Life is full of up and downs throughout its course. Sometimes we can take what we are going through in life and make wonderful pieces of art or literature, in order to inspire others. Reading about an author’s life and then reading the piece of literature written by the author, we see that sometimes we can see how the author’s experiences in life and what they have been or are going through helps shape the story or help us as readers understand the story. In the stories The Sweat and The Storm the readers can get a feeling of what the author wanted to portray by reading the biographies of the authors and can relate what has gone on in the author’s life to the characters in the story.
The story The Sweat was written by Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston was born in Florida around the early 1900’s. She was one of eight children who were mainly raised by her father, who was a preacher and a carpenter, and several different family members. Hurston’s mother died when she was just a child. Hurston moved to New York in the 1920’s. While living here she became a member of the Harlem Renaissance. During this time Hurston used her African American heritage and her spiritual background and beliefs to write many pieces of great literature. Although, her work was never recognized till long after her death. Hurston died in a welfare home in Florida; she was poor and is thought to have died from neglect. As a reader, knowing all of this information and after reading the story The Sweat we can get a sense of just what Hurston wanted us to take from the story. Hurston came from a spiritual background; growing with a father that was a preacher and who “…sought “spiritual emancipation” for African Americans by exploring the black heritage…” (Gioia, pg563). By know this we can say that after reading the story and seeing what happens to Sykes in the end the old moral of, you reap what you sow can be implied. In the story we see that Sykes was abusive to Delia. This is evident by the...