Seraph On The Suwanee Essay

Words: 607
Pages: 3

In the novel, Seraph on the Suwanee by Zora Neale Hurston, the author conveys what the civilization of a little town called Sawley that sits along the Suwanee River is like. The author exhibits a rather derogatory and contemptuous tone when describing these people. Through the author’s use of regional dialect, polysyndeton, and point of view, the reader can see that the civilization only has an appreciation for food and not the land that it comes from. In the first third of Seraph on the Suwanee, Hurston describes where Sawley is and looks like, “curving course, primitive forests, and cultivated fields” (lines 3-8). She further uses this imagery to tell the reader about the life of the town and how “Few of these fields were intensively cultivated, and had scratchy plantings” (line …show more content…
To start off, the third paragraph begins with a cumulative sentence where “This was” represents the town of Sawley, followed by a description of the time. “When the automobile was known as the horseless carriage” reveals the shift in history and allows the reader to understand the changes that will occur concerning automobiles as well as roadways. Another cumulative sentence presents itself from line 27 through 31, with a more detailed description of what Sawley held in place of “the legendary Old Spanish Trail” and how the people utilized their little assets and used them to the best of their abilities. Finally, the paragraph ends with an anaphora and parallel structure that connects itself to the final paragraph. The repetition of “Few” followed by “ever dreamed of venturing” reveals that the the people of Sawley had little concern for the future. The start of the fourth paragraph continues on how the Sawley people were not “concerned with the past.” This anaphora continues to be found once more at the start of line 40, to further develop the