Zora Neale Hurston Sweat Summary

Sweat is a great short story written in the 1920’s by Zora Neale Hurston that centers on an abusive marriage. Delia Jones, the protagonist in this story enters into a marriage of love only to have her husband change drastically two months later. When you read this story you can see several themes at work including good versus evil, hard work, marriage, oppression and karma. The central idea of this story demonstrates a good women’s struggle within her marriage against an evil, oppressive husband and how eventually her good karma wins out in the end. Delia Jones is an African American woman who has been married to Sykes Jones for fifteen years. She is a hardworking woman who washes white man’s clothes to support her no good cheating husband. In the beginning of her marriage she was a pretty little thing but the years of physical and emotional abuse have taken a toll. Hurston demonstrates this, “She was young and soft then, but now she thought of her knotty, muscled limbs, her harsh knuckly hands, and drew herself up into an unhappy little ball.” She is a good church going women who prays for strength to deal with her mean, oppressive husband and as the story progresses we see her change from a
Grass withered, leaves browned, snakes went blind in shedding and men and dogs went mad”. The climate is the perfect setting to fit the title “Sweat”. It was written at a time when African American may have been free but still struggled with segregation and hate. Hurston demonstrates this by making Delia a washer women of white men’s clothes and at one point in the story Delia threatens Sykes by stating, “Ah'm goin' tuh de white folks bout you, mah young man, de very nex' time you lay yo' han's on me”. This shows readers that white people are thought to be superior and