Thematic Analysis of “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston: The Theme of Oppression

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Throughout the short story “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston (click for full summary) the central character or protagonist of Delia is continually oppressed by forces that are, for the most part, outside of her control. As a black woman living in the South, it would not be possible for her to simply run away from an oppressive economic situation or to put distance between herself and her abusive husband. While she does try to cope with the oppression from Sykes the best way she knows how, in the end it all catches up with her and despite her religious inclinations, she allows her husband to die in order to gain at least some degree of control over the economic and gender-based oppression that dominates her life.

In  “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston, Sykes, the main character’s husband is the biggest dominating and oppressive influence in her life. Despite the fact that she is always working to sustain herself and her husband, he always goes out with Bertha and spends all of his money. Her rage is apparent when she says how much she hates him, yet there are some interesting lines that show she still remembers love. For instance, in one of the important quotes from "Sweat" by Zora Neale Hurston, she says,“Ah hates you tuh de same degree dat Ah useter love yuh.” She remembers how she used to feel about him, back when they first were married and she remembers planting flowers and trying to make a nice home, but his continued abuse of her causes these feelings to eventually fade by the end of the story when she allows him to die. In the case of “Sweat” love and hate are continuously going back and forth and she even “attempted friendliness, but she was repulsed each time”. The repression, in the end, perhaps even more than the simple and constant rage, was what caused her to finally let him die in the end.

The theme of oppression in "Sweat" by Zora Neale Hurston, especially in terms of how it comes to her as a result of her husband, can be seen from the very introduction of Sykes. By his mere descriptions, before the reader knows anything about him in intimidating and leaves the reader a sense of a dominating oppressive presence. For example, at the start of the text when we are introduced to the hard-working Delia, the first glimpse of Sykes we get is that he is sneaky. He comes up behind his wife and plays a cruel trick on her, knowing that she hates slithery things he makes it seem as though he is teasing her with a snake. The narrator of this story by Zora Neale Hurston describes her reaction and says, “Then she saw it was the big bull whip her husband liked to carry when he drove.” The presence of this man with a bull whip, even if he was not planning on using it on his wife, is oppressive enough. The positions of the characters make the scene even more poignant since Delia is on her knees in front of her work while a man with a whip stands in front of her. Although Sykes is African American as well, this image is still reminiscent of a master and slave tableaux. Instead of beginning the story by using dialogue to show how Delia is oppressed (which the author eventually does) she sets up a disturbing image of oppression first as a sort of imagery-driven foreshadowing attempt.

In "Sweat" by Zora Neale Hurston, the author also makes it clear that the oppression is overtly physical as well. Instead of just showing the way that Delia is oppressed by the simple physical presence of her husband, she also shows how she is downtrodden and even physically abused. Before the reader of this short story by Zora Neale Hurston is sure Sykes beats her, we find out from verbal cues that she is both verbally and physically abused by him. For instance, at the beginning of the text when he scolds her for washing white people’s clothes, he says in one of the important quotes from "Sweat" by Zora Neale Hurston, Don’t gimme no lip neither, else Ah’ll thrown ‘em out and put mah fist upside yo’ head to boot.” At this point it is not entirely clear whether or not he would really do it or if this is some cruel figure of speech. One of the reasons we do not know is because the protagonist, Delia, seems to be a rather headstrong woman and it seems hard to believe that she would ever take a beating from anyone. Later in the text, however, we learn that she is, in fact, beaten by her husband and while she says that is something that she can put up with (which inevitably makes the reader cringe since he is so blatantly mean and abusive) she cannot put up with the snake in the house. Sykes then tells her that he feelings mean nothing to him, which is a sign of mental and verbal abuse and oppression and then says, “So fur as beatin’ is concerned, yuh ain’t took near all dat you gointer take ef yuh stay ‘roun’ me.” By this point it is clear that she is oppressed on all sides. She has a job that forces her to work incredibly hard and a husband that is not only mean and abusive, but who goes off with other women and spends his wife’s hard-earned money. Unfortunately, however, it seems that the oppression is complete because there is little that Delia can do. As a black woman she does not have a lot of options really must do all she can to just put up with Sykes and his cruelty or go crazy. In the end, she finds the only freedom she can since even though she seems to know she shouldn’t let him sit there and die from the snakebite, she cannot bring herself to do anything about it.

There are many ways in which is oppression is apparent throughout "Sweat" by Zora Neal Hurston that are more readily recognizable, but after reading the text, one sees that many of Delia’s problems result from the fact that she is economically oppressed. Not only is she a woman, and thus “fit” for more domestic jobs which are more likely to be lower paying, but being a black woman in a white society even furthers her oppression. As one scholar notes, “The protagonist, Delia, works long hours washing laundry for white customers. Whose economic privilege is contrasted with Delia’s economic status: not only can she not afford to hire someone to wash her laundry, but she must also wash wealthy people’s laundry to provide for herself” (Champion 79). As a result of this economic oppression, she is forced to do laundry, a dull and menial job, just so she can get by. While it certainly doesn’t help that her husband spends all of her hard earned money on another woman, even without Sykes in the tale, it would still be easy to state that she was oppressed because of her economic conditions. It is also worth mentioning that she must forego what makes her happy—her attendance at the church in Woodbridge to some extent. As the reader is told at the beginning of the story, “She collected the soiled clothes on Saturday, when she returned the clean things. Sunday night after church, she sorted them and put the white things to soak. It have her almost a half day’s start.” It is useful to point out that she says, “the white things” in the text because, although it is probably simply that white clothing must be soaked to removed stains and dirt, the reader is stuck with the vision of something clean and white—in both senses of the word. Throughout the story we hear about sweat, blood, and dirt, but the author uses the word “white” in sentence not just to refer to the clothes it seems, but to their wearers.”

In order to keep her economic oppression bearable, Delia attends church and allows herself to feel good for once. This, of course, if ruined by the oppressive male presence of Sykes who scolds her, saying, “You ain’t nothing but a hypocrite. One of them amen-corner Christians—sing, whoop, and shout, then come home and wash white folks clothes on the Sabbath.” Although the reader is certainly not on Sykes’ side, he does point out that the economic oppression she lives under creates a problematic dichotomy for her. At once, she years to be free (at least in a spiritual sense) and yet her Sundays are not for her enjoyment alone since she must work in order to stay ahead. Because of this, and because Delia always states and demonstrates how hard she works, it is clear that much about her life is oppressive. She has an oppressive male presence who disrespects her hard work and her as a person and she is economically oppressed because of her color and her gender.

Even though the end of the story by Zora Neale Hurston seems as though it might allow Delia a chance for freedom, it seems that she may never be able to forgive herself for letting Sykes die (Restuccia 42).  Still, she has asserted herself, even if she did not mean to, and can begin moving toward a less oppressive life. The problem is, however, she is still a black woman and those are essentially two strikes against her in the south. At the very least however, she is under less oppressive conditions.

Works Cited

Champion, Laurie. "Socioeconomics in Selected Short Stories of Zora Neale Hurston." Southern Quarterly 40.1 (2001): 79

Restuccia, Frances L. "Literary representations of battered women: Spectacular domestic punishment." Genders no. 23 (1996): 42.

Article by Nicole Smith  ~   All Content Copyright 2008 Article Myriad. All Rights Reserved.

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