Editor's Note: Zora Neale Hurston's "Sweat" (1926)
Today, Hurston is best-known for her writings from the 1930s, including especially her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). But she was quite active as a writer in the 1920s, first at Howard University (where she published her first short story in 1921) and then in New York, where she was enrolled as a student at Columbia University. She also published a handful of poems in this period in the UNIA's newspaper, Negro World. She also won awards for her plays, including the one-act play Color Struck!, which was published, like "Sweat," in 1926.
Brief summary: "Sweat" is set in a small town in central Florida, not dissimilar to where the author grew up (Eatonville). It features a pretty scathing account of a dysfunctional and abusive marriage, between the protagonist, Delia Jones, and her husband, Sykes. Delia makes a living washing clothes for white customers, and in an early scene in the story she argues with Sykes about that -- he looks down on her for the low-status work. (Interestingly, while white people are frequently referenced as customers, no white characters appear in Hurston's story.) It is unclear whether or how Sykes earns a living himself, but there are strong clues in "Sweat" that he is unemployed. He spends most of his time with a mistress, Bertha, and has been known to prey on other women in the town as well. In one scene, Delia encounters him at a store ordering food he intends to give to Bertha, flagrantly touting his ongoing illicit affair. He has also been known to beat Delia, though in the present moment of the story she has decided to stand up for herself and seems willing and able to fight back.
For her part, Delia has managed her miserable marriage by becoming a regular church-goer, and appears to get spiritual support from her congregation, where she frequently attends the night-time service. At one point, we see her humming along to a spiritual that had been featured at a recent service: "Jurden [Jordan] water, black an’ col’ / Chills de body, not de soul . An’ Ah wantah cross Jurden in uh calm time.”
In the second half of the story, Sykes brings home a rattlesnake he's caught, which he keeps in a small cage outside their house. Delia confronts him and begs him to kill the snake, but he refuses. One night, she finds the snake in her laundry basket in the house and runs to the barn in fear. While she's hiding there, Sykes comes home and enters the house, and is bitten by the snake. Delia then understands that Sykes had intentionally put the rattlesnake in her basket to poison her. Instead of making any attempt to find help, she continues to wait in the barn as Sykes, presumably, dies of the rattlesnake's bite.