midterm reflection

Jamia Douglas

LIT 2010

September 26, 2020

‘Looka heah, Sykes , you done gone too fur. Ah been married to you fur fifteen years, and ah been takin” in washin” fur fifteen years. Sweat, sweat, sweat! Work and sweat, cry and sweat, pray and sweat!” is a sentence that has been quoted in the passage in the first page showing racism and cases of class. The view of race that the selected symbol represents in my opinion is that of poverty and discrimination. Poverty is one of the hardships that is being faced by Delia and Sykes. With this poverty comes the racial discrimination that makes the matters worse in the relationship between the two of them (Bere & Arianto, 2019). The two being faced by many problems that are too hard for them to manage, the husband ends up becoming abusive because he cannot provide for the wife. Sykes is often treating Delia very harshly and even orders her to go and do washing from outside.

Delia is a hardworking woman and all her life she has spent it working in the house and it is so tiring that why she says that all year round is Sweat. Sykes is seen to be a very unkind man and he resents all the work that Delia does even for the fact that it helps and supports him. He tries all the time to command his presence in the house and act as the head of the family and in doing this he ends up hurting the lady. He has been seen threatening her many times because Delia was hesitant to agree to his commands (Chakour, 2018). Delia being a working woman, Sykes tries in all ways to have financial control over her and because this is not possible, he uses physical abuse to assert his will.

Delia being the protagonist remains to be the main character in “Sweat”. Delia can be seen to be abused by Sykes due to racial discrimination. Sykes argues that Delia should not be going to wash the white clothes from the white people in their area. He feels jealous of this middle aged wife of his because as a washerwoman she is making money while he has nothing to offer on the table. He disgusts Delia making her feel that she is not worthy to wash white clothes but rather she should wash clothes from the black communities. It reaches a point where Delia threatens Sykes telling him that she would report hi to her masters if he ever lay his hands on her again (Jenkins, 2016). Sykes does not have any value for Delia because he is a black woman and she feels that they are not supposed to have anything good in life.

He treats Delia with a lot of bitterness and only stays close to her due to the fact that she is the bread winner in the family. For this reason, she continues to physically abuse her while he keeps her under his roof. Delia having to face al this troubles alone, she runs to Christianity as a source of her comfort. Sykes is a morally condemned person and he has all the reasons not to be close to Delia but Delia willingly takes the burden and accommodate him (Asmarani, 2018). Delia portrays that it is possible to be ethical and kindhearted even in the face of racism and all the class related stress that is subjected to her. Sykes continues to take out all his frustrations on a woman that did nothing to her. This sis a community that is shaped with poverty and racism and too much pain comes to the victims.

References

Bere, N. O., & Arianto, T. (2019). WOMAN VIOLENCE AND RESISTANCE IN “SWEAT” SHORT STORY BY ZORA NEALE HURSTON: FEMINIST APPROACH. JURNAL BASIS, 6(2), 249-258.

Chakour, K. (2018). Racial Politics in Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat”, Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif”, and James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”. Studies in Literature and Language, 17(1), 86-90.

Jenkins, T. (2016). Writing Vodou into Literature: Exploring Diasporic Religious Symbols and Lore in Zora Neale Hurston's “Sweat” and Jonah's Gourd Vine. Journal of Africana Religions, 4(2), 215-224.

Asmarani, R. (2018). The Portrayal of a Black Woman‟ s Perseverance in Zora Neale Hurston‟ s Short Story Entitled Sweat. Language Circle: Journal of Language and Literature, 13(1).