Who Is Delia In Sweat By Zora Neale Hurston

Delia Jones Character Analysis

Delia Jones is the protagonist of the story “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston. Delia is a washerwoman fighting to keep her house and her reason; she is a thin woman with sagging, overworked shoulders and she is also extremely afraid of snakes, a fear that her husband, Sykes, maliciously exploits and ends up being the reason for his death. “Sweat” marks a turning point in her life, when she has finally had enough, and the reader can notice how Delia grew throughout the story and became an entirely “new Delia,” evolving between the first time she confronts Sykes and his death (Anderson et al.).

The story started on a Sunday with Delia washing the white people’s clothes, and Sykes started to mess with her because she

As a solitary woman confronting the evil of her husband, Sykes, Delia Jones can be viewed as the principle of power. She works hard as a washerwoman to support her church, family, and home, these being her motivation. However, she is still referred to by Sykes as “one aggravatin’ nigger woman” (Hurston 1). Delia has to deal with all of the physical and verbal abuse caused by Sykes. Having to live with this everyday helped Delia become a strong woman. It is obvious from the story that Sykes would go to great lengths to punish and trouble her (Smith). Sykes receives her at the door with hatred and scolding. As a poor African-American woman, Delia Jones deals with the struggle of maintaining a house, constant abuse, and absolute misery with her life and marriage, still denying to let herself be uneasy by his actions and went back to work. She was determined. Sykes constantly found things to dispute with her about and scoffed at in an attempt to persuade her to abandon her home.

Sykes, who does not love her anymore and is seeing another woman (Bertha), willingly cheats on his wife causes a remarkable amount of uproar. Another problem that came across Delia head-on had to deal with her husband being unfaithful. To an already unhappy woman in a hopeless marriage, this was definitely not a surprise. Delia gave the impression of being almost invulnerable in a sense as she altered her work with her personal

When the snake was wandering around the house, Delia was outside staying protected, whereas Sykes had no clue of where the snake was whatsoever. He was bit by the snake and called Delia for help, but she never came because she believed that he got what he deserved. In the story, the snake was a symbol that the author used because for the past fifteen years of abuse that Sykes had placed Delia in, such as continual beatings, unfaithfulness, taking advantage of her fear of snakes, which is interesting because the thing he used to bother her with knowing she was afraid is the thing that killed him; it was karma that got to Sykes (Dawson). He finally got to experience how Delia felt every day for the fifteen years of her marriage.

In conclusion, Delia’s qualities significantly shifted from staying quiet and letting Sykes abuse her to making her pain be the motivation to become more confident that she had ever been and stand up for herself. The more she was abused, the braver she became, and also became more aware of her well-being. Delia Jones is a strong woman who lived through the pain that was caused by Sykes and used that same pain as the motivation to become superior to him, gain all of her confidence back, and her life back as