The stories “Sweat” (1926) and Spunk” (1925)are comprised of all African American characters and makes only few references to whites. During a gossip session (this is a narration style) over an abusively cheating husband named Sykes, another male character confesses that, "There's plenty men dat takes a wife lak dey do a joint uh sugar-cane. It's round, juicy an' sweet when dey gits it. But dey squeeze an' grind, squeeze an' grind an' wring tell dey wring every drop uh pleasure dat's in 'em out." Like Hurston, not only is Delia underprivileged by gender, she is underprivileged by race. Sykes is similarly underprivileged by race but in his relationship with Delia he is dominant in the relationship because of his gender.
Through her short story “Spunk," Zora Neale Hurston successfully revealed her discouragement towards Spunk and his inappropriate actions to marry Lena (a married woman) which employs many of her disbeliefs and disagreements towards inequality of any kind. Hurston’s background tremendously affected her writings by their styles, dialogues, and scenarios. For example, her feelings of relationships are strongly revealed by scandal such as remarks made about Lena after the deaths of both Joe and Spunk. “The women ate heartily of the funeral baked meats and wondered who would be Lena’s next. The men whispered coarse conjectures between guzzles of whiskey.” By using imagery and the themes of betrayal, Hurston successfully portrayed her view towards her own society. |
Figure 1Figure 1: Analyzing the data in "Sweat" and "Spunk", Hurston makes it a point to characterize females as strong, even when they are silent.
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