Sweat by Hurston (Essay Sample)

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Sweat by Hurston
The story of sweat as written by Hurston starts by introducing the reader to the aspect of protagonist. As Delia is seen sorting out her clothes at her home in Florida. The clothing with sweat is used symbolic. The aspect that the main character in the story is the washerwoman called Delia. The author tries to demonstrate the woman’s history of hard times and challenges. For an instance Delia shows a habit of working up-to late hours especially on Sunday night so that she can begin her week earlier, and it happens after she has come out of church (Eagle 100). She is seen singing a song that have a mournful key and she tend to wonder about where her husband by the name Sykes since the horse and the working equipments are around. The aspect of women hard labor existed especially on the African-American women that were offering domestic labor by then in South America.
During that period women were never respected by their husbands. The authors narrates that as Delia tries to think deep about the whereabouts of her husband, she all over a sudden feels the sound of a snake falling, the incidence makes her to scream loud but to her disbelieve after looking around she finds out that it’s her husband standing in front of her holding bullwhip used to ride the horses (Hurson 230). Such incidence creates an imagine to the reader that is striking but, the reader is supposed to create a different opinion in that the imagine created is not coincidental but the husband is trying to impose an oppressive figure. A habit that indicates the husband does not respect her man. The snake is used to illustrate a symbol of evil. It is seen that Delia is so scared of the snake but the husband does not even care about what the wife is feeling
The circumstance the husband has created makes the wife to become angry. She develops such moods after realizing the husband has intentionally made the whip to look like a snake, and the wife scolds the husband in exchange to her behaviors. The husband is seen to be less concerned about what the wife is going through in-terms of her feelings, he even gets to an extent of yelling at her because she has put on white’s peoples clothes in their house. Previously he had told her about how he dislikes that habit. The wife is seen trying to ignore him but he makes the situation interesting by kicking the neat pile, the wife has made. The husband is so determined to fight the wife by provoking her with bitter words. But it reaches an extent the wife becomes sick and tired of the husband’s behavior, so she starts to screams mentioning how determined she has been all through. The situation becomes more violent when she picks up a iron skillet on the stove as she wants to strike him. He is seen being reflecting what has just been happening since he is the one who has stirred up her anger. As the author mentions, her action of picking an iron frightens the husband, and he does not strike her unlike the previous episodes. From the above scenario, it is indicative that, he is also physically abusive when it comes to her wife, but she become rebellious a move that supervised him (Mario 69).
The other encounter that comes up is that, Sykes is seen living her wife alone to deal with her unhappy moments and marriage alone. He goes ahead to annoy his wife by sleeping with other women. For an instance, he is seen sleeping with Bertha. He spends all the cash he has earned through much struggle, and he buys for Bertha some precious gifts so as to keep her happy but on the contrary the wife is unhappy. He presents gifts like flowers, and fruits. The fruits and flowers are used in the story to indicate womanhood. Sykes waits until when the wife is still asleep in the morning and stills covers. All the above mentioned circumstances they are signs to indicate that the household is full of problems. The wife is seen to perceiver her husband’s abusive character, and she is optimistic that one day he will change. She tries to comfort herself by assuming that one day she will be relieved from the hard time the husband is posing to her. She believes that one day the husband will be paid back.
The previous scene is brought to an end, and the readers start to notice that time has gone. Delia is seen coming out of her house to go to wash her clothes. She tries to separate white and black clothes. The white stand for something clean while the black stands for something dark or something bad. Delia wants everything to be clean but on the contrary, Sykes doesn’t care. She finds herself being paid for her efforts with her sweat and blood. As she is going to wash the clothes, she comes across men sited. The men start to comment about the beauty of Delia, and their conversation changes the tone of the story. The try to reflect back about how Delia used to be, they are comparing her past life with her present moments. They are saying that, she used to be so pretty and admirable, but now she is not looking good. They are also trying to compare Delia behavior with that of Bertha, and they start to lament her. The people of the whole town are seen to be offended with the Sykes behaviors; they are so fed up only that there is nothing they can do to change the situation (Robert 50). On her way back home from washing the clothes, Delia comes into face to face with Sykes in front Bertha. Sykes is telling Bertha that he will buy her some new clothes, and whatever else she would want from him. He does that so as to annoy Delia and please himself.
After some few moments, it is noticed that Bertha has been staying in town for the past three months. The author mentions that Delia and Sykes are over fighting day and night without even giving each other a break. They spend most of the time being silence. When they are eating or even eating they don’t dare to exchange any word. Delia tries to develop some friendship with her husband but the h...