Delia Working at Home on a Sunday Evening
"She squatted in the kitchen floor beside the great pile of clothes, sorting them into small heaps according to color, and humming a song in a mournful key, but wondering through it all where Sykes, her husband, had gone with her horse and buckboard." (1022)
This is one of the opening passages in "Sweat" and its various images are important in how they set the tone for the rest of the story. First of all, Delia is at work on a Sunday evening, even though it is the Christian Sabbath, a day of rest. This emphasizes how the circumstances of her life compel her to work without cease, even at times traditionally designated for rest. The first image that Hurston gives us of Delia only confirms this sense of endless toil: she is squatting next to the clothes that she launders, humming a mournful song that suggests the many things in life which she is pained by.
Delia's Reminiscences on Her Relationship with Sykes
"She lay awake, gazing upon the debris that cluttered their matrimonial trail. Not an image left standing along the way. Anything like flowers had long ago been drowned in the salty stream that had been pressed from her heart. Her tears, her sweat, her blood." (1023)
In this passage, in fitting with the image suggested by the story's title, a number of very physical images are used to convey the sad history of Delia's relationship with Sykes. Their marriage is a "trail" that is tangibly "cluttered" with "debris." Not a happy memory or image is "left standing." Fond remembrances like "flowers" have been "drowned" in the "salty stream... pressed from her heart," resulting in "her tears, her sweat, her blood." That all these things are physical objects or places give the reader a sense of vivid grounding in a place and of the solidity of Delia herself.
Delia's Hard Work
"She tol' him to take 'em straight back home, cause Delia works so hard ovah dat washtub she reckon everything on de place taste lak sweat an' soapsuds." (1024)
Jim Merchant recounts that Sykes once came round to his house with a basket of pecans, hoping to seduce Merchant's wife. However, his wife rejected them, saying that she felt that Delia worked so hard that everything that grew on their property must taste like sweat and soapsuds. Here, the intensity of Delia's work is communicated by the suggestion that it could even do something as improbable as flavor the pecans she grows.
The Trickery of the Snake
"The rattler is a ventriloquist. His whirr sounds to the right, to the left, straight ahead, behind, close under foot—everywhere but where it is." (1029)
The snake historically has been used as a symbol of evil and the Devil, and it certainly does so in this story. This image only enhances the impression of the snake as a mischievous, dangerous trickster. It is compared to a ventriloquist, that is, someone who is able to make speech or noise sound as if it is coming from somewhere other than where it is actually coming from: the classic ventriloquist is the puppeteer who seems to be speaking through a doll. The ventriloquism of the rattlesnake is especially nefarious because if a person mistakes where the noise is coming from, it could result in being bitten.
