Domestic Violence In Sweat By Zora Neale Hurston

“Sweat” and the Issue of Domestic Violence

The principle characters in Sweat by Zora Neale Hurston, are Delia, a hardworking washerwoman who plays the role of the protagonist and her abusive husband Sykes, the antagonist, who commits adultery and is physically abusive to his wife. Hurston writes, “Two months after the wedding he had given her the first beating “(Zora Hurston 2). Sweat explores the social issue of domestic violence by not only representing the subject in clear and extreme images but by using a variety of literary tools to emphasize the betrayal in common terms for that period with historical similarities.
The protagonist, Delia, who had been married to Sykes for fifteen years, had an extreme fear of snakes, which Sykes used as a tool to torment her and ultimately intended to use as an instrument of her death. Delia says, “You knows Ah’m even feared uh earth worms. Thass de biggest snake Ah evah did see. Kill’im

Syke, please” ( Hurston 5). However, much to the disappointment of the antagonist, it is he, Sykes, who ultimately succumbs to the venom from one of the snakes that he had hoped would put an end to his marriage and allow him to acquire the worldly goods that Delia had worked so hard to obtain.
The use of the snake in this story is an interesting choice as it parallels one of the same literary devices used in the story of Adam and Eve; however, in this story, the snake appears to be a reflection of Sykes’ soul rather than a monster that tempts Delia to eat of a forbidden fruit.

Hurston also uses a tree as an important symbol much like the tree that produced the apple that resulted in the banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. However, in Hurston’s story, the tree represents something similar but, at the same time, something very different. In this case, the tree, a chinaberry tree, does not produce a nourishing forbidden fruit but rather clusters of lavender flowers that are beautiful in bloom but with the coming of spring result persistent, poisonous yellow berries. The tree in Sweat represents the changing of the seasons and the ultimate realization that even though something may be beautiful, as Delia once was before her marriage, that time and place can alter an event- especially with domestic

abuse.
In Sweat, just as in the Bible, the woman (Delia) is willing to talk to the serpent (Sykes); however, in Sweat, the woman winds up marrying the serpent, suffers horrible abuses at his hands and later becomes an accomplice to his death. Very much unlike the biblical account of Adam, Sykes is represented as the tormentor and the perpetrator of evil through his endless series of abuses, which are what ultimately cause his painful and well-deserved end. Therefore, in Sweat, there are two serpents: Sykes himself and the actual rattlesnake. The serpent is a reflection of his soul. The location of the snake bite being on Sykes’ neck is yet another metaphor for conquering evil as the bite is so close to his voice box – the source of Sykes’ constant verbal abuse against his wife.
As the social issue of domestic violence is the focus of Hurston’s writings in Sweat, the subject matter contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole by giving it substance and meaning. Additionally, the images of domestic violence are what drive the story’s plotline and give the story its powerfully surprising climax where the abuser lay dying, pleading for help from the person he has abused for over a decade, while the abused patiently awaits his death under the poisonous chinaberry tree.