Zora Neale Hurston The Sweat

The Harlem Renaissance was an era when African- Americans brought their talents to Harlem at the end of World War I (Wormser). Out of that era, it brought authors, poets, and scholars (Wormser). Zora Neil Hurston came out of this era and became a well-known author. The Sweat is one of her well-known stories that demonstrated literary realism to show their everyday life and how they would talk unlike romanticism that used nature and “imagination” (The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica). The Sweat can be considered as a literary cannon which means a book that has been approved by culture ("A Literary Canon?") and that’s what Zora did. Through the Sweat, we learn about a woman and her role in society and how she lived. In the Sweat, we came across

However, Delia proved to accomplish her stability by providing for Syke but mostly for herself. She stated to herself, “Too late for everything except for her little home. She had built it for her old days” (Zora Neal Hurtson, 351) which demonstrates her independence she had while building the house. If she did not have love from Syke, she at least had a roof over her head. We can conclude that Delia was a breadwinner yet Syke would leave to “numerous trips to Orlando with all of his wages when he had returned to her penniless” (Zora Neal Hurtson, 351). Syke seemed not to care what he did with his money while Delia was the one having to work by washing white people’s clothes on a weekend to be economically stable. He may return penniless but she told him, “You ain’t paid for nothing on this place” (Zora Neal Hurtson, 351). She was the provider in their marriage and not being appreciated by what she does. Then we read about the men talking about Delia while being at Joe Clarke’s porch about her working during “Hot or col’, rain or shine, jes ez ez de weeks roll roun’ Delia carries em’ an’ fetches ‘em on Sat’day.” ( Zora Neal Hurtson,352). She was willing to work no matter how the weather was. With this, we can conclude that this was a dysfunctional marriage because there was no hope for love and Delia was the one that providing for her own marriage with no support from Syke. The Sweat demonstrated us feminist consciousness through Delia by demonstrating us through Delia what her role in society was. It gave us a deeper look of the African-Americans especially among woman in the South. She made us become aware to how women were treated and she trying to gain respect to those types of women. It may be story from another culture but at least we had the ability to read it and not been blind of issues like