“Do weeds tangle up folks too, pa?”
The quote is uttered by the main character of the story, a child named John, living in the middle of a forest together with his parents. John is one day found by his father crying near the river, after one of the twigs put by John in the water got caught in the weeds near the river. Trying to console him, John’s father told the boy how at times, people can get caught up in the weeds as well. john is still too young to understand his father’s words but the father may have wanted to transmit teach his son how, sometimes, we get caught in the problems of our lives which can, at times, wrap around a person and make the person feel as if they are suffocating.
"She can scarcely reach the chinaberry tree where she waited in the growing heat while inside she knew the cold river was creeping up and up to extinguish that eye which must know by now that she knew. ‘’
The quote from above is the ending sentence of the story "Sweat’’. By this point, Sykes was already bitten by the snake which he planted in his wife’s laundry basket, hoping to kill her. Delia had two choices at the end of the story: warn her husband about the impeding danger or let him get near the snake and let him be bitten by it. Delia chose the second option and, what is more, refused to do anything to help him. Delia decided to distance herself by going to a distant place and allowing her husband to die alone and afraid. In a way, this represents Delia’s revenge on her husband, refusing to do anything to help him, and choosing to stand and watch him die from afar.
"You too sweet already.”
The quote from above is uttered by Joe when he is having supper with Missie May. At one point, Missie May reaches for a piece of food on the table but Joe takes it before she can reach it. To argue why his actions were right, Joe tells Missie May he did that because she is already too sweat and does not need to eat more sugar. This interaction between the two and Joe’s words are heartwarming, having the purpose of showing just how much he loved his wife and how he was ready to do anything to make her happy.
