Hard Work and Suffering
An important theme of "Sweat" that is embedded within the story's title itself is that of hard work and suffering. Because Sykes refuses to help Delia, and indeed actively obstructs her in many ways, Delia can rely only on herself for her own survival, all while supporting Sykes as well by paying for their house, food, and other supplies. Delia underscores this theme when she says to Sykes, "Ah been married to you fur fifteen years, and Ah been takin' in washin' fur fifteen years. Sweat, sweat, sweat! Work and sweat, cry and sweat, pray and sweat" (1023). The repetitiveness of the phrase as well as the emotion with which Delia expresses it communicates the difficulty of the life that she leads: Delia works constantly, every day of the week, and the only form of relaxation or leisure activity that we see her engage in are the religious services she attends on Saturday. The difficulty of Delia's economic circumstances is only compounded by the physical and emotional abuse she endures from Sykes, from whom she no longer hopes for love.
The Relationship between Men and Women
This is the subject of an important conversation between the village men on the porch of Joe Clarke's store. The conversation they have suggests that the way Sykes treats Delia is not simply the matter of a bad marriage, or even of Sykes' specific moral character. Instead, the analogy that Joe Clarke makes of men treating women like pieces of sugarcane provides a way of understanding the dynamic between Sykes and Delia as existing in a broader, self-defeating system of troubled relations between men and women. Clarke suggests that many men treat women as they would a piece of sugarcane, wringing them out of all their sweetness and throwing them away when they are finished. Crucially, Clarke states that men understand exactly what they are doing when they are doing this, and that they hate themselves for it but are unable to stop. After women have been beaten down and ground up by the abuse, men then hate them even more for being a useless obstruction and a reminder of their failures. This is key to understanding how the relationship between Sykes and Delia may represent relationships between men and women more broadly. Instead of being grateful to Delia because she supports the two of them, Sykes instead hates and abuses her, perhaps feeling emasculated. Clarke's analogy suggests that the more a man abuses a woman, the harder it is for him to stop, because she reminds him of his failures. This certainly seems to be the case for Sykes.
Resilience and Reliability
Linked to the theme of hard work and suffering is that of resilience. The difficult circumstances in which Delia lives have required her to work very hard, and never once has Delia failed to meet this obligation. Delia is described as having survived over many years an ordeal that the men on the porch of Joe Clarke's store suggest would have killed three ordinary women, let alone ruined their looks. In every kind of weather, Delia comes around on Saturday: "Hot or col', rain or shine, jes ez reg'lar ez de weeks roll roun' Delia carries 'em an' fetches 'em on Sat'day" (1024), says Joe Lindsay. Even as Sykes continues to escalate his abuse of Delia by bringing a mistress to town and bringing a snake to her house, Delia is shaken, but ultimately defiant. These traits carry Delia through the story to its ambivalent ending.
Metamorphosis
In "Sweat," Delia undergoes a gradual but profound change in her attitude towards Sykes and life in general. At the beginning of the story, it is stated that Delia is resilient—she has endured, in an almost superhuman way, years of abuse—but she has also done so meekly and submissively. The Delia of the beginning of the story simply wishes that Sykes would let her live in peace, and can even, from time to time, entertain a certain hope that Sykes will repent of his abuse or find a rekindled love for her. She does not push back against Sykes, and appears to experience his abuse unhappily but pliantly. However, Delia develops first a "triumphant indifference" (1024) to Sykes that blooms into a full rebellion. This defiance possibly becomes a force in contradiction to her Christian kindness and generosity, as generally Christian charity would require Delia to help Sykes. However, she decides merely that she will allow Sykes to bear the consequences of his own actions, a true change from her earlier state.
Christianity and Christian Faith
Christianity and Christian faith are essential themes to the story. Delia is a woman of strong faith whose belief in a Christian God helps her significantly to endure the very hard life that she leads. Allusions to Christianity appear constantly. Sykes accuses Delia of being a hypocritical Christian because she works for white people on the Sabbath, which raises the question of how important it is to follow religion to the letter under difficult circumstances. During the time that Bertha is in town, Delia's suffering is compared to that of Jesus in Gethsemane, the garden where he prayed the night before he was crucified. Delia sings a song on the way back from church about the River Jordan, which in the Bible symbolizes deliverance. The presence of the snake in the story is also very meaningful, as snakes often symbolize the devil. In fact, the snake is literally referred to by Delia as "ol' satan." In this way, the story can be read as an allegory for the consequences of Sykes bringing evil and sin into the house he shares with Delia.
Reckoning
This is an important recurring theme in "Sweat," one distinct from but linked to the theme of Christianity and faith. Both near the beginning and the end of the story, Delia comforts herself in the midst of her turbulent life with Sykes by telling herself that sooner or later Sykes will experience a moment of reckoning. After Sykes first tricks Delia into thinking his bull whip is a snake, she says aloud to herself before falling asleep, "Oh well, whatever goes over the Devil's back, is got to come under his belly. Sometime or ruther, Sykes, like everybody else, is gointer reap his sowing" (1024). After Delia discovers the snake in the house and escapes to the barn, she experiences a rage followed by a calm, thinking to herself, "Well, Ah done de bes' Ah could. If things aint right, Gawd knows taint mah fault" (1029). Of course, Sykes does in fact experience a reckoning, one that is ironic because he brings it upon himself. While the concept of a Day of Judgment is central to Christianity, the concept of reckoning is made ambiguous by the fact that Delia chooses not to try to help Sykes as he dies, which arguably goes against concepts of Christian charity.
Racialized Understandings of Beauty
This is a subtle but important theme in "Sweat." Delia and Bertha are constructed as opposites of each other in a significant way that carries connotations of racialized understandings of beauty within the African-American community. Delia is described as thin, but once having been very pretty. Sykes is shown heaping abuse on Delia because he apparently finds her thin body ugly and unappealing. Bertha, on the other hand, is large in build, being described with positive connotation as "fat." Sykes lavishes praise on her for this characteristic. But she is also implied to be much darker-skinned than Delia, and for this reason the men on Joe Clarke's porch are brutally insulting of Bertha's looks, calling her a "big black greasy Mogul," an "eight-rock," saying that she isn't fit to kiss a sardine can, and comparing her to a hunk of liver with some hair on it. The reader cannot see what Bertha or Delia looks like beyond the opposed but equally biased eyes of Sykes and the men on the porch. However, the racialized language that the men on the porch use to describe Bertha suggests that they may be predisposed to find Bertha ugly because of colorist prejudice that exists within the African-American community.
