JOURNAL #3: EVALUATION

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Evaluation

“Sweat” is the short story written by Zora Neale Hurston initially published in 1926. The most prominent feature of this story is that it reflects thoughtful insights for the audience. The overall theme of the story helps readers to get familiar with the major social concern that influences the lives of people in a great manner. Comprehensive evaluation of the entire theme and content provided by the author is critical to making better inference about the overall effectiveness of the story. Here the main focus is to critically assess the content and the main theme of the story to make better inference about the effectiveness of the main idea.

The story of “sweat’ is one great example to consider the issue of women empowerment in the society. Undoubtedly, the detrimental social situation for women is successfully illustrated by the author through the character of Delia. The overall text of the story of “sweat” is characterized as a significant example of women empowerment and its importance in society. Deep understanding of the characters of Delia and her husband, Sykes in the story helps to recognize the imbalance approach of their marital life. The importance of the establishment of women empowerment is clearly explained by the author in the form of the main character of the story, Delia.

All the main themes of the story such as women struggle, betrayal, inequality, independence, and self-importance are effectively established by the author of the story. The entire content of the story helps readers to expand their horizon that why it is important for the women to recognize their worth and take crucial decisions of their lives. The weak positioning of women is successfully explained by Zora in the story that highlight the main concern appeared in the content. The introductory lines of the story are a clear indication of the uncomfortable marital situation for Delia. This particular prospect is explained through the following words, “It was eleven o’clock of a spring night in Florida. It was on Sunday. Any other night, Delia Jones would have been in bed for two hours by this time. But she was a wash-woman, and Monday morning meant a great deal to her.” These particular words are the explicit explanation of this fact that life is not easy for Delia. She is struggling in her marital life due to uncooperative behavior of his husband.

The main theme of the story encourages the audience to critically think about the actual social positioning of women during the time period when the story was originally published. It was the time when women facing the problem of inappropriate behavior of their husbands because they are characterized as the weak entity in the marital relationship. Usually, women of that time were not brave enough to raise their voice against the brutality and disloyalty of their spouse. Considering this form of social environment, the story of “sweat” is a great example to define the existing roles of men and women at the domestic level. The other angle of women empowerment is also successfully explained by the author through the resisting perspective adopted by the female character of the story, Delia. The idea of suppression of the women as wives is strongly and clearly described by the author as the concern for society.

In conclusion, it is worthy to indicate that the content of the story is productively established by the author to deliver the main theme to the readers. The lesson of women empowerment is clearly shared by Zora through the characterization of Delia. The dominance of males on females is successfully explained by the author through the character of Sykes who used to hit Delia just to establish his manly superiority.