Commentary on Sweat Essay

Sweat

Sometimes it doesnt matter so much what your circumstances are in life as much as what you make of them. In the story of Sweat, we read of a mistreated wife, named Delia, doing the best that she can with what she has, and her resentful, no good husband, Sykes, seeming to find his only happiness in crushing hers. As the story progresses, we see that survival becomes a way of life for Delia. In the end, it is Delias desire to persevere and not to become a victim of her circumstances that carries her through to her ill foreseen freedom.

Delia had many unique trials to face in her own life. Married to an outwardly handsome and caring man, she thought she was in for the adventure of all adventures. It was soon after they were married, to her dismay that things began to change for the worse. Sykes was a scoundrel and the type of man that beat his wife. The only thing Sykes contributed to the marriage was a longing after the flesh (Hurston). I'm sure Delia felt as if all hope was gone and her only lot in life was to suffer death without pleasure or happiness ever finding its proper place in her world.

Many times the only way to gauge a persons life is by the person they become by the end of it. Delia didnt let her circumstances define her, but determined that she was going to provide for herself; that she was going to be better than her no good husband; that she was going to keep her dignity and the little that she could call her own. If Delia had one thing, it was an assurance that there was One greater than herself whom saw all the evil that was going on in the world and was just to repay it. She knew that whatever a person sows, he shall surely reap (Hurston).

I can relate to Delia in many ways. Delia, in my opinion, felt the same struggles that many of us face today; struggles of acceptance from those around us; shame from the evil that we have to endure; questions of whether we did the something to deserve our circumstances; and even depression and the selfish desire to bring the pain to an end. She kept on hoping and kept on with her routine. Her life had one constant; and that was change. She fought for the little routine that she had found. It was the standard held high in the war of confusion that went on around her. When assaulted, all of whom she was would rally to it, dig into the dirt, and hold the surrounding ground. This was her sense of safety and control amidst the chaos.

All too familiar are the feelings of Delias plight. These feelings followed the years after my parents divorce. I remember the day I came home at the end of summer after eighth grade. The two-week stay at my grandmothers house had been a marvelous time of family and scents and sounds of country things both living and inanimate; the cocks crow at early dawn to the cool dew amongst the Georgian breeze. The colorful painting of that summer was soon forgotten and dismissed as nothing more than a dream. Reality, with its bleak colors and black nature, came in and redefined life itself. I remember reasoning that if all I had in life was the pain and the strife from the struggles I was going through, then life was something I had to do on my own; I had to make it happen; I had to take things into my own hand. Right or wrong was irrelevant; the feelings were all too real.

Delia responded to these struggles in much the same way that I had; by taking hope in something outside of her. She gained a comfort in the notion that there is something greater than the darkness that we see, she began to rise above the undercurrent of fear in her life, and, ultimately, came out on top. Sykes could no longer control what was inside of her; no matter how much he attempted to destroy the comfort of her surroundings. She refused to succumb to his selfish mind games. Delia had endured for years the beatings of her husband and the emotional abuse from his squandering everything they owned on sex, drugs, alcohol and whatever else he could find to satisfy his own pleasures. Sykes death by snake bite was the final chapter in Delias hope; a hope, wrought from perseverance, that kept her spirit high and, in the end, kept her strong until she was finally free.

Bibliography

Hurston, Zora Neal. "Sweat." Gwynn, R.S. Literature A Pocket Anthology 3rd ed. New York : Longman Publishers, 2007. 138-149.