Delia Jones stands up to her husband’s bullying at the beginning of the story by explaining to him why it is important for her to start her washing that Sunday. She asks him to stop dirtying the clothes by walking on them and reminds him that it is her washing work that has put food to their table all the fifteen years that she has been married to him. It seems that this response is quite uncharacteristic of Delia, as the text states that Sykes, Delia’s husband, becomes “a little awed by this new Delia,” and he chooses to walk away from the argument.

Afterward, when Sykes brings a big rattlesnake to the house, Delia again stands up for herself by asking him to take it away. When he refuses to do so, she warns him that she does not intend to run away from her house because of his bullying and that she would report him to the “white folks” the next time he dared to beat her. Towards the end of the story, Sykes reaps what he has sown when the same rattlesnake he uses to torment Delia kills him.

Delia cares for her home because she built it herself and even planted flowers and trees around it. It hurts her that Sykes wants to give the house to Bertha, his lover.