27 pages • 54 minutes read
Zora Neale HurstonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The central theme of “Sweat,” first indicated by the title and threaded throughout the narrative, is hard work. The story examines the value of work, what it means to own the products of one’s labor, and where the line falls between enough and too much—between honorable, honest work and overburdening, exploitative work.
The story sharply contrasts Delia’s consistent, diligent, and exhausting hard work with Sykes’s joblessness, freeloading, and spending. The work is physically demanding and has weathered her body, but Delia takes great pride in it. In the opening scene when Delia first defies Sykes, she does so by standing up for her work, demonstrating that it is also a source of strength. Delia’s work gives her a sense of purpose and it ensures her financial stability and independence, which in turn bolsters her voice and sense of autonomy.
Sykes’s ungrateful and freeloading behavior, however, is clearly depicted as exploitative. Despite early 20th-century ideas about the rights conferred by marriage, the story casts Sykes as having no right to take Delia’s things or even share them. His threats to end her business and turn her out of her own house form the peak of all his other abuses and thus serve as a tipping point in their balance of power.
By Zora Neale Hurston
Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"
Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"
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Drenched in Light
Drenched in Light
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Dust Tracks on a Road
Dust Tracks on a Road
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Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick
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How It Feels To Be Colored Me
How It Feels To Be Colored Me
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Jonah's Gourd Vine
Jonah's Gourd Vine
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Moses, Man of the Mountain
Moses, Man of the Mountain
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Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life
Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life
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Mules and Men
Mules and Men
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Seraph on the Suwanee
Seraph on the Suwanee
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Spunk
Spunk
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Tell My Horse
Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica
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The Eatonville Anthology
The Eatonville Anthology
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The Gilded Six-Bits
The Gilded Six-Bits
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Their Eyes Were Watching God
Their Eyes Were Watching God
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