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Sweat Hurston Character Analysis

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Name: Lakisha Minnis Instructor: Mr. Compton English 2202-001 Date: April. 24, 2017 Sweat Zora Neale Hurston is a prolific writer famed for numerous award winning plays, novels and short stories. In this paper, I will be elaborating on a character from the novel Sweat. Her novel Sweat was first published in 1926. Sweat is a novel that tells a story about the good, evil, and domestic abusive husband. This essay will critically evaluate the fictional character named Sykes. It will analyze Sykes Jones individual qualities with a focus on at least more than three traits. The traits I will speak on is, abuse, laziness, and disrespect. Sykes Jones is a protagonist’s husband, and abusive man who psychologically and physically tortures his wife. He gains pleasure by …show more content…

He has the nerve to insult her hardworking demeanor yet he cannot bring himself to perform the tasks. He has been out of work for more than three months yet he does not seem to be in a hurry to get another one. “Mah sweat is done paid for this house and Ah reckon Ah kin keep sweatin ' in it.” (Sweat 1035) Delia complains that she the one in charge of finances, Sykes takes credit for it all. Delia constantly reminds Sykes that for the past fifteen years, she is the one who has been in charge of food among other basic necessities. Sykes being the disrespectful man that he is, does not respect the fact that his wife works very hard to offer food. He does not appreciate that she does other people laundry so that he can be comfortable. Furthermore, he uses the money the Delia earns to make sure that his mistress Bertha is satisfied. Delia slaves out at work to make money, but Sykes bullies her so that she can spend the money with the woman who happens to be new in town. “Bertha had been in town three months now. Sykes was paying her room rent at Della Lewis’—the only house in town that have taken her in" (Sweat

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