The Significance of the Lessons in the Short Stories

Often in life we become fixated on our own ideas of reality and become very close minded, or we become too content in feeling superior to others; leaving little or no room for input or advice from others, causing us to miss out on important lessons in life, and this is the case for two characters in two different short stories entitled; "Good country People" by Flannery O' Connor and "The Lesson" by, Toni Cade Bambara.

In the opening of both short stories we are introduced to two characters who exhibit similar personalities, in which they both feel superior and act arrogant to certain characters in the stories. In the short story, "Good Country People," the character Joy possesses a very arrogant persona, she feels as though she is much superior to the bible salesman, her arrogance is shown in the story as she imagines what it would be like when she meets with the bible salesman, "During the night she had imagined she seduced him... she very easily seduced him and that then, of course, she had to reckon with his remorse"... "True genius can get an idea across even to an inferior mind." In the short story, "The Lesson," the character Sylvia possesses a very gruff, sarcastic, and arrogant persona towards the character Miss Moore ,which makes her extremely narrow-minded and ill-receptive to what Miss Moore is trying to teach . Sylvia's harsh and arrogant attitude is first shown in the story when Miss Moore first arrives in the neighborhood, "We laughed at her...the way we did at the junk man"... and we kinda hated her too, hated the way we did the winos who cluttered up our parks..." Sylvia's harsh and arrogant tone is revealed even more as the story progresses and Miss Moore takes her and her friends on a trip, "And Miss Moore asking us do we know what money is, like we a bunch of retards. I mean real money, she say, like it's only poker chips or monopoly papers we lay down to the grocer. So right away I am tired of this and say so."