Introduction
Stories are part of many people’s cultures worldwide, presenting a significant aspect of the people and the world. Throughout history, people have told stories in traditional settings through word of mouth from generation to generation. Nowadays, people get stories from the media, books, music, and the news, making them part of human lives and influencing their everyday activities.
Societies use stories to create communities, relationships, and connections to the outside world, which gives perspectives on different cultures and traditions. Thus, it is paramount to understand the significance of narratives and how they influence people’s lives, beliefs, and attitudes. This essay explores how Bambara’s narrative highlights the contrast between impoverished and affluent areas through their distinct priorities in Toni Bambara’s short story “The Lesson.”
Attitudes and Perspectives
Narratives shape the world by influencing people’s attitudes and perceptions about specific things, people, or cultures. A story can influence an individual’s thinking and views, which may lead to stereotyping or challenging societal constructs to reshape the world (Stibbe, 97). The children’s reaction to the price of toys demonstrates how they perceive people from the wealthy community.
According to the narrator, the price of the toys is exaggerated and could equal their family’s expense on basic needs, which were challenging to obtain (Bambara, 5). From the narrative, people may believe that the rich like spending money on insignificant things while the poor starve, trying to earn half of what the toys cost. Thus, the narrative shapes the people’s worldview of class and distinction among people from different socio-economic statuses.
Social Construction of Identity
Stories influence the social construction of societal norms and expectations, which shape people’s way of life. A story may shape one’s understanding of one’s social identities, such as race, social status, and gender, which influence how people understand others from a different society (Hagström & Karl, 392). In “The Lesson,” the story shows the distinction between people from different social classes and the vast difference in their way of life.
Although the displayed items look like ordinary toys, their prices shock them since everything seems expensive and unaffordable (Bambara, 4). The children understand their social identity as children from poor neighborhoods since they cannot afford the items in the toy store. At the end of the story, the narrator realizes the distinction between classes and aspects that create the difference, such as wealth, which reshapes her beliefs about the world.
Empathy and Understanding
Narratives have the power to evoke people’s feelings, which influence their thinking and shape the world. Exposure to diverse lifestyles, experiences, and perspectives presented in stories can enhance understanding of other people’s ways of life, creating empathy and reshaping worldviews (Stibbe, 205). Bambara’s story exposes the experience of living in a poor neighborhood compared to the wealthy.
Children from poor neighborhoods tend to have limited exposure to the outside world, which limits their thinking and progress in life. When children see the exorbitant price of the toys, Sylvia thinks about how that money could help their household in many ways instead of buying a useless toy (Bambara, 5). The story evokes understanding and empathy for the community, which can promote compassion and challenge societal issues that promote social injustices, such as discrimination.
Conclusion
To sum up, stories are important aspects of human life throughout history. Narratives influence people’s beliefs and attitudes among cultures and communities. Consequently, stories influence the construction of social identity, where people recognize their social position and class according to specific characteristics. Bambara’s story demonstrates the difference between poor and wealthy neighborhoods by showing what both communities value.
While the poor struggle to obtain basic needs, the rich spend significant financial resources on valueless items like toys. Finally, stories shape the world by evoking the audience’s feelings that can enhance or decrease humanity. Therefore, people should take a more profound interest in and meaning from stories to obtain the intended message that can shape the world.
Works Cited
Bambara, Toni Cade. “The Lesson.” WordPress.Com. Web.
Hagström, Linus, and Karl Gustafsson. “Narrative Power: How Storytelling Shapes East Asian International Politics.” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, vol. 32, no. 4, 2019, pp. 387–406, Web.
Stibbe, Arran. Ecolinguistics: Language, Ecology, and the Stories We Live By. 2nd ed., Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021.