The story of “Spunk” by Zora Neale Hurston is a story that examines a complicated love triangle between the three main characters Spunk, Joe, and Lena. Set in the rural town of Eatonville, Florida, “Spunk” is told through the eyes of the towns people almost exclusive, and Hurston’s use of colloquialism invites the reader into the town to almost witness the gossip take place first hand. While the story is told through the eyes of the towns people and the narrator there is a theme that repeats itself and is displayed by the main characters that shape and drive the story. In the story “Spunk” pride, particularly hubristic pride, is a theme that drives the narrative of the story and is the underlying motivation for its main characters Spunk, Joe, …show more content…
[Spunk’s] His sized is matched by his self-confidence.” (Hurston). Spunk is a fearless man. Not only does he have both fear and admiration of the other men in the town, he also is unafraid to do the most dangerous jobs at the sawmill, which by the end of the story would be his downfall. Another reason Spunk’s pride drives the story is his willingness to carry on with Lena, another man’s wife, openly flaunting his infidelity around the town. When confronted by Joe the first time, Spunk would exhibit a level of hubris that belittled Joe. This encounter would make Lena fall deeper in love with him and leave Joe the laughing stock of the town. The final confrontation would end with Joe dead as he confront Spunk a second time, this time with a razor in the Palmetto thickets, “Calmly he tells everyone about the shooting, knowing that no one will challenge him—and no one does, even though he exaggerates the danger he was in, reporting that Joe ‘come out there wid a meat axe an’ made me kill him.’ After a swift trial he is set free and takes up again with Lena, who has been waiting for him with love in her eyes.” (Short Stories For Students 291). In turn Spunk would eventually experience what are a series of supernatural events that lead to his death. However, it is his hubris that would ultimately lead to the death of two men, and would …show more content…
Spunk is a very prideful man, with a hubris that leads him to openly carry-on an affair with Joe’s wife. This same pride would also see Joe dead by Spunk’s hand. In a supernatural twist of events, Spunk too is killed. All lead on by his own hubris and the consequence of his prideful actions. Joe is a man who is fighting for his pride, which has been stripped away by Spunk, Lena, and the towns people. As observed in a literary analysis by Cynthia Bily, “When Joe Kanty comes into the store, the narrator gives the reader a brief lesson in how much can be learned about people just by watching them. The reader is walked through the interpretation, and the clues that lead up to it: ‘One could actually see the pain he was suffering, his eyes, his face, his hands and even the dejected slump of his shoulders.’” Lena’s pride is displayed through her actions with Spunk, the man who is not her husband, and her lack of pride is represented by her utter disgust with Joe, pitting the two men against each other, each man vying for her affection. Without their hubristic actions these characters may not have create their own circumstances, and therefore, may not have had to face the consequences of their prideful
In the small, desolate town of Starkfield, Massachusetts, Ethan Frome lives a life of poverty. Not only does he live hopelessly, but “he was a prisoner for life” to the economy (Ammons 2). A young engineer from outside of town narrates the beginning of the story. He develops a curiosity towards Ethan Frome and the smash-up that he hears about in bits and pieces. Later, due to a terrible winter storm that caused the snow itself to seem like “a part of the thickening darkness, to be the winter night itself descending on us layer by layer” (Wharton 20), the narrator is forced to stay the night at Frome’s. As he enters the unfamiliar house, the story flashes back twenty-four years to Ethan Frome’s young life. Living out his life with Zenobia Frome, his hypochondriac of a wife whom he does not love, Ethan has nowhere to turn for a glance at happiness. But when Zenobia’s, or Zeena’s, young cousin, Mattie Silver, comes to care for her, Ethan falls in love with the young aid. Mattie is Ethan’s sole light in life and “she is in contrast to everything in Starkfield; her feelings bubble near the surface” (Bernard 2). All through the novella, the two young lovers hide their feelings towards each other. When they finally let out their true emotions to each other in the end, the consequence is an unforeseen one. Throughout Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton portrays a twisted fairy tale similar to the story of Snow White with the traditional characters, but without a happy ending to show that in a bleak and stark reality, the beautiful and enchanting maiden could become the witch.
“Sweat” is a short story written by Zora Neale Hurston. It is a story where the husband, Syke, does terrible things to Delia, the wife. Such terrible things are being abusive, and having an affair with someone else. However, this does not hurt Delia any more than it could have. Delia possesses strong characteristics. She is a hard working person, who basically earns for both of their livelihoods, and also very courageous. In order to reveal Delia’s character, Hurston adds in symbols and allusions.
Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. Print.
“I want to get it right,” he said. “After making the mistake in the last book about how long it takes to get from Toronto to Detroit, I want this one to be watertight. So just go along with me until I’m sure that it’ll work.”” he is portrayed throughout the story to be superior, yet he is killed by his wife with his own plan that he created because he was cheating on his wife with another women. Mrs Coates, starts her story as believed to be less intelligent than her husband but proves the theory wrong by turning his own plan against him, her and her husband have been known to be similar in appearance, and also similar in personality. This makes the story a tad outlandish because if the couple was so similar why would he cheat on her, and why would he plot to kill
“No, he didn’t. For I’d ‘a’ been ashamed to tell him that you grudged me the money to get back my health, when I lost it nursing your own mother” (Wharton 46). This section of the book fixed my perception of Zeena. As I began reading, I thought Zeena was simply an ill wife, with her hard-working husband. While Ethan battled his feelings for Mattie, I was angry.
1. After my close reading of "Story in Harlem Slang", it can be said that the Harlem Slang is unique to people from Harlem and if you are not from Harlem or an Harlemese, you might not understand the message they are trying to convey. The author, Zora Neale shows us how this slang is unique through Jelly and Sweet back's character. Both characters communicate using their Harlem Slangs and spent a lot of time trying to seem bigger than they are to one another through lying about the women they’ve been with and the money they have received from them. Jelly decodes his words by using words and terms whereby Sweetback would grab quickly, he said "Naw-naw-naw-now Sweet Back, long as you been knowing me, you ain't never seen me with nothing but
That is not to say that nothing happens in Munro’s short-stories. Instead, multiple scenes take place in “Royal Beatings.” The narrator, Rose, tells us of her life as a child growing up in Hanratty, Ontario; of her stepmother, Flo’s, stories and work in the store the family owned, of her father’s habit of isolating himself in his furniture shed, of being beaten and then indulged. However, the plot is secondary to the story. The scenes created by Munro are not based in action, but emotion and character revelation.
Within every story or poem, there is always an interpretation made by the reader, whether right or wrong. In doing so, one must thoughtfully analyze all aspects of the story in order to make the most accurate assessment based on the literary elements the author has used. Compared and contrasted within the two short stories, “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, and John Updike’s “A&P,” the literary elements character and theme are made evident. These two elements are prominent in each of the differing stories yet similarities are found through each by studying the elements. The girls’ innocence and naivety as characters act as passages to show something superior, oppression in society shown towards women that is not equally shown towards men.
(Sept. 1976): 35-39. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Carol T. Gaffke. Vol. 26. Detroit:
In literature, the significant themes of a story can sometimes be developed within dramatic death scenes. With that being said, Zora Neale Hurston 's presents an unappreciated housewife and her high-class husband 's sinful ways which ultimately lead to the husband 's unplanned death, in her short story “Sweat”. The concluding death scene can best be described as illustrating the theme as “what goes around comes around”. Sykes was abusive and tried plotting his wife, Delia 's, death by using a rattlesnake, but his plan backfired and it was Sykes that was killed in the end.
“Spunk,” by Zora Neale Hurston, is a short story about a man who appears masculine and fearless claiming another man’s wife, but the tables turn by the end of the story. The short story begins with Spunk, the main character, walking off with Lena Kanty. Joe Kanty knows about the affair, but is too timid to confront Spunk.
Many short story writers have written about the gender and role of woman in society. Some of these stories express what Barbara Walter calls, “The Cult of True Womanhood” meaning the separation of both man and woman in social, political and economic spheres. In order to be considered a “true woman” woman were to abide by the set of standards that were given to her. Women were expected to live by the four main principal virtues - piety, purity, submissiveness, and domestication. In Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Storm,” Calixta the main female character breaks away from “The Cult of True Womanhood” when she has a sexual encounter with her past lover Alcée. The storm goes through many twists and turns that tie with their adulterous actions. Although she breaks away from the four main principal virtues, she in the end is considered to be pure innocent of heart because the action in which occurred happened instantly, and as white as she was, she was taken away from her innocence.
Neil Gaiman’s “Snow, Glass, Apples” is far from the modern day fairy tale. It is a dark and twisted version of the classic tale, Snow White. His retelling is intriguing and unexpected, coming from the point of view of the stepmother rather than Snow White. By doing this, Gaiman changes the entire meaning of the story by switching perspectives and motivations of the characters. This sinister tale has more purpose than to frighten its readers, but to convey a deeper, hidden message. His message in “Snow, Glass, Apples” is that villains may not always be villains, but rather victims.
The boy is haplessly subject to the city’s dark, despondent conformity, and his tragic thirst for the unusual in the face of a monotonous, disagreeable reality, forms the heart of the story. The narrator’s ultimate disappointment occurs as a result of his awakening to the world around him and his eventual recognition and awareness of his own existence within that miserable setting. The gaudy superficiality of the bazaar, which in the boy’s mind had been an “oriental enchantment,” shreds away his protective blindness and leaves him alone with the realization that life and love contrast sharply from his dream (Joyce). Just as the bazaar is dark and empty, flourishing through the same profit motivation of the market place, love is represented as an empty, fleeting illusion. Similarly, the nameless narrator can no longer view his world passively, incapable of continually ignoring the hypocrisy and pretension of his neighborhood. No longer can the boy overlook the surrounding prejudice, dramatized by his aunt’s hopes that Araby, the bazaar he visited, is not “some Freemason affair,” and by the satirical and ironic gossiping of Mrs. Mercer while collecting stamps for “some pious purpose” (Joyce). The house, in the same fashion as the aunt, the uncle, and the entire neighborhood, reflects people
In short stories, characters play a primary role in the development of the storyline. Especially in “Strong Horse Tea”, Alice Walker focuses on telling her story through the emotions and evolution of the characters. It focuses on Rannie Toomer’s desperate efforts to save her son, Snooks, with her neighbor, Sarah. Rannie and Sarah are representations of dynamic and static characters, respectively. With assistance of the antiheroes, the mailman and an alleged doctor, Rannie encounters a rough realization that causes a shift in the story.