Zora Neale Hurston's Sweat: The Influence Of Culture

Setting, including physical location and time, is essential for establishing the backgrounds and identities of characters in a piece. Even within countries like the United States, where English is the national language and spoken by almost everyone, regional influences on language exist. The way a character speaks and communicates is an important part of their personal identity as a character, as well as an expression of their regional and cultural background. In Zora Neale Hurston’s Sweat, the dialect of the South used by the characters is a ready example of the influence of culture on one’s language. The heavy influences of culture are apparent in many texts, and a change in time or location would alter the language and mannerisms of speech

used by the author and characters.
Hurston creates a unique dialogue between characters by physically and phonetically representing their speech in the text.

She does this by writing out the words the way the characters pronounce them, not necessarily how they are spelled. An example of this style is a line spoken by a minor character: “Yep. Hot or col’, rain or shine, ies ‘ez reg’lar ez de weeks roll roun’ Delia carries ‘em an’ fetches ‘em on Sat’day.” Hurston exemplifies the traditional southern speech, used specifically by African Americans, by removing letters and replacing them with an apostrophe, eliminating the sound to match the omission of syllables by the speaker. When the reader reads this line, they not only understand the message, but the way that it would be spoken. This allows for a deeper connection to each character, and for the regional and cultural influences on their language to be showcased naturally. The physical representation of language influences our perception of the character, and in most other books written in “proper” English, this connection is somewhat lost. This phonetic language represents the culture of the area perfectly, and contributes the development of characters and their

cultures.
Historical influences on language, specifically those that are regionally-based, can be one of the first defining traits we know about a person. When Africans were brought to the South to be slaves, they had to rapidly adapt to their English-speaking masters. A blend of African dialects and English, spoken by slaves to one another, was created and called Pidgin. This became the commonplace language of the slaves, and when it became the language of the next generation, it became creole. Over time, the mannerisms of creole blended with Southern English, producing a dialect that is technically English, but with many differences. This is what we see spoken in Hurston’s Sweat. According to Professor Edward Vajda at Western Washington University, this language has a number of defining characteristics. These include the omission of final consonants and -ing sounds, such as po (or) and sto (re), as well as somethin’ and nothin’. A number of these are used normally throughout the text, reaffirming the influence of historical context and culture on one’s language. For example: “Look in de box dere Delia, Ah done brung yuh somthin’!” Here, as in the rest of the piece, we see characters utilizing and implementing this Southern and African American dialect that has adapted from their ancestors. This special and unique cultural identity plays an important role in establishing the history of the area, and its influence on the local residents.
If the text took place in a different area, even within the United States, the distinctive historical and cultural identities of its characters would be drastically changed.

It is widely known that regional accents exist all over the United States, and that the cultural history of the area has a large influence on how modern inhabitants speak. This is addressed and tracked in the documentary Do You Speak American, and provides an excellent sampling of the regional accents throughout the United States and their origin. The differences, all based on the historical inhabitants of an area, pertain to any number of differences, primarily pronunciations of words. This creates a clear picture for all the different possible accents or mannerisms that could be developed by the characters of Sweat, provided the story took place in a different location and possibly time. If the story had changed location to the Northeast, near Boston, the lifestyle and culture, as well as the language, of the characters would be vastly different. As described by Professor Vajda, the Northeast dialect, influenced primarily by English Puritans, possesses a twang, a “flat sounding nasal lengthening of vowels.” This leads to the famous r-less pronunciations of words, like cah (car) and Hahvahd (Harvard). If this language influence was present in Sweat, the individuals would speak without the distinctive lack of an -ing at the end of words, along with a number of traits. African Americans were much more

populous in the South, and while the traits of African American English extend beyond the area, they are concentrated and most strongly exemplified in this area. The characters would speak with an accent more similar to the Boston one, as well as live and work differently. The key aspects of their culture and lifestyle would change, leading to a change in language, as the two are intertwined.
Cultural context plays a large role in establishing the identity of the individuals and their background based on their location and time setting. Evident in Zora Neale Hurston’s Sweat, the language and speech mannerisms possessed by a group of people are influenced heavily by the history of the area and its inhabitants. Hurston uses the Pidgin-influenced dialogue of the time, as well as the southern setting, to establish the cultural identity of the characters in her story. This, along with its use in other texts, allows the author to indirectly establish the time period and setting naturally through dialogue and descriptive language. This unique identity established for the characters changes with the time and place, with the historical events of the area or time molding the way individuals speak and communicate.