Threatening
Just then something long, round, limp and black fell upon her shoulders and slithered to the floor beside her. A great terror took hold of her. It softened her knees and dried her mouth so that it was a full minute before she could cry out or move. Then she saw that it was the big bull whip her husband liked to carry when he drove.
She lifted her eyes to the door and saw him standing there bent over with laughter at her fright. She screamed at him.
"Sykes, what you throw dat whip on me like dat? You know it would skeer me--looks just like a snake, an' you knows how skeered Ah is of snakes."
"Course Ah knowed it! That's how come Ah done it." He slapped his leg with his hand and almost rolled on the ground in his mirth. "If you such a big fool dat you got to have a fit over a earth worm or a string, Ah don't keer how bad Ah skeer you."
In a passage from her essay �Sweat�, Zora Neale Hurston stresses a threatening tone to foreshadow the future conflicts that occur between Sykes and his wife. It is accepted that Sykes� wife has a fear of his whip and Sykes chooses to jolt her with it because ��[he] knowed�� that she would be petrified by it. Sykes begins to �roll on the ground in his mirth�, showing how amused he is with himself by putting his wife is a situation of fright. Moreover, Sykes demonstrates a complete disregard for his wife by stating, �Ah don�t keer how bad Ah skeer you�.
Analysis
"Sweat"
Zora Neale Hurston
Neale Hurston, Zora. Sweat. 17 Nov 2003. <http://www.geocities.com/
      cyber_explorer99/hurstonsweat.html>.
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