The short story “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara written in 1972. Was about a sort of teacher figure, Miss Moore, who took a few children out on a summer day to teach them about money at a Fifth Avenue toy store, F.A.O. Schwarz. While being there these children were so shocked that toys could be so expensive and they wondered what types of people would spend this amount of money on a toy. Some of the children spoke about their own toys and shared stories about how their own toys break all the time but being that they’re cheap they can easily get new ones, and they all wondered why someone would spend this much money on a toy that would most likely end up broken anyway. The narrator was actually one of the children, Sylvia. Sylvia imagines herself asking for a thirty-five dollar toy and imagines her aunt’s response to that, by her aunt’s imaginary response and how much a 35 dollar toy sounded crazy, one can infer that this short story was written when everything was a lot cheaper in The United States. For example, “…Well, we got four dollars anyway,” she says. “Uh hun.” “We could go to Hascombs and get half a chocolate layer and then go to the Sunset and still have plenty of money for potato chips and ice cream sodas.”(Bambara pg. 6)The time that this story was written about one could go a far way with just four dollars. So one can infer it was not written about this current time period because four dollars gets you nowhere.

Sylvia really did not fancy Miss Moore, she didn’t participate much in the lesson because she believed it would give Miss Moore the satisfaction that she wanted, “…Miss Moore though I never talk to her, I wouldn’t give the bitch that satisfaction”(Bambara pg. 4) Also,  “…And we kinda hated her too”(Bambara pg. 1) Being that the story was told from Sylvia’s perspective the readers could only feel Sylvia’s dislike towards Miss Moore. Towards the end of the story, they all thought what types of people could possibly spend this much money on a toy that can support a family of six for a while, and one of the children mentioned white people, this idea made Sylvia so angry that she didn’t know whether she should be angry at Miss Moore or Sugar for simply asking questions.

I believe making Sylvia the narrator, where the readers can know her thoughts was a form of writer’s craft, which in the end made the main idea of the story clearer. It seems as if Sylvia is the one who likes Miss Moore least, and also the one who disregards almost everything she says and is closed off to everything that involves Miss Moore. This is only because she is the narrator. But towards the end, Sylvia finally understood what Miss Moore was trying to teach all the children, and that made her angry. Although making the narrator Sylvia made the main idea clearer, this story’s main idea was not just put out there, the reader really has to analyze and re-read to really understand the main idea. The way the short story ended, was on a cliffhanger which also made finding the main idea a bit more difficult for the readers, and made them think.

The main idea of the short story “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara may indeed be the same as the actual lesson being taught to the children in the story, the social inequality for colored people that leads to economic inequality. At the beginning of the story Miss more speaks about how they are all poor and that they live in the slums, “…And then she gets to the part about we all poor and lives in the slums which I don’t feature.”(Bambara pg. 2). As you can see Slyvia did not think that any of them were poor or that they lived in the slums. But it was as if after going to F.A.0. Schwarz that she and all the other children realized that Miss Moore was actually right. They also realize the social inequality that leads to economic inequality “…Imagine for a minute what kind of society it is in which some people can spend on a toy what it would cost to feed a family of six or seven.”(Bambara pg. 6) They realize that they are not the types of people who can buy things like this. But Bambara makes it clear the types of people who can “White folks crazy.”(Bambara pg. 6) Stating these very words changed everything, this story could have just been about poor people comparing themselves to the more fortunate, rich people. Once Bambara states race it changes everything and lets the readers understand what her true main idea is, it is not just economic inequality but racial inequality. The main idea is inequality, whichever way one looks at it, “ Equal chance to pursue happiness means an equal crack at the dough”(Bambara pg. 6) These children understand that there is a sense of inequality because they realize society hasn’t given them an equal chance to pursue happiness or make money like other groups of people, and they all realize this because of Miss Moore’s lesson. There were several times in the story where Miss Moore referred to them all as poor and nobody really believed her, it took them going to the toy store and comparing the prices to the toys there and the ones that they already owned. After the children realized they were poor they noticed how they do not even get the opportunities to buy toys that are that expensive simply because of their race, which the children are aware of because they use “white folks” to refer to spending too much on things or the way they dress regardless of the weather.