Zora Neal Hurston’s 1933 short story, The Gilded Six-Bits is about the fate of a young, married couple Joe and Missie May set in Eatonville, Florida an all African-American town. Joe and Missie May seem to have it all: good looks, love, and a bright future ahead of them until Otis D. Slemmons come to town. Slemmons is the flashy dresser and fast city talker flaunting his gold and style. He moved from Chicago to the south because he said that wanted to travel some. He owns the ice cream parlor in Eatonville. The young couple is attracted to this man and his gold and they both want what Slemmmons has to offer. Joe wants the stature and success that Slemmons has and Missie May wants what he has to please her husband by getting those things for her husband. As the story unfolds, we find that the gold coin symbolizes the cycle of sin: commission, penance, and forgiveness.
After Missie May was caught committing adultery with Slemmons she felt deep regret of breaking her vow to her husband. With the intention of making her husband whole, Missie May jeopardized their marriage truly believing that the gold coins would provide Joe with a life of happiness considering
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/ Dat’s yourn all right, if younnever git anotherone, dat un is yourn” (1049/50). After Joe’s mother had given him the unknown reassurance that the baby was positively his, he went into the bedroom every evening and checked on his wife. About a week after the baby was born Joe finally forgave Missie May. He went to the market to do his grocery shopping and later to the candy store where he spent the gilded coin. Once he spent the coin Joe had literally let go of the sin that his wife had committed. When Joe returned home that evening the state of grace began with Joe being playful in love with Missie May by “chunkin’ money in her doorway”