The Lesson

While the narrator is dazzled by many of the toys in the fancy toy store, it is a relatively inexpensive clown toy that most haunts her. As well as being cheaper than—for instance—the $1,000 sailboat in the store window, the clown toy is also closer to being an actual toy, rather than just an ornament. It is still too expensive for the narrator, however, and she finds herself anticipating what objections her mother would have to her spending $35 on a toy, and what that money could buy for her family instead.

As different as the narrator’s world is from the world of the Fifth Avenue toy store and its wealthy customers, both the narrator and the customers are consumers, and creatures of want. They all live in the same capitalist society, which has trained them to seek worth and solace in material objects. The clown toy is one such object, and remembering it makes the narrator feel trapped and confused, for reasons that she cannot quite articulate. She wants to leave the outing to the toy store behind her, and finds that she is unable to completely do so.