In “The Lesson,” Toni Cade Bambara writes about Sylvia, a young poor black female learning that life isn’t what it seems. A group of black children meet a lady named Miss Moore, a role model of the kids who is not a typical black lady in the neighborhood. Miss Moore has “proper speech” and is college educated. When Miss Moore brings the children from the ghetto to an upperclass toy store they are surprised at what they find. “Handcrafted sailboat of fiberglass at one-thousand-one-hundred-ninety-five dollars” make the children feel like for “that much money it should last forever.” Sylvia does not like how Miss Moore is always teaching them lessons and how she is getting them to see that they are so poor.
The youth described above is six-year-old Jean Louise “Scout” Finch. In the powerful novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, Scout is like most children: loud, playful, and energetic. She can be rude, demanding, and rowdy, which causes a problem for some around her. Scout is naïve at this stage in her life, and has much to learn about society, etiquette, and most of all, morals. In her small town full of gossip, lies, racism, and more, will Scout be able to blossom into a mature, wholesome, young woman?
This is where the changes of Sylvia’s attitude first start to take place. She is no longer irritated at Miss Moore. She is angered at the fact that there is a woman wearing a fur coat, which leads her to say, “White folks crazy”(Bambara 1149). After window-shopping at the toy store, her attitude goes from slightly angered to upset. The first item they see is a microscope for three hundred dollars.
Bich constantly threatens herself and her identity by competing with the kids at school in an irrational way, blindly believing in the American culture of early 80’s(commercials) and having no regard for her family, especially Rosa. Following these paths makes her lead different lives, the one in the school as a “good girl” and the one at her home as a brat.Attitude of this kind makes it very difficult for her to truly accept her natural self and her precious culture. The problem with Bich is that she is over ambitious sometimes; this is true when she tries to ace at everything at school, be it in her classes or her popularity as a “cool kid”.Also due to the different lives led, Bich isolates herself by making very few friends around whom she feel insecure most of the time. Bich says “Then there was Tara’s mother, who introduced me to beef Stroganoff and showed me that I had no manners.” The quote explores the mental harassment Bich had to go through just because she had a different culture at home .Bich surrounds herself with friends like Jennifer whose mom is a perfect homemaker which makes her look at Rosa differently, Jennifer is also a strict church going Christian, she is set in her own ways; making a mistake in her world
She seems to be in a hurry to grow up and experience the sexual pleasures of life. And sometime wanted to grow up to fast, has its consequences. Connie is rebellious at home, she feels as though her mother is always picking on her for every little thing she does, but on the other hand she gives her older sister praise for everything she does. This causes Connie to mope around the house all day wishing she was older and away from her family. One day Connie and some friends decided to hang out at the Mall and while there, they change into provocative clothes like, skimpy shorts and halter tops to appear much older and to attract the attention of boys.
Moreover is she not only unpopular at school, she is also a diabetic child. “And we laughed at her because she was a chubby, diabetic child …” 1.4. Celia is now introduced as the exposed girl, and we are now guessing that the headline is referred to her. Even though she is being laughed at, she wants to be a part of them so desperately, that she follows them every day till and from school, but she is being ignored. We are introduced to just a few people in the text, other than Celia.
Everyone looks up to her in some kind, maybe because they don’t dare anything else. Ithink the kids of Lucy’s school is a bit scared of Bethan. Bethan is very insecure, she haves a veryweek personality. Because of her personality, she seeks a way to gain control of Lucy and theother kids. She is using them to her own good.
For most parents and their little girls it is just good fun. They do not take the beauty pageants seriously. For a few parents the beauty pageants become an obsession. This is when beauty pageants for children can suddenly become very harmful. “Critics of the industry warn that the stresses of competition, coupled with an extreme focus on physical appearance, can have a negative effect long before these girls will be eligible for Miss America.” (Triggs, West and Aradillas 160-168) The loss of self-esteem, the inability to show a full range of emotions, the fear of failure, the extreme focus on physical image, and the discord with or fear of parents are a few of the symptoms those little girls will suffer from.
The story starts off right away describing Madame Loisel beauty and charm but unfortunately she was born into the wrong class. She isn’t happy with the life that she has. She dreams of a life with parties and elegant dresses and jewels. Madame Loisel is so envious of a rich, old school friend who lives a different life that she actually refuses to go and visit because she feels worse about her life when she returns home. Her friend doesn’t appear to be proud of boastful in the story and doesn’t seem to care that Madame Loisel is poorer than her.
Even when it is decided that he did not really mean what he said he runs into a lot of students at school who now hate him, especially after his family decides to sue the school. His "friends" were the ones who goaded him on and now they abandon him. Ugly Girl is sort of a punk-type girl, studs in her ears, tall, big (but not fat), and very, very independent. She calls herself Ugly Girl, though, it is not the other students that are doing that. She will stand up to anyone and anything, warrior-women Ugly Girl, as she puts it.