Gilded Six-Bits

In the short story, “The Gilded Six-Bits” by Zora Neale Hurston it contains various where multiple themes occur with basically all the characters in the story. The story revolves around a young African-American couple living the early 20th century. The couple consists of Missie May and Joe who deeply love each other, but encounter challenges when I bigshot African-American named Otis D. Slemmons comes into town. The story contains various themes such as trust, forgiveness, gratefulness, marriage, greed, and appearance versus reality. Missie May is the character that is the protagonist of story, yet her actions connect with only a few of the themes. Missie May is a young black woman that gives off the image of a spunky housewife that is very outgoing. She is the complete opposite of Joe. Missie May would do anything for her husband and makes sure that he always satisfied. She often makes him food and gives him compliments such as saying,” Youse a pretty man” (211) which reassures theme in the story of marriage and how faithful and loyal she is to him. When Otis Slemmons comes into the town her first thoughts of him are that he is “puzzlegutted” (211) which means that he is unattractively fat and stupid. The situation is …show more content…
Slemmons who is a supposed “fat-cat” that flaunts his money when he gets the chance. Otis is a black man who is not very attractive and fat. Otis is the embodiment of the phrase,” Everything that glitters ain’t gold” and present the theme of appearance versus reality. He often talks of the many women he has while “his mouth is full of gold teeths” (210) and various gold jewelry. Even when he is caught in the bed with Missie May he pleads for his life by offering Joe “sixty-two dollars at de sto’. Gold money” (214). After Otis is dismissed from the story Missie May finds a coin from him and determines it is actually a “gilded half dollar” (216) or a fake half dollar which mean he’s a