Zora Neale Hurston addressed African American life many years before Alice Walker did. Looking at “Everyday Use” and “Sweat,” discuss the similarities and differences you find in their treatment of women and what, in the end, if anything has changed. Don’t forget to note the subtleties….. Even though Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker wrote many years apart they have many similarities in their writing. They both write about strong African American women and how they overcame what others thought about them. In “Sweat” Hurston wrote about Delia Jones who was a wash-woman that did all the work around her home and she was the only one the worked at a job. She states “Sweat, sweat, sweat! Work and sweat, cry and sweat, pray and sweat!” She was treated with no respect by her husband Sykes. He did not work and he cheated on her with another woman and did not care that Delia knew about it. He would scare her with snakes knowing that she was scared to death of them. He would also beat her if she talked back to him. In “Everyday Use” Alice Walker wrote about Mrs. Johnson who was a strong black woman …show more content…
He would beat her and constantly call her names. He cheated on her with a woman from town that he flaunted in her face. She would work all day while he would be out with this woman and buying her things. Sykes knew that Delia was scared to death of snakes. She tells him “Sykes, what you throw dat whip on me like dat? You know it would skeer me—looks just like a snake, an’ you knows how skeered Ah is of snakes.” Sykes brings a snake home and leaves it in a box by the door to keep her in line. This snake is Sykes undoing. It gets out of the box and is in the box, Delia knows that snake is there and leaves it. She lets Sykes come home go into the house where the snake is, the snake bites him and he ends up dying from it. This is her way of taking care of a bad situation and standing up for