Summary
The story's attention turns to Bertha, who has been in town for three months. Sykes is paying to have her put up at Della Lewis' house, "the only house in town that would have taken her in" (1026). The two frequently go to dance parties, called "stomps," at Winter Park. He tells her that he is the most important man in Florida and that she can have anything she wants. He even promises that she can have Delia's house as soon as he can get Delia out of it.
Delia suffers terribly during these months. She avoids her fellow villagers and public meeting places in order to pretend not to notice Sykes' affair. However, Bertha thwarts these efforts by coming to Delia's house to call for Sykes from outside. As a consequence, Delia and Sykes now fight constantly, with no periods of peace. On the handful of occasions that Delia attempts to be friendly, Sykes rebuffs her, making it clear that he intends the hostility to continue. It is now August and still extremely hot, with negative consequences on the living things in the surrounding environment. The greenery dies, and dogs and snakes go mad and blind.
One day, Delia returns home and sees that Sykes is already there. She wonders why, but instead of asking she decides to continue on into the house. However, Sykes obstructs her entrance. She sees that there is a box beside the steps, but does not think of it, knowing it is something Sykes has brought. As she leans to pass under Sykes' arm, he pushes her backward onto the box and laughs.
Delia sees that the box contains a snake and nearly faints from terror. Delia pleads with him to take it away, but Sykes refuses. He says that the snake will stay there until it dies, and that it will not bite him because he knows how to control it, but it might bite Delia's "skinny laigs" (1026). Delia reiterates that she is frightened even of worms, and says it is the biggest snake she has ever seen. She begs him to kill it. Sykes refuses to do anything for her, and even says that he thinks more highly of the snake than of Delia.
People in town soon hear that Sykes has brought the snake to their house, and they go to see it. Thomas asks Sykes how he managed to wrangle a six-foot rattlesnake. Sykes says that it had just filled itself up with frogs and could not move because of the effort of digestion. Moreover, he describes himself as a snake charmer. Thomas says that the best way to charm a snake is with a "heavy hick'ry club leaned real heavy on his head" (1027), but Sykes responds in an arrogant tone that Thomas simply doesn't know how to handle snakes like he does.
The snake remains. After a few days, after it has digested its meal of frogs, the snake comes to life, rattling at every moment in the house or yard. One day when Delia is passing by, she sees its fangs hooked onto the outside of the box's wire covering. Instead of passing in fright, she instead stares it down for a long time, a furious rage growing inside of her at the thought of the snake that Sykes is using to torture her. That night, she demands again that Sykes take the snake away. She tells him that she has put up with beatings and starvation, but she will not tolerate this. Sykes tells her again that he does not care how she feels and if she keeps aggravating him he will continue to beat her.
Delia stands up calmly and tells him that she hates him as much as she used to love him, reminding him of how she moved churches so she could worship away from him. She tells him that he can lay around with Bertha as much as he wants but she wants him out of her house. Sykes is shocked and infuriated by Delia's stand. He tells her that he is glad she hates him because he hates her even more, and has hated her for years, with her "stringey ole neck" and "rawbony laigs an' arms" (1027). Delia retorts that he looks to her like a piece of wrinkled rubber, with flapping buzzards for ears. She tells him that she will not leave her house, and adds that she may even go to the white authorities about Sykes the next time he beats her. She says all this without fear and Sykes leaves the house. That night he does not return. The next day is Sunday, so Delia drives the four miles to her church in Woodbridge. She stays until the night service, which fills her with warmth and solace. As she drives home, she sings spirituals to herself.
Analysis
The story's discussion of Bertha subtly introduces the theme of racialized conceptions of beauty, particularly in the context of relationships between men and women. Although the men on the porch can be considered better than Sykes in that one presumes they treat women better than Sykes does, and they show pity for Delia and her plight, it remains true that the way they discuss women remains entirely circumscribed within a worldview that bases a woman's worth heavily on her physical appearance, and also within a world of racist beauty ideals.
We are encouraged to assume that Bertha is an unsavory kind of person because she is willing to flaunt norms of morality and have a public affair with a married man, and particularly a married man as arrogant and unappealing as Sykes. However, this is not stated explicitly, and we do not hear directly from Bertha at all. We are told only that Sykes on the one hand loves her because of her "portly" body and the men on the porch believe she is tremendously ugly because she has very dark skin, which may be a form of colorist prejudice.
Delia, on the other hand, is remembered fondly by the men as having once been very pretty. Their admiration for her remarkable character is practically secondary. We are never given the opportunity to see the women outside of the eyes of these men, and so we cannot know whether their physical appraisals are reasonable assessments. All we know is that to these men, whether they are "good" like the men on the porch or "bad" like Sykes, they are still most used to discussing women in terms of their physical appearance.
This passage also contains the climax of the story's drama. It is here that events reach a point where they can escalate no further, and must be resolved or changed in some way for the story to move forward. With the appearance of Bertha, Delia and Sykes begin to fight constantly with no possibility of reprieve, mostly because Sykes will not accept Delia's peacemaking gestures. This seems to be the highest possible peak of Delia's suffering, until Sykes goes even further and brings home an enormous dormant rattlesnake. This brings events to a head: evil comes to roost at Delia's house, and Sykes in typical arrogance claims he is in no danger from it. This situation is clearly unsustainable and unbearable to Delia, so as readers we can be sure that a dramatic change is about to take place.
This change in fact happens on multiple levels. At the external level, Sykes will eventually be killed by his own stupidity and malice. At the internal level, however, Delia is undergoing a radical metamorphosis, one that continues to unfold in this section. At the end of the first section of the story, Delia displays "a triumphant indifference" to Sykes, foreshadowing the change to come. Delia is still resilient in the face of escalating abuse—indeed, here she is explicitly identified as a Jesus-like figure, in the allusion to Gethsemane and the rocks of Calvary—but this section charts a change from a conciliatory Delia to one who is defiant and angry. Where at first she tries to be friendly to Sykes, who rebuffs her, she eventually comes to confront Sykes over the snake, telling Sykes that she hates him. Sykes is clearly shocked by this uncharacteristic behavior from Delia, and this new attitude of defiance sets the scene for the story's conclusion.
