What Lesson Is Learned In “The Lesson”

In Bambara’s story, Sylvia, the proud and self-righteous narrator, recounts a time when Miss Moore – a college educated black women on a mission of enlightenment in the black community – takes the children of the neighborhood – Sylvia included – on a trip to F.A.O. Schwarz to show them the profound class disparity of American society in terms they would understand – the price of toys. The lesson intended, then, is pretty straight forward and indeed Sugar, Sylvia’s best friend, seems to get it. To Miss Moore’s delight, after the trip to the toy store, Sugar observes, “that this is not much of a democracy if you ask me…Equal chance to pursue happiness means an equal crack at the dough, don’t it?” But the real lesson for the reader is in the portrait of our narrator, the portrait which emerges from between the lines and from under the first person. It is a picture of the kind of cognitive dissonance which can result from the traumatic realization of one’s own station – an ego deeply scarred in a confrontation with its own class existence and, in the case of Sylvia, its tragic retrenchment.

The narrator’s (Sylvia’s) voice conveys two very important aspects of her perspective, namely: attitude and identity. Attitude first: This story begins and ends with a burning self-righteousness chalk full of all the adolescent elitism and snobbery of a subject well in the throws of an inferiority complex. The invective used in the descriptions of everyone around her shows the destructive nature of Sylvia’s misguided resentment and the underlying insecurity that causes it. The first line makes this clear: “Back in the days when everyone was old and stupid or young and foolish and me and Sugar were the only ones just right…” In other words: everyone but me and Sugar were worthless. When the last line of the story comes, the only thing that has changed is that Sugar has been cut out (for learning Miss Moore’s Lesson) and Sylvia values only herself: “But ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nuthin.” Sugar understood why Miss Moore took them to F.A.O. Shwarz; Sylvia didn’t. And, instead of admitting her own inability to learn the lesson she simply refused to acknowledge that there was anything to learn – just like in the final moment of the story when Sugar wants to race to Hascombs and Sylvia lets her go without any intention of racing and thereby risking a loss. “We start down the block and she gets ahead which is O.K. by me cause I’m going to the West End and then over to the Drive to think this day through. She can run if she want to and even run faster. But ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nuthin.” Thus a text book example of cognitive dissonance is substituted for class consciousness, which brings us to a consideration of the role of identity (in the malignant sense it is used by multiculturalists and pluralists) and its intrinsic link to reactive pride.

The identity conveyed through the voice also functions as an exposition. Sylvia’s poor grammar and rough edged social graces show that she is not well educated and certainly not refined. The omission and mis-conjugation of verbs is very much in the style of the self differentiated African American use of English, and Sylvia appears to put a lot of weight on this identity. Her profound misunderstanding of the lesson is entirely the product of her identity bound perspective. In a pivotal moment, she almost grasps the importance of the trip, only to regress to petty egotistic pride:

“Who are these people that spend that much for performing clowns and $1000 for toy sailboats? What kinda work they do and how they live and how come we ain’t in on it? Where we are is who we are, Miss Moore always pointing out. But it don’t necessarily have to be that way, she always adds then waits for somebody to say that 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 talking about in the first damn place. But she ain’t so smart cause I still got her four dollars from the taxi and she sure ain’t getting it.”

- notice Miss Moore uses “poor people” not “black people”.

The petty competitiveness of the ending, the childish spite from the misinterpretation of “pie” in the line before, are products of the eager attempts to maintain an identity, a self-myth fashioned to reconcile self-love and reality. The profound importance of “Where we are is who we are” is lost on Sylvia because she doesn’t want to trouble herself with thinking about “how” she would go about demanding a bigger slice, nor does she want to be reminded of feeling “funny” and “shame” in the foyer of an upscale department store; even though she tells herself that she “got as much right to go in as anybody” she knows better and instead of facing the uncomfortable truth and fighting to undo it, she ignores it, lets resentment fester and throws spite at those around her who want change. A helpful contrast here would be a pivotal moment in Miller’s “Death of a Salesman”. The realization that Sylvia misses is the realization that Biff Loman has when he begs his father to give up his toxic American Dream, his delusional belief that he can make something of himself magically when circumstances won’t allow it:

“I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you. You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ash can like all the rest of them! I’m one dollar an hour, Willy! I tried seven states and couldn’t raise it. A buck an hour! Do you gather my meaning? I’m not bringing any prizes any more, and you’re going to stop waiting for me to bring them home!”

Here also the crucial point hinges on identity: what Biff is, his realization of what he is is the key to his enlightenment. If Sylvia were to accept the bitter pill of self-effacement, if she were to accept the fact that “Where we are is who we are” and reject her reactionary amour-propre then she wouldn’t be able to so easily laugh at Miss Moore or the junk man. Nor would she be able to so easily hate “the winos who cluttered up [their] handball court”, because to hate them would mean to hate herself since they were where she was. Sylvia’s inability to grasp what she is, is why she looks on the altruistic acts of Miss Moore with contempt and displays a clear admiration for the self serving she witnesses. So then the tepid diversion that “white folks crazy” not only mystifies reality and veils the true social relations behind amusing cultural idiosyncrasies, it also sews the seeds of an irrational envy that has nothing to do with social justice and will only result in embittered unfulfilling pantomime. For example, wearing furs in the heat of summer is no longer the exclusive privilege of crazy white folks; it is now equally accessible to the hyper-vain of any ethnicity – though this is still ‘not much of a democracy if you ask me.” At the end of the first paragraph, we get a taste of how Sylvia understands the dynamic of the world.

“[Miss Moore had] been to college and said it was only right that she should take responsibility for the young ones’ education, and she not even related by marriage or blood. So they’d go for it. Specially Aunt Gretchen. She was the main gofer in the family. You got some ole dumb shit foolishness you want somebody to go for, you send for Aunt Gretchen. She been screwed into the go-along for so long, it’s a blood-deep natural thing with her. Which is how she got saddled with me and Sugar and Junior in the first place while our mothers were in a la-de-da apartment up the block having a good ole time.”

Her animosity toward the “go-along” is clear enough and it is equally clear that she will see no difference between being taken advantage of and cooperation – hence her bewilderment at Miss Moore’s sense of community responsibility. This isn’t just a bad attitude toward life, it is essentially what the crazy white folks want because a conglomeration of self-lovers will never “wake up an demand their share” as poor people; they will always only do it for themselves which can always be written off as greed, if not completely ignored since the voice will not resound in quantity but will instead irritate with its petty resentful tone. But she doesn’t want to “wake up” because sleeping is easier. Sylvia doesn’t want to care, to be conscious of anything but herself, her own isolated identity. Her creed is her last declaration “ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nuthin”. And beneath this she is telling herself: Forget where you are; focus on your image and serve yourself because that best serves the system.