Rites of Passage Essay

Sharice De Riggs

May 15, 2011

English 211

Rites of Passage Essay

In "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara is a heartfelt story about a girl and her coming to age. The Lesson shows story readers the innocence that children have while growing up. Children are usually not exposed to the harsh realities of life such as money and how important it is. The theme of "The lesson" is rites of passage. An older woman that has overcame adversity and wants to bestow the knowledge she has learned on a group of school children. Now a group of young men and women are going to start learning what life is all about and what they can have out of it.

When I first read Toni Cade Bambara's "The Lesson" I did not realize that there was any lesson learned nor did I believe it was a rites of passage situation. After rereading I found little signs of hope that maybe the main character Sylvia had learned a lifelong lesson. Sylvia is a very hard headed and stubborn child that only saw the world as outside her window. Which she described as "hated the way we did the winos who cluttered up our parks and pissed on our

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handball walls and stank up our hallways and stairs so you couldn't halfway play hide and seek without a goddamn gas mask" (Bambara 598). It seemed like Sylvia and her sister Sugar was use to the simple life and mischief like most children their age. They were not exposed to important things in life and the worth of things. I don't believe it is because they do not want to, I think it is because there is nobody to guide them. Sylvia had expressed that she lived with her aunt and that her mother lived in a nearby apartment "having a good ole time". It does not seem to bother her because she is free to do whatever she wants. She is very disrespectful, rude and mischievous.

That is where Miss Moore comes in. She is a teacher that has a lot of heart and wants her neighborhood children to experience life. Miss Moore is not liked by Sylvia and her friends because they believe she is always wasting there time. She was always talking about money, how much things cost and the value of it, which the kids do not want to hear .The neighborhood adults don't really like Miss Moore either. Miss Moore decided to take Sylvia and Sugars friends June bug, Mercedes Big Butt, Flyboy, Rosie Giraffe and Q.T. on a trip to F.A.O Schwarz. It is a very expensive toy store, where almost everything is extremely overpriced. Miss Moore tells the children meet her at a neighborhood mailbox. The mail box is symbolic because that is where we all get information from. We receive information and we also send it. The trip begins and ends at the mailbox. When the kids first arrived there, they arrived in a cab. Which the children seemed to enjoy because of the way they acted. From there behavior it looked like they have never been in a cab before. I believe Miss Moore did this so the children can

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experience the luxury of going somewhere in a cab, something that they might not have done before. On arrival to Fifth Avenue Sylvia sees her first glimpse of money. Not literal

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