"The Lesson"

Sylvia learns through her trip to F.A.O. Schwartz that her family is far worse than she thought they were.

Level 1 – Who is Miss Moore?
Level 2 – Who is Sylvia’s best friend and how is she different than Sylvia?
Level 3 – Why are the children happier living in denial?

I actually enjoyed reading the “The Lesson” because it felt more like a story and was less formal. I felt the author tried to make Sylvia seem like a round character and failed at doing so. She was pretty much a plot device for being the poor girl that doesn’t want to acknowledge her place in the world. She was definitely more of a flat character because of how stereotypical she was.

I found it interesting that as the reader of the story, I was able to figure out the lesson before Sylvia – or at least understand the story better than her. Sylvia continued to try to escape reality and daydreams of places she would rather be. For example, when Miss Moore takes her into a cab and asks her to calculate the tip, Sylvia sticks her head of the window and goofs around. She can’t figure out the tip at the end because she is not focusing on reality. She especially doesn’t want Miss Moore to teach her a moralizing lesson. It is like Sylvia has a strong destination of what she thinks of pertains to her; she knows what is reality and what is in her head.

So in the end, the children and Sylvia don’t like Miss Moore because she tries to teach them lessons they don’t want to know. They are happier in the denial of not having money. She tries to show them the bigger world, which is too dramatic for them to think about. When they go to F.A.O. Schwartz, they are so overwhelmed by all the toys and how expensive they are. It becomes apparent that the class struggles with class-consciousness, the theme of the story. These impoverished people need to realize how class systems are not right and then should do something about it.