Zora Neale Hurston's Sweat - Essay Example

Literary Analysis of “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston Reading through the short story “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston, one finds an enduring attitude and desperation of a hardworking black woman who takes a great deal of struggle in bondage to an unhappy married life with an oppressive husband. Apparently, “Sweat” is another story of pain that bears an undertone of slavery against the black, this time however the theme directs the critic to point the blame upon another black rather than the typical white-complexioned oppressor. Hurston presents Delia Jones as a black laundrywoman whose fears and troubles are all caused by Sykes, an irresponsible husband of fifteen years who appears to have merely gratified his selfish adulterous desires which Delia is never part of. In its core, “Sweat” depicts a narrative of an African-American woman of the early 20th century whose mediocre role as a wife and worker is quite representative of every other poor black woman experiencing domestic injustice from the unruly male counterpart who even schemes the death of his partner. Set in a small village in Central Florida, Delia’s life would have taken on a smooth path if Hurston prefers that she assumes the disposition of a single woman who works and thinks for herself instead of persevering to save a ruinous marriage. To imagine, based on how the protagonist conducts herself in behavior, thought, and manner of communication with her husband, Delia may be perceived as an ordinary woman who has ceased taking ambitions to heights. She is seemingly content with her routine of washing clothes for the white employer and of maintaining a very simple house built out of all her monetary earnings that came with blood, tears, and sweat through the years of continuous toil that she subscribes to attending church service for occasional relief. One may instantly find in her a type of woman who, apart from the drive to attain financial security, would in pure simplicity wish for nothing else than to live a life of love and peace especially when it comes to acquiring good terms of relation with Sykes. With Sykes, an unfaithful husband who has physically abused his wife for irrational grounds, Delia has become accustomed to the torture of beatings from him that she can manage to stay with the man no matter how their depressive situation could pull her sanity apart. This is evident on the initial part of the story when Delia reacts to a snake-shaped bullwhip which Sykes purposely throws at her, that it brings her to complain “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.” Then it should have appeased herself to be justified further on telling him “You aint got no business doing it. Gawd knows it’s a sin. Some day Ah’m goin’ tuh drop dead from some of yo’ foolishness.” Such statements and the mood attached in them indicate that Delia’s and Syke’s household exhibits a common domestic scenario in which couples have lived on, treating the exchange of nasty unpleasant words as casual and proceeds in the absence of anticipation for change. Outside of the couple’s house and into a nearby place where other village folks gather, there exists the rest of black community which reflects the cultural background of the principal characters. At this stage, a critical reader comes to the point of realization in the attempt to determine what could be a chief factor or influence that partly explains why Delia’s approach to living is deprived of inspiration. It may be necessary to ask ‘how should she learn or be made to see the light of a motivating perspective in order to dream above her state of economy when her neighbors have nothing better to do than talk nonsense under the heat of the sun?’ As such, a bunch of cane-chewing village porch bystanders like Jim Merchant, Joe Lindsay, Walter Thomas, and Elijah Moseley make do with gossips over Delia’s mundane unfortunate life muttering “Heah come Delia Jones” and “Hot or col’, rain or shine, jes ez reg’lar ez de weeks roll roun Delia carries em an’ fetches ‘em on Satday” in reply for instance. These local people converse among themselves in heavy black accent trying to feel good at philosophizing their observations of someone else’s experience of harsh reality. Altogether, they form a picture of men whose poverty and lack of education creates an atmosphere where conflicts could obtain no further hope of resolution from their burden of unwise judgments. Eventually, the plot continues as Sykes enters the scene to satisfy a reader’s curiosity of his nature according to the hasty assessment of the villagers and what his treatment of Delia tends to imply. He commits another foolish act of frightening his wife with a rattlesnake despite the fact that it scares Delia the most and since this serves as a repetition of the event with bullwhip, it confirms the truth that not even a slight hint of his affection remains for the pathetic spouse. Prior to this, he openly brings his mistress, Bertha, to the sight of public so that this time around, she would have been every mouth’s fill of rumor as uttered in cheap incomprehensible language of the black villagers. Her character in the story threatens and aggravates the already miserable position of Delia particularly as Sykes tells her with the voice of a lover’s mighty assurance: “Sho’ you kin have dat lil’ ole house soon’s Ah kin git dat ‘oman outa dere. Everything b’longs tuh me an’ you sho’ kin have it. Ah sho’ ‘bominates uh skinny ‘oman. Lawdy, you sho’ is got one portly shape on you! You kin git anything you wants. Dis is mah town an’ you sho’ kin have it.” Toward the end, the ill fate that Sykes decides for Delia, in the fulfillment of his conceited objective, reverses. His being bitten by the poisonous snake functions as a sign of a better life ahead of Delia for she could have at the last moment applied her sympathy to respond to his pitiful groans but the limited resources manifest that the incident is beyond her control. It turns out that she truly needs to be recovered and delivered from a merciless husband who, like most other men of the 1920s, has brought his wife to a level of inferiority complex quite representative of every other poor black woman buried in frailty and misery of wicked encounters via unhappy man. Read More