There was a lot of symbolism that was used throughout this entire story that caught my eye. In the first couple of lines there are signs of symbolism shown when Hurston describes Delia and her day to day activities as a wife and a hard worker. Beginning with Delia and the description of the clothes that she deals with during her daily routine. She collects the soiled clothes on Saturday when she returned the clean things. The main character Delia is a hardworking washwoman, a profession that was a whole lot more work back in the day when there were no washers or dryers. She takes pride in her work and the clean clothes can be seen as a symbol of her purity as a person and her noble work habits. The symbolism of the clothes can be seen as a
…show more content…
When I think of a snake I have a personal fear of them and throughout my literature classes and also life what a snake could represent. Delia also has a very bad snake phobia that causes her to freak out and have a series of actions that are described to show how much she has a fear of snakes. Delia shakes, screams and nearly faints when the snake appears. So when Sykes's bring a rattler home, she says: “Naw, now Syke, don't keep dat thing 'roun' heah tuh skeer me tuh death. [...] Thass de biggest snake Ah evah did see. Kill 'im Syke, please (67)”. I feel that Hurston uses the same symbolism throughout this piece to show the evil and the slick personality of Sykes in Sweat. Sykes was not a very positive character in this story so I could easily see that the snake is the symbolism of the negativity that he brings into people and their lives. Also I could see that the snake itself is a symbol of Sykes and the venom he spits at Delia in the form of verbal, psychological and physical abuse that she endured over the years which was weighing down on her life. Delia was only making her life more miserable keeping him around the house because he was doing nothing but poisoning their living environment. I found that it was even more interesting that Sykes decided to bring home a snake and that shows me how much he did not care about his behavior and how
When I think of a snake I have a personal fear of them and throughout my literature classes and also life what a snake could represent. Delia also has a very bad snake phobia that causes her to freak out and have a series of actions that are described to show how much she has a fear of snakes. Delia shakes, screams and nearly faints when the snake appears. So when Sykes's bring a rattler home, she says: “Naw, now Syke, don't keep dat thing 'roun' heah tuh skeer me tuh death. [...] Thass de biggest snake Ah evah did see. Kill 'im Syke, please (67)”. I feel that Hurston uses the same symbolism throughout this piece to show the evil and the slick personality of Sykes in Sweat. Sykes was not a very positive character in this story so I could easily see that the snake is the symbolism of the negativity that he brings into people and their lives. Also I could see that the snake itself is a symbol of Sykes and the venom he spits at Delia in the form of verbal, psychological and physical abuse that she endured over the years which was weighing down on her life. Delia was only making her life more miserable keeping him around the house because he was doing nothing but poisoning their living environment. I found that it was even more interesting that Sykes decided to bring home a snake and that shows me how much he did not care about his behavior and how