A Reader’s Response †The Lesson

The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara is a tier of a juicy sm all-minded girl and her gang of take ins who were bundled up hotshot summer day eon to go with Miss Moore to a run store. Sylvia and her cousin Sugar ar with Fat Butt, Rosie Giraffe, Mercedes, Q. T. , Junebug and Flyboy, not their real names solely monikers defecaten them by Sylvia. The names came from their most obvious trait, Fat Butt for his fondness for food, Mercedes for her elegant tastes, Q. T. , is the materializationest, and Rosie Giraffe is always ready to kick asses. One may hypothesize Sugar is for her world the exact opposite of sourly Sylvia.Miss Moore wants to educate the kids approximately m superstary, specifically, how oftentimes of it cornerstone procure what. Her objective really is to cook them uplift how much they can not afford compargond with what the rest of their piddlefellow citizens can, half of which be whites. If there is one thing that can convinced(predicate) catch the int erest of kids, it is a gip. So Miss Moore took them to an upscale toy store at Fifth Avenue, when all the toys the kids knew and had were from Pops. The tone of the story is sarcastic all through let on, from the first person point of view of Sylvia.Bambaras style is effective in her portrayal of Sylvia, as a little Black, spoiled brat who has a vocabulary peppered with cuss words such(prenominal) as sorry-ass, goddamn, boring-ass, dumb shit, smelly-ass, smart-ass, nappy-head bitch, scratching the shit out of me and who believes that white folk crazy. She uses similes to introduce Miss Moore who is black as hell and whom grownups talked behind her bear out like a dog. With the story, Bambara takes the readers to pore into the psyche of a child innate(p) on the on the early(a) side of the tracks.The reader would pretend that it is a gang member speak instead of a precocious kid from the block when she says she would much rather go to the Sunset and terrorize the west India n kids and take their hair ribbons and their money too. The story is told from the eyes of a child ultimately bored with how the adults attach so much splendour to the mundane. Sylvia asks, Watcha bring us here for, Miss Moore? To which Miss Moore replies with, You sound angry, Sylvia. ar you mad near something? Bambara keeps the lightness in the treatment of the characters, who are all kids except for Miss Moore, by strong doses of humor.Big Butt wants to buy that there. Rosie Giraffe cuts him with That there? You dont even what it is, stupid. When it is Rosies turn, she asks what a paperweight is. Flyboy answers with, To weigh paper with, dumbbell. in that respect are moments when the kids sound pathetic. Miss Moore asks about their desks at home where they do their homework. Junebug says he does not hold back a desk, Big Butt says he does not do his homework and Flyboy says he does not accept a home. The theme of the story is about inconvenience of economic disparit y, among all others, between the Whites and Blacks. It can be an emotional one when discussed seriously and earnestly.The Lesson successfully attempts to present the issue in a refreshing manner without taking the truth away and the need for it to be confronted. Bambara uses literary techniques to bring home the point to her readers and provide the insightful highlights of the story. For a $1,195. 00 toy sailboat, the kids reactions are as follow (1) with Hyperbole, Sylvia thinks with That much money it should last forever. Q. T. figures that completely the rich shop in the store that sells the sailboat. (2) with Litotes, Flyboy tells him You are a skilful boy What was your first clue? Sylvia fancies a $35 clown that somersaults. (3) with anaphora, cardinal dollars could buy new bunk beds for Junior and Gretchens boy. Thirty-five dollars and the social unit household could visit Grand-daddy Nelson in the country. Thirty-five dollars would pay for the rent and the gentle bi ll too. These contentions are significant because even the usually doubting Sylvia realizes what other important things $35 can buy, something to sleep on for two boys, the contentment of an old man, a roof on the familys head with their merriment thrown in. Miss Moores plan must be operative alright. (4) with Hyphopora, Imagine for a minute what kind of society it is in which some people can spend on a oy what it would cost to move over a family of six or septet. What do you think? Sugar verbalizes her gross out for the insensitivity of some. The girl has her values right when she is equates the toy with food for seven people. Buying the toy is the height of insensitivity. Aside from the last two quotes above, there are others that add to its meaningful dissection of the social issue of disparity. What kinda work they do and how they live and how come we aint on it? Who we are is who we are. These are the words of Miss Moore, typifying those who question the inequality of things and yet deal the fact as it is.They do not even challenge the post and right the wrong of it. But it dont necessarily have to be that way poor people have to wake up and demand their share of the pie. These words are also from Miss Moore, speaking for those who believe that something can and must be done. It is like saying that vigor will change for as long as people do not know how to fight for what is by right theirs. I think this is not much of a democracy if you ask me. Equal fate to pursue happiness means an equal crack at the clams This is entirely wrong. Democracy is not handed down, it is something one fights for.Equal destiny and equal crack is not for free, one must earn the run into and as well as the crack. Works Cited Bambara, T. C. (1972). The Lesson. Retrieved February 5, 2009 from http//cal. ucdavis. edu/gender/thelesson. hmtl A referees Response A Good homo is Hard to look Flannery OConnors A Good Man is Hard to come across is a third person n arrative that begins on a funny mode and ends on a tragic note. The grannie is a permanent old woman who gets her way, in one or the other. She has a pocketbook of antics to get her family, particularly her son to rule things the way she tallys them and get them to delay to her plans for everybody.She meets opposition from the two most impossible to convince people in the family, her two grandchildren. She threatens them every now and then with a Just dream up that the next time you want me to curl your hair. She almost always gets what she wants, but not always including this particular trip to Florida. She wants to go to Tennessee instead to see old friends. Her spin about an escapee from the penitentiary roaming the highways of Florida is not working on her son Bailey. Nonetheless, on D-day she is the first to board the car.While on the way, she remembers a particular old house she remembers from childhood that she says would be nice to see again. Bailey is hearing none o f it. She consciously lie about some reclusive room where the family silver is, not telling the truth but lack she were to get much needed support from the oppositionists, her grand kids. This time she wins and they were head word to this place through a 36-mile dirt road. It suddenly dawns on her that they are a state away from the house, which is in Tennessee and not in Georgia. The much feared escapee from the Penitentiary comes along with his two other companions.This is the turning point of the story. OConnor makes the characters so real in the way she portrays the grandmother and June Star. Grandmother dances to the medicine of Tennessee Waltz while Bailey stares fiercely at her. The irreverent June Star thinks her grandmother does not want to be left out in trips because she does not want to miss anything, that she does not want to live in a broken-down place like that of Red Sam and after the accident, she says that naughts fine-tuneed with a tinge of disappointment whe n she sees her grandmother coming out alive from the car.OConnor is effective in giving life to their characters that one will want to squeeze the neck of June Star or give Grandmother a big hug. OConnor uses Similes face was as color as the T-shirt, Alliterations big black battered, dark and deep, Dont see no sun dont see no cloud, Anaphora Tennessee has the mountains and Georgia has the hills, and Allusion Gone With the Wind. The story tells us about the ironies and contrasts in life.There is the grandmother who sees the beauty in anything and everything like the mountains of Tennessee and the hills of Georgia, and the cute little black boy by the door of a shack, dances to the beat of an old favorite, takes time to see friends, calls a day beautiful in spite of the hazard she is in and sees a good man in the Mis move out to kill all of them. The other character in the story is the Misfit who is hardened to the core. He thinks the world is out to get him and treat him nasty a ll the time.He does not know of a single goodness left in people. There are meaningful quotes in the story that touches the reader about unfamiliar scenes of real life. Flannery OConnors A Good Man is Hard to Find has several I was not a deleterious boy that I remember of but sometimes along the line I done something wrong and got sent to the penitentiary. I was buried alive. ordering has not been fair and kind to the kid who became the Misfit. He was not presumption a fair shake in life that being hazardous became his way of life, in and out of the penitentiary. I call myself The Misfit because I cant make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment. The Misfit was too young to make out what it was he had done that he was punished for so long and so harsh. Whatever it was he must have pull, he was sure that he did not deserve the hard life he had been through. It was the same case with Him Jesus as with me except He hadnt committed any crime and they co uld prove I had committed one because they have the papers on me. The Misfit compared his conviction with that of Jesus Christ, who he said was bare. He, too, was innocent as far as his conscience goes, but while they had no basis to establish the guilt of Jesus, they had papers to convict him to life in the penitentiary. She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to necessitate her every minute of her life. For the Misfit, only death would just people from being bad. It could be the reason why he kept killing people, to save them from being bad. He thinks that the longer people live, they keep going bad.