Thursday, July 18, 2013

Media Outtake 3: Abusive relationships between husbands and wives

As I read through the short story “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston, I quickly related it to a movie called “The Help”. This movie was set in a time period where African Americans had little to no rights and were discriminated by rich, white folks. The White people would hire the African American women to be their maids to tend to their house and children. These women would work themselves to death doing anything that their bosses said to do, all of them really need the money to help support their families. No matter how rude, mean, or self-indulgent these families were, the maids would have to comply and just do their jobs quietly. Similar to the story “Sweat” there was in fact one character in the movie named Minny who was abruptly abused by her husband. Her husband showed no shame at all in beating her, she would be on the phone with someone and he would beat her allowing the person on the line hear her screams. She was afraid to go home each night but where else could she go? She thought that no one could help her escape. But as time passed on she received feedback from her fellow neighbors and friends that she should leave him and not accept this brutal lifestyle that was thrust upon her. In the end Minny made the right choice and left her foul husband and took her kids along with her.
These two stories connect in the sense that there was discrimination, prejudice, and abusive acts. Those situations are very hard to overcome, but both of the main characters had an outlet for which they were able to relax and be happy. For example Delia was a very religious woman who turned to the gospel and the people who surrounded her at church. This is what kept her sane through the rest of the week. Both women were greatly disrespected by their husbands but in the end the both got to break away to freedom.


2 comments:

  1. Victoria, you have made a great connection here between the short story, "Sweat", and the movie, "The Help." I have as well watched this movie before and can recognize the similarities you have pointed out here. Both, Minny and Delia had to deal with the abusiveness of their husbands. They had to learn ways to cope with their situations and both of them did. With Delia, her coping was sticking to her religiousness in her church and Minny's coping was simply ignoring the fact and staying strong. In the end, both of these women stood up for themselves and got away from their abusive relationships. Great job!

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  2. Victoria, you made a very unique connection in your media outtake. Not only did you connect the abusive relationship but you also made a separate connection between how Delia’s work and the maids’ work were being taken for granted. You also showed that the both are connected in that the main characters faced discrimination and prejudice. The fact that you were able to make so many different connections with this same movie is very clever. This is one of my favorite movies and I am glad you were able to use this movie and relate it to this short story. Great job.

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