Emancipated Slaves

Emancipated Slaves

Introduction

This paper is based on harsh realities of life experienced by the poor Southern natives as depicted in two literary works; Zora Neale Hurston's “Sweat”, and Arna Bontemps' “A Summer Tragedy”.

Sweat

Hurston's theme of extreme love and extreme hate within the black family acquires, in the story “Sweat,” the magnitude of a cosmic struggle between good and evil, God and Satan. The central principle, which almost has the force of a moral, Hurston pronounces through the voice of Delia: “Whatever goes over the Devil's back, is got to come under his belly. Sometime or ruther, Sykes, like everybody else, is ...