Previous
Genre
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Metaphors
Explanation and Analysis—Share of the Pie:
Near the end of the story, Sylvia reflects on the lessons that her (self-appointed) teacher Miss Moore tries to impart to her and her young Black Harlemite peers, using a metaphor in the process:
Where we are is who we are, Miss Moore always pointin out. But it don’t necessarily have to be that way, she always adds then waits for somebody to say that poor people have to wake up and demand their share of pie and don’t none of us know what kind of pie she talkin about in the first damn place.
Here Sylvia describes how Miss Moore is “always pointin out” that Black people have to metaphorically “demand their share of pie,” though Sylvia and her peers “don’t […] know what kind of pie she talkin about in the first damn place.” Though Sylvia doesn’t understand the metaphor here, Miss Moore is communicating something important about the racial wealth divide in the United States—White people have most of the “pie” (or wealth) and Black people deserve to have “their share” of it.
While the titular “lesson” in the story seems to be one that Miss Moore is teaching Sylvia and the rest of her students, it’s also possible to read it as one that Bambara is teaching readers, hoping to “wake them up” to the very same realities that Miss Moore's lesson is addressing.
Related Themes:
