In both John Updike’s “A&P” and Toni Cade Bambara’s “The Lesson”, the young protagonists learn about the consumerist nature of American culture, as well as the strict class divisions that are constitutive of the American system. The two stories themselves thus function as teaching instruments, according to which the narrative imparts upon the protagonists an education, a learning, of the true nature of the system.
In Toni Cade Bambara’s “The Lesson”, this motif of teaching and learning about systematic inequality in the United States is more explicit. The entire narrative centers around the trip to a Manhattan toy store, organized by Miss Moore, for her young African-American students from Harlem. At this particular toy store, many of the toys are outrageous prices, which would represent in themselves more than many of the families would earn over a significant amount of time. The children are thus first introduced to the radical inequality of the American system, where class difference is so enormous that the leisure products of one class are more than the entire earnings of the underclass, earnings which are dedicated to mere subsistence of the family. At the same time, there is also en element of race clearly at stake in the story, since the students of Bambara’s students are African-American. The Manhattan toy store is for financially well-off classes in the New York City area, and thus, has largely a white clientele. The entire experience of the trip is in one sense to educate the children about this systematic inequalities: an example of teaching. However, Bambara’s “The Lesson” is ultimately also about how even the underclass can remain oblivious and ignorant of these systematic inequalities when they are confronted with them. The petty squabble over how to spend cab fare at the end of the story repeats a consumerist culture, such that the trip fails to create a critical consciousness. The exception, however, is Sylvia, the narrator, who seems to understand the systematic inequality that is represented in the toy store, as, somewhat disturbed by the social differences she has presented with, finds herself alone at the end of the story, thinking about what she has seen. Sylvia therefore has been both taught about systematic inequality and, more importantly, soaked in this information, and has more importantly learned something about inequality on the systemic level.
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"Teaching and Learning".
Updike’s “A&P” has a similar theme, but it appears in a more subtle way. The main theme of the story, with the narrator, who works at a super market, watches some scantily clad young women enter the store, could be interpreted as merely a teenage hormonally charged way of looking at the world. When the manager of the A&P store tells the young girls to leave the store, as they are only dressed in their swimming wear, the narrator, in a fit of protest, resigns, throwing off his apron. Certainly, this could also be interpreted merely in terms of sexuality. But a deeper meaning to the story could be discerned. Through the example of the women and the absurd rule to throw them out, the narrator thus reflects on rules in general. What are these norms that would regulate how a woman should dress? Furthermore, the story itself takes place in a super market, a store, much like in “The Lesson”, where fundamental socio-economic realities are revealed. People are encouraged to buy. In a sense, the narrator not only protests the women being asked to leave the store, but protests the system itself, a meaningless system of product consumption. Inequality is not so much the issue here, if one ignores the gender dimension, but it is more the case that there is a meaningless to such a consumerist culture. The narrator has thus been taught a lesson by the incident at the supermarket, and has learned from it to the extent that he has decided he will not work in the supermarket anymore.
The two stories thus converge on a typical capitalist scene of a store. From this store setting, the characters in both stories learn about the culture they live in, the store itself becoming an instrument of teaching. Both main characters, having learned what they have been taught, reject the social conditions which they have inherited.
