Delia Dialectical Journal

“Maw Gawd!” She heard him moan, “Mah Gawd fum Heben!” She heard him stumbling about and got up from her flower-bed. The sun was growing warm. Just as she was about to approach the door, she heard him call out hopefully, “Delia, is dat you Ah heah?”. Lo and behold it was Bertha his lover. She had come normally to see and call out Sykes to her with their normal “call out code”. But this time, it seemed to her it was falling on deaf ears which had her worried. The night before after their usual evening rendezvous, Sykes had promised to take her to see the gun show at Woodbridge with Delia’s horse and promised her also a wonderful surprise. She kept on calling on Sykes this time calling out his name after growing impatient using their secret code.

Old man Lankin who was gracious at heart and always cheerful. Although he was white, he never portrayed his self to Delia in that manner. He always sought to make Delia educated in some way by giving her access to his library of books. The only problem was that Delia could not read and so he sometimes read out the books to her which she always understood. Delia remembered a book Old man Lankins read to her on first aid for a patient who had just been bitten by a snake. Since the doctors were far, Delia decided to take a chance to try out what she had heard from the book, besides it was Sykes only hope of survival, she thought to herself. Delia enters the house and first pulls out Sykes from the house to ensure they were both safe from the snake still at large. Then Delia rushes to the hay barn where she had some first aid kits she kept. Delia treats Sykes based on memory of what Old man Lankin read to her. Sykes immediately seems to be out of danger. Delia tells Sykes he would be alright and rushes to fetch Joe Clark who knew his away to the Doctors. She finds the men as usual on Joe Clarke’s porch. She tells the them all that had happened and the men immediately follow her back home. Two men enter the house to fetch and kill the snake while the remaining help in taking Sykes to see a doctor. Sykes is sees a doctor and is treated. Some couple of days later, Sykes regains

I simply changed this to the right thing which Delia should have done as a Christian. She was meant to put her feelings aside and save her husband, supporting the oat taken at the alter “For better or worse”.

Also, from my research, it should from the story that there was a shift in the gender roles between Sykes and Delia. Sykes was not the bread winner as is supposed to be the case, given “societal” standards and gender stereotypes. Therefore, rewriting the ending of the story, I simply changed this irregularity to the correct gender roles as perceived in the society. Sykes becomes the bread winner of the family and Delia only works because she decides to.

Also, according to my research as well as being evident in the story, Sykes and Bertha can be said to have the tag of being the town villains. No one had anything good to say about Sykes and therefore he never had any friends which is the reason I Bertha gives for not helping him.

Therefore, rewriting the story, I also made Sykes to resolve any bad image he had gained for