Zora Neale Hurston, "Sweat" Analysis

4 September 2014

     "Sweat" by Zora Neale Hurston is a short story about a Negro woman, Delia, dealing with oppression from white people and, on an even higher level, from her husband. There are many overlaying themes of this story, which include racism, abuse of power on many levels, and equality (or lack thereof) of the sexes. One quote that I found to be particularly central to the overall story is a quote from Syke, Delia's husband, after he hides a rattlesnake in their house for Delia to find knowing that she is terrified of snakes. He says, "Ah ain't gut tuh do nuthin' uh de kin'- fact is Ah ain't got tuh do nothin' but die. Taint no use uh you puttin' on airs makin' out lak you skeered uh dat snake- he's gointer stay right heah tell he die. He wouldn't bite me cause Ah knows how tuh handle 'im. Nohow he wouldnt risk breakin' out his fangs 'gin yo' skinny laigs... Doan ast me tuh do nothin' fuh yuh. Goin' roun' trying' tuh be so damn asterperious" (3). This quote was interesting to me for many reasons. There is quite a bit of foreshadowing present, mainly because Syke is so confident that he knows "how to handle" the snake when in the end Delia is able to escape the snake while it brings about Syke's death. Syke scoffs at Delia's fear, but in the end her fear and awareness of the danger of the snake ends up being completely rational while Syke is the one to make a fool of himself. I also found it interesting that Syke calls Delia asterperious, since he is the one clearly acting confident to the point of ignorance by keeping the snake in the house. The first line also struck me as very peculiar. Syke tells Delia he "ain't got tuh do nothin' but die," trying to prove to her that she has no authority over him or his actions. Ironically enough, Delia ends up being the cause of Syke's death inadvertently by not saving him when she had the option to, so it did end up that the things he thought he had the most control over- both the snake and his death- turned around to defeat him in the end. 

     Another interesting aspect of this quote that interested me was that Syke placed emphasis on Delia's legs being too "skinny" for the snake to want to bite. Syke scoffs at Delia's weight multiple times in the story, saying that she is too skinny for his taste. However, if Delia weighed as much as the other woman that Syke was attracted to there is a chance that she would not have been able to climb the tree to escape the snake and therefore escape her death. Her thin figure represents everything that Syke hates about her, and in the end she is able to triumph over him because of everything he made fun of her for while he died because of what he inaccurately thought himself to be.