deep. Sylvia, being the young impressionable child that she is, is easily susceptible to teachings by anyone, let alone an educated adult such as Miss Moore. The protagonist vs antagonist relationship in the short story, "The Lesson" is clearly a mentor/mentee relationship between Sylvia and Miss Moore.