Stories "incident" and "the Lesson"

Compare and contrast

The stories "Incident" and "The Lesson" are from two different time frames, but deals with the same concept, race before the civil rights movement and post-civil rights movement. Countee Cullen experience racism in the era before the civil rights movement. Toni Cade Bambara dealt with post-civil rights movement. They both seem to have similarities with racism which include their feelings, emotions, symbolism, and lifelong remembrance of a particular incident. Both authors came from different eras of time so that differ in many different ways also.

Countee Cullen was born in Louisville Kentucky, which was one of the racist states in America in 1995. Countee Cullen "Incident" starts the poem stating how enthusiastic of his youth. "Heart filled with Glee" (154) Similar to the story "The Lesson" Toni Cade Bambara characters was happy for their youth. Those two stories are similar both by being happy with being young. Even though there time frame differ both feels enthusiastic about being a child.

Toni Cade Bambara "The Lesson" the characters emotions was being brought to them all at once they relies that they could not afford any toys in the toy store. Miss Moore name symbolize what she teaches the student. She was a steady teacher all your round. (Summer or fall) She expected more out her students when they just wanted to be hard headed kids. Sugar also a character in "The Lesson" who was a sweet person just life the food sugar. Similar to the "Incident" "Whit bigger" (154) was being symbolized the relationship between the attitude of white people and black people back before the civil rights movement. The black child attitude was friendly and the white child wasn't so friendly.

In the story "Incident" Countee Cullen dealt with racism as a painful experience and the perpetrators will always try to deny it or twist it up with fancy verbiage and meaningless explanations. The simple brilliance of the poem is a man putting his past into perspective and recognizing the power of words and that they indeed do hurt. When Countee Cullen antagonist stuck his tongue out and call him a nigger Cullen's was psychologically disturb through his adulthood. Along with "The Lesson" this was not a direct form of racism but more of a ploy to get the children to understand that everything in life is not about paying and just getting by. That the world is actually must bigger than and larger than those kids could imagine. The similarity between the two