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Delia In Zora Neale's Short Story 'Sweat'

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Woman only deserve to be loved and not abused; never let the person who should protect you harm you. In the short story “Sweat”, written by Zora Neale demonstrates how Delia was abused by her own husband. She was a very strong woman who was unnecessarly abused by her husband Sykes.
Therefore, Sykes’ actions do justify Delia’s behavior and the decision she made of not helping her husband at the end of the story. Delia was a wash women that worked everyday to earn money in hopes of living a decent life. She would work for many hours a day washing clothes and making sure they were nice and clean for her customers. She had been working hard for many years as a wash woman and has been through alot, this mainly reflected in her hands. She used to have soft and …show more content…

He had done many things to Delia that made him an irresponsible, selfish, and unrespectful husband. For instance, he would mess around with her on purpose with his bullwhip that she thought it looked like a snake since she had a phobia of snakes. In addition, he also brought a rattlesnake to their house to torture her once again, but this time it was with a real snake. That was honestly the worst mistake he could have made. As a result, that same snake ended up biting and killing him. As can be seen, this showed that karma got him back even worst because of all of his bad actions he had made before. Not to mention, Sykes also cheated on his wife with another woman. This was not fair for Delia because not only she was being abused by him, but also being cheated on. Sykes would buy the other woman everything she wanted, but yet he would never treat Delia the same way who actually deserved it because she was a hard worker. All she would get was getting abused instead of love, what she actually deserved. Under those circumstances, it didn’t make sense that someone who was hardworking like Delia would be treated the way she was

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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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(Hurston 532). She believes in karma, that whatever Sykes does will come back around to him. She is good and believes that in time good things will come to her. Also it is clearly seen in the story how dynamic Delia’s character is. In the beginning, Delia is scared of Sykes and is too afraid to stand up to him.

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Sykes Jones is physically and emotionally abusive to Delia. He is immoral and unfaithful. Sykes takes the money that is earned from Delia's hard work to spend it away on his mistress, Bertha. Sykes in can be compared to evil because like everything evil he drained Delia of her beauty, joy and happiness that she once had. Once their marriage starts to fall apart, Sykes uses Delia’s deadly fear of snakes

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Also when Walter Thomas says, “It’s too bad, too, cause she wuz a right pretty li’l trick when he got huh” (68), I learned that Sykes really had done a number on her physically and emotionally. That went on for a awhile and I really got the point that nobody except Bertha liked Sykes. Whether it was intended or not, I thought Bertha being described as “a hunk uh liver wid hair on it” (70) was quite funny. Later on, when Sykes gets the rattle snake, it’s clear he has crossed the line and Delia is done putting up with him. Her normal meekness towards Sykes is gone and when she said “Ah hates you, Sykes” (72) then continued to tell him how extremely much she hates him, I knew with certainty she had enough and was going to do something.

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