johoca

In case you weren’t in class or if you want to see the questions we did in class again. The link to the radio play is http://www.scribblingwomen.org/znhsweatfeature.htm

There is also a nice little summary about Hurston on the follwing site http://www.barnard.edu/archives/persons.htm

Sweat- part 1 to 5 mins

Aint-isn’t

Ah-I

Mah-my

Skeer-scare

Yo-your

Dat-that

1. What did Sykes do to Delia and why?
2. How does Sykes feel about Delia’s job? Why?
3. What happens to Delia when he threatens her to throw out the whites’ clothes? Why does she react like this?
4. Is Sykes a good husband? Explain.
5. How does he feel about the ‘new Delia’?

Sweat part II to 11:14mins

Mah’ied-married

Huh-her

Wuth-worth

Wuz-was

Lak-like

Sho-sure

Kin-can

1. What is the comparison being made as Delia is passing the men on Joe Clarke’s porch?
2. How do the men feel towards Delia?
3. How has Sykes changed as a husband?
4. What is the analogy made on p. 382?
5. Even though everyone knows what Sykes does to Delia, why does no one do anything to stop him?
6. Why does Sykes treat Bertha so differently to Delia?
7. Why do you think that Delia, despite the way she is treated by Sykes, tries to repair their relationship?

Part III to 16 mins

1. What might the foreshadowing be at the end of p.383?
2. Why does Delia get angry even though she is scared of the snake?
3. What is Sykes’ plan with the snake?
4. What does Delia tell Sykes (bottom p.384) and how does Sykes react to this? Why does he react like this?
5. What does Delia threaten Sykes with (top p.385) and how does Sykes react to this threat?

Part IV to 20:55

1. What is the role of religion in Delia’s life?
2. Why does Delia refer to the snake as ‘ol’ satan’?
3. What does Delia do to escape from the snake?
4. What is being said in the paragraph starting ‘finally she grew…’
5. What do you think is going to happen now?

Part V to end

1. How does Delia act during Sykes’ death?
2. Is that how a good religious person should act? Why does she do this?
3. How is Sykes represented at the end of the story? How is that different from the beginning of the story?

Discussion

1. What do you think the significance of the title is?
2. What do you think the themes of the story might be?
3. What are the symbols used in the story?
4. Do you think that Hurston’s story is typical of stories written at the time?
5. Why might Hurston have been criticised for her writing by other blacks?

So you are about to write you first blog- but you haven’t even understood what a blog is let alone what it is that you are supposed to write in it. Here is a really good, clear and short video that might help you with the first problem http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI think of blogging as a conversation between you and others, including your classmates but maybe even others outside who may happen upon your blog! As for the second problem you can go to SUcourse-resources-blogs and look at the whole document on blogging including the marking scheme.

Basically read the story. Think about the story- what did you like about it or not like about it. What did you find interesting or unbelievable about it- do you want to critique it? Are there points that you didn’t understand, write them down, maybe someone else from the class can answer you question, or at least read the question and then in the next class you can all discuss this. You may write about the characters, the themes, the symbols. If you want you can even rewrite the ending of the story. The purpose of the blog is to get you to interact with each other about the stories and for you to practise your writing (it doesn’t have to be academic writing all the time) in order to help you improve the way you express your ideas.

Here are a couple of examples from last semester’s students although the blogs aren’t necessarily about stories http://yucelsblog.blogspot.com/ http://obilgin.blogspot.com/ http://dmryurek.blogspot.com/ http://erdincsahin.blogspot.com/ you can see some of the entries are long, some not so long. As always it is quality rather than quantity that matters (within reasonable limits of course).

Remember that you can use this blog as an alternative to participating in class if you feel too shy. If you want to do this then open up another category ‘class discussion’ and then I can use this to mark you for the 10% participation mark.