Preview

How Literature Impacts Society

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
634 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
How Literature Impacts Society
How Literature Impacts Society

Literature has been crucial to communities since language was tailored and used by people as a form of communication. Literature takes the reader out of their world and brings them into the author’s world. It makes people think outside their normal box if you will. Literature can bring people of different backgrounds, cultures, and ways life together. When people relate through a piece of literature, it really makes you think that you’re not alone and that someone else has been through what you are going through. The way authors are able to grab you with how the characters are feeling or what they are looking at brings the reader into that story. If you read a piece of literature that contains information on other cultures you then see how they live, what works for them and what doesn’t. As a reader, we learn how other cultures live, which in turn makes us as a society think about the way that we live our own lives. In the “Lesson” the author really brings you into her world. She even goes as far as using the language that was used in the time by her and her peers. In this story the readers are brought into a little girl’s world where poverty and its struggles are so clearly shown for the little girl as well as the other characters surrounding her. The author brings readers into the mind of the little girl and really showed her attitude which was she really did not care about anything and really seemed angry about her surrounding and angry at the people in her life. The reader can relate to this character even if their surroundings are different then the characters. The children were taken to upper class neighborhoods where they were shown a different way of life. By taking the children to the high class toy store at first they were a little hesitant. “But what I got to be shamed about? Got as much right to go in as anybody” (DiYanni, 2007, 431). Literature can bring readers from real life stories to dream like different


References: DiYanni, R (2007) Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (6th ed.) New York: McGraw-Hill.
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Toni Cade Bambara The Lesson Summary
    • 210 Words
    • 1 Page

    Toni Cade Bambara The Lesson Summary

    The short story “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara is about a group of young poor children as they venture downtown to a toy store. They gaze upon all the toys in wonderment, but mostly they are shocked by the price of the toys. They feel out of place in such an upscale establishment and do not know how to act. Upon leaving the store and heading home, they reflect on how unfair society really is. There are people who are so well off they can afford toys that could feed a family for months, and other people like themselves that barely have enough money to get by. The central idea of the story is the examination of wealth and poverty in America.…

    • 210 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Discussing symbolism in the "lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara, And of Clay are we created by Isabel Allende and Hills like white elephant by Ernest Hemingway.
    • 1060 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Discussing symbolism in the "lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara, And of Clay are we created by Isabel Allende and Hills like white elephant by Ernest Hemingway.

    The central idea of Toni Cade Bambara's short story "The Lesson" was inequalities in the distribution of wealth. The meaning of Mrs. Moore trip with the children to FAO Schwartz is captured in Bambara's use of Symbolism. The children looked fiercely at a number of exclusive toys outside the store. Some of these toys included a sailboat and a paperweight. The children had no idea what the paperweight was. Sylvia said to herself "my eyes tell me it's a chunk of glass cracked with something heavy, and different color inks dripped into the splits, then the whole thin put into a over or something. But for $480 it don't make sense." Even though Mrs. Moore explained to them what the paper weight was, the children still did not understand the use or the price. A paperweight is used to hold something that is of value. Since the children have never had anything valuable, the paper weight can be used to symbolize that their neighborhood (slums) many be holding them down. The children are the people under this paperweight. To these children the cost of the toy is a life's worth of work. The sailboat similarly is used by Bambara to stand for freedom and the journey that lies ahead of the. Manhattan was only a cab ride away. However it was only a temporary chance for these kids to experience the different type of life rich people live. This suggests that if the children wish to experience this life permanently, then they would have to escape the world of…

    • 1060 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Fahrenheit 451 Essay
    • 450 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Fahrenheit 451 Essay

    Literature is important for three reasons according the book; First books hold quality information. Secondly they require a time commitment, and the final and most important reason is we have the ability to react to our world based on what we as readers gain from the read material. The scary part is this book doesn’t seem too far-fetched from our world today! How close are we to a world without…

    • 450 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Toni Cade Bambara The Lesson Essay
    • 1096 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Toni Cade Bambara The Lesson Essay

    Sylvia’s initiation in the short story The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara, is striking because Miss Moore gives the opportunity to the children to evaluate the difference between the fifth avenue and their poor neighborhood. However, one of the story’s main themes is that innocence is a handicap and the political and moral innocence that are represented from the beginning to the end of the story brings the main character to many reflections. This idea is revealed as Sylvia’s ignorance towards the different social classes, Sylvia’s questions on the purpose of wealth and the hard realization of the true facts of inequality. Due to the children’s lack of political and moral knowledge,…

    • 1096 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Changes (The Lesson By Toni Cade Barrera)
    • 2043 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Changes (The Lesson By Toni Cade Barrera)

    Some short stories are designed to teach lessons to the people who read them. They teach lessons about life, love, and growing up. People can learn lessons by reading short stories that where the main characters discover something about life and about themselves. There Character and the way the use of actions, words, or thoughts carry throughout the story can relate to many realistic personas. In Toni Cade Bambara's short story, The Lesson, the author presents a lesson to be learned. The narrator, Sylvia a young, self minded, lack of vocabulary, strong feminist African American from a poor neighborhood in New York is in for a great awakening, with her cousin Sugar always by her side their world was untouchable until a black woman named Miss Moore stepped in. They find her unusual because she is a black woman who has, "...proper speech..."(42). Miss Moore was educated and, "...been to college and said it was only right she should take responsibility for the young ones' education" (42). Miss Moore is not the typical black woman in the neighborhood. She is well educated and speaks well which can be found different in the neighborhood she lives in. Mrs. Moore climbed up against the odds in a time where it was almost unheard of for a black woman to go to college. She is a role model for the children who encourages them to get more out of life. When Miss Moore takes the children to an upper class toy store in the city the children see a, "Handcrafted sailboat of fiberglass at one thousand one hundred ninety five dollars" (44). The children are not sure what to make of the high price but they do realize that for, "That much money it should last forever" (45). They understand that people who make more money can afford higher quality things, and that in order to make more money they have to get an education like Miss Moore. They have to strive the best in life. At the end of the story Sylvia's cousin, Sugar, realizes that even though they are not the wealthiest…

    • 2043 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Toni Cade Bambara The Lesson
    • 795 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Toni Cade Bambara The Lesson

    “The Lesson” is a short story written by Toni Cade Bambara. This story tells about the effects that social inequality can have on children. It also goes to show that race and financial situations can help motivate children to make a better future for themselves. It is a story about a young African-American girl named Sylvia and her growing understanding of class inequality. The children’s educator Miss Moore introduces the facts of social inequality to the underprivileged group of children, of whom Sylvia, the main character, is the most important. Sugar, Fat Butt, Junebug, Flyboy, Rosie, and Sylvia think of Miss Moore as an unrequested educator who bores them, and Sylvia would rather do anything than listen to Miss Moore give lectures. Deep down Sylvia knows that she is underprivileged but it starts to bother her tremendously when Miss Moore introduces her to the world of the privileged. In “The Lesson,” Miss Moore sets out on a mission to teach an underprivileged group of kids an important lesson by showing them the conflict of class inequality.…

    • 795 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Toni Cade Bambara The Lesson Essay
    • 778 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Toni Cade Bambara The Lesson Essay

    Toni Cade Bambara’s short story “The Lesson” is told from the perspective of a young girl named Sylvia. Sylvia is not the most reliable reliable narrator as a result of her age and upbringing- she forms opinions of others based on how they relate to her life; if a completely innocent person happens to affect her life in a way that inconveniences her, he or she will be portrayed only in a negative light whether or not this is deserved. Throughout the story, she frames her Miss Moore, who is her neighbor as well as a major protagonist of the story, as an enemy. Miss Moore, who is fairly new to the block, considers it her duty as a college-educated woman to be responsible for the education of the underprivileged children in the area, “and…

    • 778 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Lesson By Toni Cade Bambara
    • 1181 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Lesson By Toni Cade Bambara

    “The Lesson”, by Toni Cade Bambara is about a girl named Sylvia. She expresses her feelings over her experience at an expensive toy story that her teacher, Ms. Moore, takes her and her friends to. This trip was designed to teach them the reality of the world and to show them the things they cannot afford in life. Not only why they cannot afford them, but to show them that they can be the types of people that can. She aims towards showing Sylvia and the other students how to achieve a better lifestyle. They do not have to be limited by being black in America.…

    • 1181 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Lesson By Toni Bambar The Perseverance Of African American Society
    • 2384 Words
    • 10 Pages

    The Lesson By Toni Bambar The Perseverance Of African American Society

    During the early to mid 1900’s, the author was able to illustrate the life of this society from childhood all the way to adulthood. This story was written in a particular language which was relative to the environment of these children and the neighborhood they were being raised in. The children in “The Lesson” were a definite product of their society. The spoke, walked and conduct themselves according to the way they were raised and taught. The actions and conduct of the adults could be observed within the actions and conduct of the children. The author in this story used a college educated black woman, who took specific interest in helping to develop the young children in her neighborhood. She wanted to teach them that education was important and that they could achieve anything they set their minds to achieve. Miss Moore would take the children uptown to where the upper-class society lived, shopped, and frequent to show the children what other people had. She wanted the children to see that where they were from is who they are, but she also wanted them to understand it did not have to be that way (DiYanni, 2007). She also attempted to stress to the children that poor people had to demand their share of what society had (DiYanni,…

    • 2384 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Liam O 'Flaherty's The Sniper'
    • 1002 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Liam O 'Flaherty's The Sniper'

    Literature helps people experience things they would otherwise never be able to experience. Liam O 'Flaherty’s “The Sniper” is a great example of this. When O’Flaherty is explaining the scene where the sniper is on the room lighting a cigarette and a bullet whizzes past his head is a great scene that helps explain what it would be like to be in that position (O’Flaherty page 474). Most people have never been in a war, even fewer in a sniper fire fight, and therefore most people will never know what it is like for those few that have been in that position. But by reading this story, people can almost visualize what it must have been like. The adrenaline pumping through their veins and the terror as a bullet almost hits you seems like an almost impossible thing to understand if you weren’t actually there, but O’Flaherty uses literature to help explain what it was like. Literature can also help explain what it was like to live in a totally different environment. In “Warring Memories” by Kandi Tayebi, she does just that by show us what her husbands like was like in the Middle East. She explains how he would watch CNN and comment on how men should take their rings off or their bodies will be looted and mutilated once they are dead (Tayebi page 510). This again is a life completely different then life in America and by reading about it, it helps spread awareness of what other people’s lives are like. History is another reason to study literature. Many pieces of literature do a great job of explaining history without boring the reader with nothing but facts like a history textbook. “Like a Winding Sheet” by Anne Petry does a very good job of doing just that. It isn’t nearly as boring as reading a civil rights textbook but does a great job of showing how hard life could be for an African- American in the 1960’s. She showed how you could have to work extremely long hours of manual labor without breaks just to…

    • 1002 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Maya Essay
    • 877 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Maya Essay

    In the short story "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara, a group of African-American children from the projects of New York are confronted with social class differences for the first time during a trip to F.A.O. Schwartz. Thomas Cassidy, author of an article in Critical Survey of Short Fiction, describes that the short story is “structured in an oral form that allows for meaningful side issues with the aim of being clear the central point to her audience” (Bambara 652). One can learn right away that Sylvia, the story 's narrator, is not fond of Miss Moore and could care less about the trip to the toy store. Bambara illustrates this by the tone and language of Sylvia 's narration. Her use of slang and curse words clearly indicates where she has grown up and her dislike of Miss Moore. She even conjures up a plan “to jump out at the next light and run off to the first bar-b-que we can find” (Bambara 653). It is kind of ironic that Sylvia feels this way, considering this trip had the most dramatic impact on her as she learns a powerful lesson. Miss…

    • 877 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Lesson
    • 1135 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Lesson

    The story “The Lesson,” by Toni Cade Bambara, is about a young girl named Sylvia who is accompanied by a group of her friends from her neighborhood and her elderly neighbor named Ms. Moore, who tries to teach all of them a lesson about life. “The Lesson” is a realistic story that takes place in the mid-20th century that exemplifies the true difference between upper and lower classes during that time period. Although Sylvia might come off as a mean and cocky little girl, you can tell at the end that there is something deeper to Sylvia when she begins to reflect on her day with Ms. Moore and actually seems to gain something out of the situation and you can tell just how much sharp of an observer she truly is.…

    • 1135 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Literature Effect On Society Essay
    • 727 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Literature Effect On Society Essay

    Human rights activist and Nation of Islam leader Malcom X once said “The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses (Malcom X 1963). This claim invokes me to think about the extraordinary effect literature has had on shaping our society. I find it especially intriguing that entire countries can be ruled by the media, such as North Korea. In the communism-spread country, the media brainwashed society into thinking Kim Jong-un is a supernatural figure. Perhaps literature bridges the gap between law and morality, since it can be used to dictate what one can…

    • 727 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Knowledge or poverty
    • 1230 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Knowledge or poverty

    Toni Cade Bambara addresses how knowledge is the means by which one can escape out of poverty in her story The Lesson. In her story she identifies with race, economic inequality, and literary epiphany during the early 1970’s. In this story children of African American progeny come face to face with their own poverty and reality. This realism of society’s social standard was made known to them on a sunny afternoon field trip to a toy store on Fifth Avenue. Through the use of an African American protagonist Miss Moore and antagonist Sylvia who later becomes the sub protagonist and White society the antagonist “the lesson” was ironically taught.…

    • 1230 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Toni Cade Bambara The Lesson Analysis
    • 477 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Toni Cade Bambara The Lesson Analysis

    The short story, “The Lesson,” by Toni Cade Bambara, portrays one of the most interesting themes in literature, the initiation story. The story illustrates a group of kids who live in the slums in New York city. They are unaware of their environment, and Ms. More is conscious of this situation. In a basis, she teaches the kids life lessons to help them strive for success and attempt to better themselves and their situations. In this occasion, she brings them to a toy story, but not just a common one. Ms. Moore is an educated woman, and she knows that going to an ordinary toy story would not make a footprint in the life of those kids. Ms. She brings them to F.A.O. Schwarz located on Fifth Avenue, the most exclusive and expensive store in the…

    • 477 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics