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Sweat By Zora Neale Hurston Essay

635 Words3 Pages

In the short story Sweat written by Zora Neale Hurston, the character Sykes is a cruel and unfaithful husband. Together these two traits create a troubled character. As the story opens he scares his wife Delia by throwing his big bull whip on her shoulders knowing that she may assume it is a snake. She reacts in terror and mentions that he knows she’s afraid, he then replies by saying "Course Ah knowed it! That's how come Ah done it."(Hurston). He sees his action as a big joke he also commits adultery with other females on more than one occasion Delia herself states “Too late now to hope for love, even if it were not Bertha it would be someone else.”(Hurston) Bertha is Sykes mistress at the moment and she was bolder than the others. …show more content…

It is as if he needs to prove his manliness, yet taking his anger out her little defenseless body. Therefore he shows his unkind ways even more as he rants about her bringing home the white folks clothes in their home, as a result of her doing this “She saw that Sykes had kicked all of the clothes together again, and now stood in her way truculently, his whole manner hoping, praying, for an argument.” (Hurston) Sykes seems as if he looks for any reason to harm Delia and to breakdown her spirit. Also as she arranges the clothes he steps roughly upon the whitest pile, kicking them carelessly across the room. To continue in his reasoning for bringing so much unhappiness towards Delia he speaks of how much he hates her and talks down on her. In this situation Delia is pleading with Sykes to remove the snake and after his relentlessly says no she exclaims her …show more content…

He continues to say that “Gawd! how Ah hates skinny wimmen!"(Hurston). So the question is now why marry Delia to begin with. He shows no shame in publically cheating on Delia but, “Delia drove past on her way home, as Sykes was ordering magnificently for Bertha. It pleased him for Delia to see.”(Hurston) Therefore he is unsympathetic to Delia and this shows that he truly hates her and is absolutely unfaithful. Bertha also has only been in town for three months and Sykes is already paying for a room for her and yet doesn’t care for Delia that way. He goes on to tell Bertha how he runs the town and that she can have anything thing she wants. Sykes also tried to lower married woman like Elijah Moseley wife “Did Ah tell yuh 'bout him come sidlin' roun' mah wife--bringin' her a basket uh pecans outa his yard fuh a present? Yessir, mah wife! She tol' him tuh take 'em right straight back

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