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Well, I got my 2nd essay back from my English class today….

I got a B+. Word. Hah.. I feel pretty satisified.. In the post about my earlier essay I had mentioned I would symplify my writing and view… Well - it apparently paid off. Things are improving at least… Hopefully that trend continues… I’ll post that essay tomorrow.

For now, this is the essay that I turned in today. I’m not very proud of it, although, I wasn’t really proud of the last one either. Hah.. *shrugs* I hope to at least get a C on this one so I have a relatively solid / consistent grade. Anything better than that would be a bonus. I’ve set realistic goals for this class, for sure. PASS.

At least I’ve got a 99.5% going in my Algebra class. That’s cool. So, on to the essay…….

Lessons Learned

In stories where one “has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself” the archetype of the hero is normally presented (Lehman 1). “The Lesson” was written by Toni Cade Bambara in 1972 and contains the hero archetype. The hero in this particular story is a young and tough girl who goes by the name of Sylvia. Sylvia undergoes a hero’s journey to discover her social status in the hope that she can rise above it.

Sylvia’s departure of her journey takes place when she is in front of the mailbox with Miss Moore and the other neighborhood children. Miss Moore fulfills the role of Sylvia’s mentor which is a theme present in many journeys that represent the hero archetype. As they all walk down the street Miss Moore is going on about how “money ain’t divided up right in this country” and how the children are all “poor and live in the slums” (Bambara 446). This sets the stage for the journey that Sylvia is about to undergo. Knowing that Sylvia is the leader, Miss Moore hands Sylva “a five-dollar bill” and tells her to “calculate 10 percent tip for the driver” (Bambara 446). Sylvia’s journey is well underway with the appearance of a mentor, a departure, and the context of social class presented by Miss Moore.

The next stage of Sylvia’s journey is when she encounters her first difficulty inside the cab. Without her mentor and put in the position of the leader, she is left to figure out how much money to give to the cab driver upon arriving at their destination. This inspires a dialog where Sugar expresses that they should “give him a dime” (Bambara 446). Sylvia’s thought about how “he don’t need it as bad as I do” is a part of the journey she is undertaking (Bambara 446). In Miss Moore’s absence, the money she had given Syliva helped keep the young hero’s mind on social status and her personal relation to it.

Miss Moore and the children now find themselves at their destination, F.A.O. Schwarz. As everyone gathers in front of the store they begin to examine the toys in the display case. During their examination Big Butt comes across a microscope that costs $300 and Miss Moore asks “how long’d take for Big Butt and Junebug to save up their allowances” for the microscope (Bambara 446). Sylvia and Sugar express that it would take “Too long” and that Big Butt would have “outgrown it by that time” (Bambara 446). The children pick out a few more items that they desire an continue the dialog in regards to the price and how each item is economically out of the children’s reach. Not only are the prices foreign but the items themselves are, too. For example, when they come across a paperweight Mercedes is the only one that knows its use. She’s aware of this due to her family being financially well off compared to the rest of the children. Experiencing foreign leisure items at extravagant prices further directs the hero’s thoughts towards her status in the world as she enters the store.

Once in the store the children are surrounded by amazing toys at extremely high prices. Q.T. Makes the observation that it “must be rich people shop here” (Bambara 448). When Sylvia asks “What you bring us here for, Miss Moore?” she is greeted with “one of them grins like she tellin a grown-up joke that never turns out to be funny” (Bambara 448). This is showing that Miss Moore knows that the seeds she had planted in regards to the disparity of the social classes had begun to germinate.
Upon departure Syliva has an inner dialog where she compares the prices of the toys with bills that her family encounters in their own life. She realizes that for the same price of a toy clown her family could “buy new bunk beds’, a visit to Grandaddy Nelson in the country, or even “pay for the rent and the piano bill” (Bambara 448). She also begins to wonder what kind of work people do who shop in a store like F.A.O. Schwarz. Sylvia also remembers other lessons her mentor, Miss Moore, has presented her over time. She remember’s Miss Moore saying that “poor people have to wake up and demand their share of the pie” (Bambara 449). These lessons of economic disparity go to further propel the hero towards gaining perspective on her social standing in the world.
In the end, Sylvia had not drawn any conclusions. However, she was filled with many new thoughts and ideas. The entire experience of taking a cab and dealing with the financial transaction, seeing the expensive toys, reflecting on the prices in relation to her own personal experience of money, and Miss Moore’s advice worked to put the hero in a state of reflection. Sylvia decides to go to “the Drive to think this day through”, and on her way she decides “ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nuthin” (Bambara 449). Thus, Sylvia has finished her current journey of discovering her social class and will begin her next journey of rising above her situation.

That’s all folks. Merp.