Zora Hurston a superior author who wrote short stories and often used folklore, and religious references in her writing. Hurston in Their Eyes Were Watching God uses symbolism throughout the book followed with a vast amount of metaphors and similes. She used this unique style in order to draw in the reader's attention and to get them to feel as if they were there. Hurston starts every chapter out with either a metaphor or a simile. For instance the very first sentence of Their Eyes Were Watching God is a metaphor, “ Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.”
Subsequently, Hurston introduces Sawley’s historical setting in the third paragraph that develops into the background of the community in the fourth paragraph. Hurston’s use of colloquial diction within the phrase, “There was then no U.S. 90,” hints the author’s benevolent tone toward the audience; due to the lack of formal diction, essentially to achieve a conversational mood. Additionally, Hurston goes into detail about the pathways that lead into Sawley which transitions into the background of this town. Moreover, in the fourth paragraph the author begins to explore the gruesome past of the community as well as the insensibility of its citizens. For Hurston to provide the reader a perception of Sawley’s inhabitants, the author applies parallelism
In “The Scarlet Ibis”, Hurst uses the theme of peer pressure to argue that the normative conformity with one’s reputation leads to death. In providing rationale for his brother, Doodle, the narrator exclaims “It was bad enough having an invalid brother, but having one who possibly was not all there was unbearable, so I began to make plans to kill him… (Hurst 176). The narrator statement explains his embarrassment of having a handicapped brother. The narrator didn’t get the normal brother with whom he could share his love of the outdoors. When he finds out he has an “invalid brother” he feels it's “unbearable”.
Despite having an arduous life in Canada, he has in part fulfilled his idea of a personal heaven by living in an urban and developed setting; and primarily escaping the judgments of the apathetic islanders. Yet, this idea of a perfect life is incomplete; it lacks “some sweet island woman with whom he’d share his life, of having children and later buying a house” Many times in life, future gratification in unforeseeable, and occasionally — such as in the instance of Max — sacrifices may result in a sense of disillusioned inaptitude. Within this excerpt of the short story “Mammita’s Garden Cove” by Cyril Dabydeen, the author’s complex attitude towards place is conveyed by Dabydeen’s use of repetition, diction, and
In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, we follow our protagonist, Janie, through a journey of self-discovery. We watch Janie from when she was a child to her adulthood, slowly watching her ideals change while other dreams of hers unfortunately die. This is shown when Jane first formulates her idea of love, marriage, and intimacy by comparing it to a pear tree; erotic, beautiful, and full of life. After Janie gets married to her first spouse, Logan Killicks, she doesn’t see her love fantasy happening, but she waits because her Nanny tells her that love comes after marriage. Janie, thinking that Nanny is wise beyond her years, decides to wait.
Name: Lakisha Minnis Instructor: Mr. Compton English 2202-001 Date: April. 24, 2017 Sweat Zora Neale Hurston is a prolific writer famed for numerous award winning plays, novels and short stories. In this paper, I will be elaborating on a character from the novel Sweat. Her novel Sweat was first published in 1926. Sweat is a novel that tells a story about the good, evil, and domestic abusive husband.
He could imagine his deception of this town “nestled in a paper landscape,” (Collins 534). This image of the speaker shows the first sign of his delusional ideas of the people in his town. Collins create a connection between the speaker’s teacher teaching life and retired life in lines five and six of the poem. These connections are “ chalk dust flurrying down in winter, nights dark as a blackboard,” which compares images that the readers can picture.
Hurston’s use of symbolism creates a dynamic piece of literature that can be looked at through multiple lenses. The symbolism in Sweat is somewhat overt, making it difficult to not be noticed. There is a heavy use of religious metaphor, tying the story back to the story of Adam and Eve from the Christian bible. This gives the piece a personal touch, showing us that Hurston has a strong spiritual connection. It also helps to add a whole other layer, creating a depth to the story that would not otherwise be accessible.
Within this passage the Vicar displays an ironically materialistic pleasure in regards his family life and idyllic home. Despite his humble occupation as a small-town Vicar, Primrose ensures that the reader is informed of his little habitation which encompasses ‘twenty acres of excellent land’ and gloats that his pristine neatness could not be exceeded. This is significant as it is something which the Vicar comes into contact with each day and is part of his everyday experience. Furthermore, the positive and idealised representation the Vicar gives of country life, introduces the novel as a pastoral. The simplification of the complexity of life is provided in the Vicar’s descriptions of his return home ‘where smiling looks, a neat hearth,
The Gilded Love In “The Gilded Six Bits”, a short story by Zora Neale Hurston, the marriage between Joe and Missie May is greatly affected by materialism. Every Saturday afternoon Joe throws nine silver dollars for Missie May to pile beside her plate at dinner; she then runs out to greet him and they play fight with each other. She digs through his pockets for candy kisses and other goods that he has put in them for her to find. They obviously love each other, but I think that in this Hurston is giving a subtle hint of what role materialistic things play in the relationship between them.
Joe’s confidence and charisma cause him to become the mayor of Eatonville, but his insecurities and jealousies result in the decline of his marriage and health. From the moment Joe walks into Janie’s life, he always had a set plan to reach his goals. He wants to be a “big voice”, and he never doubts his ability to accomplish his goals (Hurston 27). Hurston describes the “command in his face” as almost “tangible” to express how Joe’s dominating control seemed to be a physical aspect that someone could almost touch (Hurston 44). His unwavering self-confidence persuades the people around him to believe in his dreams and to give him loyalty, including Janie.
Since the concept of marriage is inextricably connected with the feminist theory, it is worth analysing its depiction in the novel. As a matter of fact, through the representation of Janie`s marriages, Hurston criticizes marriage as a form of a relationship through which women can buy security and social respect. Since the protagonist does not associate marriage with love, it constitutes a sort of a trap for her. Janie`s grandma and her Nanny, both abused by men in the time of slavery, try to make her marry and gain stability. Nanny, whose daughter was brutally raped by one of the school teachers, tries to secure Janie from violence because, in her understanding, marriage can prevent a woman from becoming a victim of this humiliation.
While married Janie had to conform to what her husband wanted her to be like, look like, and act like. Janie’s hair is another powerful symbol in the novel. It symbolizes her power and freedom within society. It is what most of the men characters noticed about her right away. Her hair was so beautiful that while being married to Joe Starks, he made her wear it in a hair rag.
In her story “Sweat'', through her use of symbolism, imagery, and irony Hurston underscores the idea that relationships can not flourish without equality among one another. One example of how she used symbolism to portray the theme is when the snake bites Sykes. In her story “Sweat '', Delia is married to a mentally and physically abusive man named Sykes. As Sykes is dying in their house, Hurston uses the Jordan River to give the reader an idea of what Delia is feeling: “She knew the cold river was creeping up and up to extinguish that eye which must know by now that she knew” (7). This is the final sentence in the story, and it leaves the reader with the symbol of the cold river, which represents the death of Sykes as well as Delia’s relationship
In "Sweat," the main character, Delia Jones, is portrayed as a strong-willed, hard-working washwoman who would wash clothes for white people. She worked tireless to provide for her family. Delia was married to Sykes, who would berate, beat and mentally abuse Delia, incessantly. For example, Sykes would walk into the room where Delia just folded clothing for the white people and find the whitest pile of clothes, stomp all over them and then kick them across the room, leaving her to clean up and restack them. Sykes was also openly living in infidelity with another woman, named Bertha.
