Comparison Of Love In 'A Rose For Emily' By Zora Neale Hurston

Brandon Mays

Ms. Gilliam

English 112

October 20, 2014

LOVE

In William Falkner’s “A Rose for Emily” he tells a story of love and tragedy. A story of how love is affected by several aspects of a persons’ life. In Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat” it is also a story of love and tragedy. This story has more of a religious feeling to it and offers a view of love in an abusive relationship. The main characters in each story are very different but similar in some ways. They both wanted love in different ways and love for them changes over time. They are unique stories and very symbolic overall. Love can be defined in many different ways, as a strong emotion or affection for someone or an object. Loves definition really depends on the person feeling

Sykes treats Delia as a sulky teenage boy would treat his mother. With no respect for her, along with emotional, mental, and physical abuse. He still expects her to take care of him like a teenager. Sykes also openly cheats on Delia in public with a less attractive over weight woman. He could find bigger women attractive because he associates bigger women with a maternal figure. He also states in the story that he hates skinny women during an argument with Delia. “Gawd! How ah hates skinny wimmen!”(Hurston 733). Sykes is also dependent on Delia financially because he gambles away his money. This helps fuel his anger and resentment towards her. Enough to even want to kill her because he knows Delia will not leave the house she has worked so hard paying for easily. The men in town even gossip about the abuse Sykes does and type of man they think he is. “There’s plenty of men dat takes a wife lak dey do a joint uh surgar-cane. Its round, juicy, an’ sweet when dey gets it. But dey squeeze an’ grind, squeeze an’ grind wring tell dey wring every drop uh pleasure dat’s in ‘em out. When dey’s satisfied dat dey is wrung dry, dey treats ‘em jes lak dey do a cane-chew. Dey throws em away” (Hurston 734). Any man is capable of treating Delia as Sykes treats her. Even though the men in town gossip about the miss treatment, none of them mention ever helping Delia. Delia is starting

The story takes place post-Civil War when things are starting to change. Her father turns down every suitor for Emily to marry as he sees them as not good enough for his daughter. This takes away Emily’s childhood, she is never able to experience any real kind of relationship or any other love besides her fathers. The reads are left to believe that maybe her father is abusive and or uncaring. Also that her mother may be dead or generally not in the picture at all. There is a lot of mystery left to the readers to assume on their own. The story is told from the perspective of the town and it never really mentions any certain person or narrator. It starts out with Emily’s’ funeral, “When miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women out of curiosity to see the inside of her house , which no one save an old man-servant—a combined gardener—had seen in at least ten years” (Falkner 714). It starts with Emily’s death and then goes back in time to her father keeping her secluded, up until his death. The town felt sorry for her after her father’s passing, she was left with nothing but a house, a servant and no man to marry. It took her 3 days to give up her father’s dead body, unable to come to terms with his death. “The day after his death the ladies prepared