Sweat By Zora Neale Hurston Analysis
Eatonville does not sound anything like Eden, but Zora Neale Hurston’s short story, “Sweat” still brings to mind the Garden of Eden. Maybe it is the title, “Sweat,” that brings to mind Genesis 3:19, “By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat…” Or it might be the snake that makes it reflect the Biblical Fall. It is not a mirror image of course. Delia is not Eve, and Sykes is not Adam. In fact, Sykes seems more like the serpent. Sykes is a callous, brutal, vain, and worthless man.
Sykes is an insensitive man who does not care about Delia’s feelings. For example, Sykes knows that snakes terrify Delia and yet he takes great pleasure in using this fear against her. He throws his bull whip at her knowing that she will think it is a snake. When she confronts him saying that he knew that it would scare her he says, “Course Ah know it! That’s how come Ah done it. If you such a big fool …show more content…
When the men on the porch of Joe Clark’s store see Delia delivering the laundry that she has washed, Joe Lindsey comments on how dependable Delia is and how hard she works. Moss agrees saying, “She better if she wanter eat. Syke Jones aint wuth de shot an’ powder hit would tek tuh kill ‘em” (355). Lindsay seconds this by saying, “There oughter be a law about him. He aint fit tuh carry guts tuh a bear” (355). Joe Clark agrees that Sykes is worthless, but he tells the men, “Taint no law on earth dat kin make a man be decent if it aint in ‘im” (355). It is Sykes’s callousness, brutality, and vanity that make him worthless. His insensitivity to Delia whose blood, sweat, and tears have fed and provided for him that makes him worse than useless to her. The brutal beatings he gave her have destroyed her beauty, and his constant affairs have made their marriage meaningless. His pride in being a snake charmer backfires on him in the end, when the snake he placed in Delia’s laundry basket bites and kills
Sykes is an insensitive man who does not care about Delia’s feelings. For example, Sykes knows that snakes terrify Delia and yet he takes great pleasure in using this fear against her. He throws his bull whip at her knowing that she will think it is a snake. When she confronts him saying that he knew that it would scare her he says, “Course Ah know it! That’s how come Ah done it. If you such a big fool …show more content…
When the men on the porch of Joe Clark’s store see Delia delivering the laundry that she has washed, Joe Lindsey comments on how dependable Delia is and how hard she works. Moss agrees saying, “She better if she wanter eat. Syke Jones aint wuth de shot an’ powder hit would tek tuh kill ‘em” (355). Lindsay seconds this by saying, “There oughter be a law about him. He aint fit tuh carry guts tuh a bear” (355). Joe Clark agrees that Sykes is worthless, but he tells the men, “Taint no law on earth dat kin make a man be decent if it aint in ‘im” (355). It is Sykes’s callousness, brutality, and vanity that make him worthless. His insensitivity to Delia whose blood, sweat, and tears have fed and provided for him that makes him worse than useless to her. The brutal beatings he gave her have destroyed her beauty, and his constant affairs have made their marriage meaningless. His pride in being a snake charmer backfires on him in the end, when the snake he placed in Delia’s laundry basket bites and kills