What does "Sweat" by Zora Neale Hurston reveal about Delia and Sykes' social and economic contexts?

Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat” takes place in Eatonville, Florida, an all-black town. Across the railroad tracks is the white town that employs the black women.  Delia Johnson is a wash woman and takes pride in her work.  Working for the white people is not shameful to her.  It is her job and her means of surviving.

 Delia begins her work week on Sunday evening after church.  She picks up the clothes on Saturday and on Sunday she soaks the white clothes after she gets home from night time Sunday church. Then on Monday morning she is ready to begin her week. She divides her clothes in piles to begin the wash. 

As she hums a sad tune, she wonders where Sykes has taken her horse and buckboard.  To frighten her, Sykes throws a bullwhip over her shoulder to scare her because of her fear of snakes. 

Sykes says to her: “Ah done tole you time and again to keep them white folks’ clothes outs dis house.”

What a ridiculous statement since this is how Delia supports him.  He further threatens her that the next time he would throw the clothes out of the house. As he leaves the room, he steps roughly on her white clothes.  

“Looka heah, Sykes, you done gone too fur…Ah been takin’ in wahin’fur fifteen years.   Sweat, sweat, sweat! Work and sweat, cry and sweat pray and sweat! Mah tub of suds is filled yo’ belly with vittles more times than yo’hands is filled it.  Ma sweat is done paid for this house and Ah reckon  ah kin keep on sweatin’in it?”

For the first time, Delia stood up to Sykes. 

    After the work week on Saturday, Delia delivers her clothes in her horse and wagon and  picks up the next week’s work.  Delia endures an unsatisfactory life filled with never ending work and torment from Sykes.   

She attends church regularly, and washes white people’s clothes.  Delia can be seen as the giver of life in her house because she is the head of the household.  The money she earns washing clothes helps to pay for the house that Sykes wants to give Bertha, his mistress.  Delia, being Christian, is against divorce, and stays with Sykes even though he has a mistress whom he openly dates.

In the early 1900s, economically Delia was poor.  The black woman historically has been employed in a subservient role in a white world---maids, cooks, cleaning women, and wash women.  The things that Delia has belong to her because she has supported her family.  

Delia has a strong work ethic which means that if a person works hard, she will be able to buy what she wants. Sykes has tried to make Delia submissive to him…he thinks that he has beaten her in to submission…on this day, she has had enough and tells him to leave her alone. 

At one time, Delia was a pretty woman. After fifteen years, Delia has had the life wrung out of her.  She had loved Sykes, but Sykes was not satisfied with just one woman.  It was too late now…all that mattered to her was her work and her home. She wants to leave her alone.

How does Zora Neale Hurston represent Delia and Sykes in "Sweat's" first part?

Hurston presents Delia and Sykes as having a dysfunctional relationship. Delia is shown as a hardworking washerwoman who has to put up with a bullying, sadistic husband in Sykes. However, as the story opens, she is beginning to change.

When Sykes comes in, he drapes his black whip limply over Delia's shoulders so she will think it is a snake and be frightened—and he thinks her fright is funny. When she says he knows she is scared of snakes, he responds:

“Course Ah knowed it! That’s how come Ah done it.” He slapped his leg with his hand and almost rolled on the ground in his mirth.

He then criticizes her for taking in white people's washing. He disorganizes her work, kicking her whites across the room. He is, the narrator tells us, praying for an argument. When he tells her he won't have her taking in laundry anymore, she loses her meekness and stands up to him, saying that her work feeds him:

Mah tub of suds is filled yo’ belly with vittles more times than yo’ hands is filled it.

She also picks up an iron frying pan to defend herself from him, something that surprises him.

In this opening scene, we see Delia at a point of transformation in which she is starting to stand up to her abusive husband after fifteen years.

Delia and Sykes are a married couple who have a very strained relationship. She is a hardworking person, but he is not. Although her earnings have paid for the house, he speaks of it as his, as though he has the right to give her orders. Delia has grown thin and tired over the course of their marriage and has finally become very frustrated at his behavior and lack of respect for her. She has even started going to a different church so that she will not have to worship alongside him on Sundays.

When the story begins, the couple has been married for fifteen years. Delia seems to be clinging to the last shreds of the love and other motivations she originally had for marrying Sykes. She is highly aware of the gossip that runs through the town, associating him with a mistress named Bertha. So long as Bertha keeps her distance, Delia is tolerant of her husband’s infidelity, but she realizes that he has brought this woman into their home.

Along with his sense of entitlement to order her around and be unfaithful, Sykes lavishly spends Delia’s earnings. He has been physically as well as verbally abusive. In the first part of the story, he exploits her fear of snakes to torment her by placing a snake on her neck. This incident marks a turning point in their relationships, as she in turn threatens him with a heavy frying pan. The reader can infer that the situation will only worsen.