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Sweat is a short shorty written by Zora Neale Hurston. It centers around the marital conflict between a hardworking Christian washerwoman, Delia, and her abusive and unfaithful husband, Sykes (Hurston). After 15 years of marriage, Sykes is attempting to evict Delia out of their common household to move in his mistress (Hurston). After Delia threatens him with a skillet and refuses to leave, he exploits her fear of snakes which ultimately leads to his untimely and ironic demise (Hurston). In this essay, I will illustrate how Hurston utilizes irony and symbolism to showcase the triumph of good over evil.
The symbolism of snakes is heavily featured in this story and play a key role in its ironic ending. Serpents have been a symbol of evil ever since a snake introduced discord into the Garden of Eden. At the beginning, Sykes scares Delia by tricking her into thinking his bullwhip is a snake. In response, Delia warns him that someday he will die from this type of arrogant foolishness; he dismisses her and later purposefully brings a rattlesnake into their house, boasting that his expertise will not allow him to get bitten. In an ironic twist of fate, the snake ends up biting Sykes, leading to his death and Delia’s liberation. The snake symbolizes the evil that resided in Sykes and that ultimately turns against him.
Black and white are also used to symbolize the dichotomy of good and evil. Delia is associated with the purity of white since her job as a washerwoman is a direct symbol of her moral cleansing. In contrast, Sykes brandishes a black bullwhip and purposefully dirties Delia’s white laundry, representing his defilement of her life. In the end, Delia strikes a match to escape the house without getting bitten – literally creating her own light and escaping from the darkness. Associating Delia with white and Sykes with black reinforces their marital conflict as the struggle between good and evil.
In conclusion, Hurston effectively uses the biblical symbolism to illustrate the conflict between good and evil. Delia is a hardworking Christian woman associated with white purity and therefore goodness. Her husband is a contaminating black influence that uses an instrument of evil, a snake, to manipulate her into leaving. The story concludes with Sykes dying because of his own arrogance while Delia escapes. This resolution symbolizes the triumph of good over evil because evil will ultimately end up destroying itself.
Work Cited
Hurston, Zora Neale. Sweat. Rutgers University Press, 1997.
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