The short story, "Sweat" by Neale Hurston
is about a hard working woman that is continuously beaten by her husband. Her
husband does not only beat her, he also takes the money that she earns and
spends it on flirting with girls. Her husband is unemployed and is very
insecure. After many abusive situations, the woman finally comes to her senses.
After being abused emotionally, physically, and verbally, she decides that she
is not going put up with the abuse any longer. Once her husband is aware of
this, he tries to scare her with a poisonous snake. The man's plan backfires
completely and ends up killing him instead of her. She gains courage at the end
of the story when he is pleading for help as she watches him die from the
poisonous snake.
The song, “Never Again” by Nickelback is about a
women being constantly beat by her boyfriend. The man is always getting drunk
and hurting his girlfriend for no reason. It gets worse and worse. At the end
of the song, the woman begins to gain courage and takes a gun and shoots the
man. She finally stood up for herself.
The short story, “Sweat” and the song, “Never
Again” are very similar. Both of the women are being emotionally, physically
and verbally abused. At the beginning of both the song and the short story, the
women are extremely scared and do not know how to stand up for themselves. At the
end of “Sweat,” the woman is being begged by her husband to help him. She
watches him die and does not help him. At the end of the song, the woman finally
takes a gun and shoots the man. Both of these women find the dignity at the end
and stand up for what they want. They both choose to not be beaten anymore.
http://youtu.be/eiOvsHHquTc
I think this was a great comparison to song and story. I personally love this band and song and I think it shows great comparison to two very similar situations, but shows how each chose to deal with it in their own way in their own setting. While Delia was unable – or unwilling – to physically harm Sykes is really unknown, you can tell she has no remorse when he is withering on the ground dying and calling out for her. In the song, this woman had the ability to shoot her boyfriend and watch him die. Maybe she did this because the gun was readily available to her and it makes me wonder what Delia would have done if she had a weapon readily available to her.
ReplyDeleteI can completely understand how these connections were made. Both of these women had to deal with being abused by the men in their lives- in this case it would be the husbands. After dealing with being abused and mistreated for so long they both finally came to the decision that they deserved better for themselves. In both of these the husbands end up dying. Although by different causes. One of the women kills her husband by shooting him, while the other watches her husband die after being bitten by a snake. Both of these women have found who they want to be while getting rid of their oppressors at the same time.
ReplyDeleteWow Britney, you brought this up to my attention. When I was reading this in class it never even dawned on me that the two topics were so similar.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I would like to play the devils advocate and ask you if you think the two are similar when its in terms of being drunk. In the short story, the reader understands that Denelia’s husband is abusing her out of pure enjoyment while an individual that beats their wife while drunk is not completely conscious of the decision.
What do you think the difference is? Is there a difference?
This a well written post however, and fabulously done! Great job, keep it up!
I can see the similarity in the “Sweat” and the song by Nickelback. Both Delia and the woman in the song are victimized by their husband’s physical abuse. They are submissive to their husbands until one day they gain enough strength to fight back. Although I don’t know if Delia situation when her Husband died was as intentional as the husband’s in the song where the woman literally went and got a gun herself to shoot him however, I do not think it would be false to make the judgment that Delia was going to do something to her hurt him of some sort if the snake had never bitten him just because she started to defend herself and gain strength throughout the story. Good job Brittney, I enjoyed reading your media outtake.
ReplyDeleteBrittney! I could not tell who posted this because your name is nowhere on your post (not even your email)...
ReplyDelete