Ways on How Literature Affects the Community

Ways on How Literature Affects the Community

  • Submitted By: Shelyn75
  • Date Submitted: 10/27/2008 10:29 AM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 1127
  • Page: 5
  • Views: 1297

Literature reflects community in numerous ways. Authors write about what they know. Thus, they write about their experiences or the experiences of those around them. Readers, in turn, measure the experiences of characters and literary works as a whole against their own experiences (DiYanni, 2007). Individuals bring cultural values and societal norms to their reading. All of these factors determine how a reader might judge, or evaluate, a specific work. This judgment is in response to how the work makes the reader feel emotionally, and what the reader will take away from a particular work.
The short story, The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara, depicts societal views of social status. Miss Moore, a neighborhood woman with a college education takes it upon herself to teach the children who live near her. She claims that since she has a college education she should be in charge of the children’s educations, even though she is not related to these children (DiYanni, 2007). One of the lessons she teaches the children is that America does not promote equality like they have been taught. She does this by taking the children on a trip to Fifth Avenue, which is only a short trip away by taxi (DiYanni). Once there, the children look in the window of FAO Schwarz (DiYanni). The lesson begins as Ronald sees a microscope he would like to have in the window. The price tag reads $300 (DiYanni, p. 429). Rosie Giraffe finds a paperweight “made of semiprecious stones fused together…” (DiYanni, p. 429). The paperweight cost $480 (DiYanni, p. 429). The lesson continues as the children enter the store and continue to find things that to them, cost exorbitant amounts of money. The last toy the children see is a sailboat that costs $1000 (DiYanni, p. 430). It is then that the children start to realize that this is not an ordinary toy store. Q.T. observes, “Must be rich people shop here” (DiYanni, p. 430). The children then discuss how much a real boat costs, as $1000 in...

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