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Foreshadowing
Genre
Explanation and Analysis:
“The Lesson” is a short story that belongs to the genre of African American literature, specifically African American literature written during the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The Black Arts Movement was a literary and cultural movement that began in Harlem (where Toni Cade Bambara was from) and was led by artists and writers who wanted to celebrate Black culture while pushing for Black self-determination and racial equality.
“The Lesson” is a good example of fiction written during the Black Arts Movement because it centers Black characters while raising awareness about the unjust conditions in which many Black Americans live. The following passage captures the way that Bambara communicates her personal political beliefs through her characters:
“I think,” say Sugar pushing me off her feet like she never done before, cause I whip her ass in a minute, “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?”
Here Sugar concludes, after a day at the expensive toy story FAO Schwarz, that the United States “is not much of a democracy” because “equal chance to pursue happiness means an equal crack at the dough,” implying that she does not believe that Black Americans have an “equal chance.” In this way, “the lesson” that is at the core of the story about racial inequality in New York (and the United States writ large) is both for the characters and for readers.
Related Themes:
