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Zora Neal Hurston’s short story “Sweat” can be read as a work of feminist fiction, although not for the reason one thinks. We begin the story by being introduced to Delia, a washerwoman, as she is sorting out clothes after she has returned home from church.
She is singing and wondering where her husband could be since he took her horse and laundry hampers. As she continues sorting laundry and pondering his whereabouts, she suddenly feels something like a snake fall around her shoulders and screams, only to look up and see her husband, Sykes, standing over her with the bullwhip he uses to drive the horses. As you continue to read the story you will become aware that this image is not by accident. Her husband Sykes is an imposing and oppressive figure.
Delia reveals her anger because her husband purposefully terrorizes her. But Sykes doesn’t care about her feelings and yells at her and expresses his dismay about her continuing to wash white people’s clothes in the house, even as she tries to ignore him, he continues to kick the clothes piles all over the floor. He is overly eager to start a fight with her and keeps trying to provoke her with his words. Delia grows tired of his verbal abuse, she screams about how hard she’s been working and picks up an iron skillet from the stove as if to strike him. He’s caught off guard by the reaction from Delia. As the narrator states.“It cowed him and he did not strike her as he usually did.’ (Hurston 2). From this quote, it is clear that he is also physically abusive toward her and this makes Delia’s rebellious action even more surprising.
When Sykes finally leaves the house. Delia is left alone to further examine why her life and marriage were falling apart. Soon we are introduced to Sykes’s mistress, Bertha, whom Sykes has been taking care of with all of Delia’s hard-earned money. We come to understand that Delia finds her happiness by attending church and maintaining her small house. Sometime later Sykes returns home and tries to lie down with Delia. It is now made clear that this is a troubled household and that Delia’s patience with her abusive husband is going to have to have some kind of resolution. In an instance of foreshadowing, she thinks, “Oh well, whatever goes over the Devil’s back, is got to come under his belly’ (Hurston 3), which means that she knows eventually Skyes will get what’s coming to him.
As a little time passes, Delia sets out to do her washing and passes by a group of men sitting at the town store. The story then takes a turn as the men comment on how pretty Delia used to be and how it’s such a shame that she’s beaten so often and lost her good looks. They also discuss Sykes and his behavior with his mistress Bertha. One of the gentlemen is quoted saying, “There oughter be a law about him… He ain’t fit to carry guts to a bear.’ (4). The reader can determine that the gentlemen of the town have a strong dislike toward Sykes due to the way he mistreated Delia. On her way back, Delia sees Sykes out front of Bertha’s telling her that he will buy her whatever she wants. As the narrator states, “It pleased him for Delia to see.'(Hurston 5).
As you continue to read it is explained to the reader that Bertha has been in town for three months. It is also known that Delia and Sykes fought all the time and there was no peace in their household. They slept and ate in silence. Delia attempted on several occasions to make her marriage work and to get along with Sykes but she quickly changed her mind each time. It became a reality their marriage was over. One day Sykes comes home with a box and tells Delia to look inside. As she opens the box, Delia is startled to find a giant rattlesnake that Sykes has caught. She begged him to get rid of the snake, but Sykes refused to get rid of it, even though it is driving Delia crazy. The rattlesnake had just had a large meal when Sykes caught it. But the snake began to grow hungry again and always rattled around, scaring Delia to death. However, one evening Delia comes home to find that the snake is loose. So she decided not to stay inside the house and climbs into a Chinaberry tree to wait for Sykes to come home.
Once he arrives home he sees that there are no lights on in the house, and also finds the snake is missing. Then a little time later, as Sykes is rambling around the dark kitchen, he gets bitten by the snake. He tries calling out for Delia to help him, but instead of helping him, Delia simply lets him die.
As the reader, you could argue whether or not Delia was too afraid to move to get help for her husband, or if she purposefully let him die. You could agree with both, but if you are going to conclude that she was just afraid, you’d better take a closer look at the text before coming to that conclusion.
Work Cited
- Hurston, Zora Neale. ‘Sweat.’ Houston ISD, 1926, houstonisd.org/site/handlers. Accessed 28 March 2019
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