Rabies in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Huston

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Their Eyes Were Watching God is a captivating novel written by Zora Neale Hurston in which she depicts the life struggles of one Janie Crawford. Throughout her life she encounters many different opportunities and challenges. Some of these challenges are brought about by the men in her life. First she is with Logan Killicks, whom she only married for his financial stability. Then she ran off with Jody Starks who showed her a rich life of fun and running a business. However, once he died she runs off with a much younger man named Tea Cake. He shows her a new exciting, wonderful, and adventurous life in which she no longer cares what anyone thinks. In Their Eyes Were Watching God Tea Cake gets bit by a rabid dog and gets driven mad by the disease and eventually ends up dead in the process. Rabies is a disease that affects the brain not only in animals but in humans as well. By comparing the true effects of rabies and the novels description it will shed light to whether the portrayal is accurate or an elaborate dramatization to create a more suspenseful atmosphere.

Rabies is a deadly virus that occurs in the brain. It can affect all mammals but the ones that are most commonly found with the virus are dogs, bats, raccoons, skunks, and coyotes. This means that any non-mammal can not contract the virus, such as fish, birds, and reptiles (2). The virus can be contracted by humans with saliva transfer with broken skin contact from an animal which has the disease. As this is the most common form of transferring the disease it is very believable that Tea Cake contracts the virus from the wild dog that “managed to bite [him] high up on his cheek bone once” (1). The rabies virus works by being a bullet shaped virus that directly attacks th...

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...in the times she did this is one of the most accurate descriptions of the rabies virus and not all for dramatic tension and dramatization.

Works Cited

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Perennial Library, 1990. Print.

"Rabies." HCPHES. American Veterinary Medical Association, n.d. Web. 15 Feb. 2014. .

Nordqvist, Christian. "What Is Rabies? What Causes Rabies?" Medical News Today. MediLexicon International, 10 Mar. 2010. Web. 15 Feb. 2014. .

"Rabies Vaccine: MedlinePlus Drug Information." U.S National Library of Medicine. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 01 Nov. 2009. Web. 15 Feb. 2014. .

Radiolab. Rodney Versus Death. Rec. 13 Aug. 2013. NPR, 2013. Radio. 22 Feb. 2014.

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