In the short story “Sweat,” Zora Neale Hurston describes the life of Delia Jones, a hard working wash woman. Delia is married to Sykes, an abusive husband who takes advantage of his wife and spends all of her hard earned money. I chose this passage because it introduces a pivotal point in the story that foreshadows Sykes’s evil actions causing issues for him down the road or as Delia puts it, “whatever goes over the Devil’s back, is got to come under his belly.” Hurston describes the snake’s eyes as growing bloodier by the second which foreshadows that the snake will soon make its next kill. Sykes is cheating on his wife with Bertha, whom he spends all of their money on. The role of Christianity plays an important theme throughout the story.
