Dominick Reed Jr.

9 August 2024

The short story “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston irritated me at specific points but in the best way a story can. By constructing a villainous and immoral husband with Sykes, Hurston is able to showcase a woman who not only survives her abuser but, by the end of the story, completely evolves into a thriving state of independence. In “Sweat,” Hurston writes, “She could scarcely reach the Chinaberry tree, where she waited in the growing heat while inside she knew the cold river was creeping up and up to extinguish that eye which must know by now that she knew,” (Hurston 1040). At the beginning of the story, we see Delia as a woman who is just as frightened of her husband as she is dependent on him. Delia slowly regains her independence as a woman, and it is implied that she will no longer let a man control her life or block her happiness. The theme of feminine independence and regrowth is explored through Delia’s Chinaberry tree, but I also made a parallel to Hurston’s “How it Feels to Be Colored Me”  “Sweat” certainly discusses race at specific times; it seems that Hurston may be inserting a universal theme of feminine independence to include all women and not just African American women. 

Hurston writes, “At certain times I have no race, I am me,” in “How it Feels to Be Colored Me” which is a theme that is continued with “Sweat” by creating Delia’s abuse and overcoming it as a symbolic message for feminine independence regardless of race. In “How it Feels to Be Colored Me,” Hurston states, “Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.” (Hurston 1042) Her personality astonishes me. I would have loved to meet this woman. Nevertheless, this quote also points to Hurston continually transcending the conversation of race to a broader conversation of people, which fascinates me. Hurston discussed race by not talking about it because she explored people with and without color. 

Works Cited 

Hurston, Zora Neale. “How it Feels to Be Colored Me.” The Norton Anthology of African

 American Literature. W.W. Norton & Company, 2014.

Hurston, Zora Neale. “Sweat.” The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. W.W.

 Norton & Company, 2014.