Sweat

“It was eleven o’clock of a […] Sunday. Any other night, Delia Jones would have been in bed for two hours by this time. But she was a wash-woman, and Monday morning meant a great deal to her. So she collected the soiled clothes on Saturday when she returned the clean things. Sunday night after church, she sorted them and put the white things to soak. […] 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.”

The opening paragraphs establish the story’s foundation. That Delia begins her work at 11:00 p.m. on a Sunday night illustrates her industriousness and the exhausting nature of her work. The careful organization of her time and materials shows her conscientiousness and diligence. Though she cares a great deal about her work, her “humming a song in a mournful key” immediately before Sykes’s introduction foreshadows their marital discord, setting the stage for the story’s central conflict.

“Just then something long, round, limp and black fell upon her shoulders and slithered to the floor beside her. A great terror took hold of her. It softened her knees and dried her mouth so that it was a full minute before she could cry out or move. Then she saw that it was the big bull whip her husband liked to carry when he drove.”

Just as Delia wonders about Sykes’s whereabouts, he announces his presence by scaring her with a bull whip. The whip’s serpentine qualities—long, round, limp—foreshadow the rattlesnake later in the story. It also reveals much about Sykes’s character, depicting him as a bully who takes pleasure in terrorizing his wife and exploiting her greatest fears.

“He snorted scornfully. ‘Yeah, you just come from de church house on a Sunday night, but heah you is gone to work on them clothes. You ain’t nothing but a hypocrite. One of them amen-corner Christians–sing, whoop, and shout, then come home and wash white folks clothes on the Sabbath.’ He stepped roughly upon the whitest pile of things, kicking them helter-skelter as he crossed the room. His wife gave a little scream of dismay, and quickly gathered them together again.”

This passage gives two potential reasons for Sykes’s scorn of Delia’s work. One, he deems her a hypocrite for proclaiming to be Christian and then working on the Sabbath, a day of rest. He seems unaware of his own hypocrisy: He criticizes her work but doesn’t contribute anything himself, all while claiming ownership of the spoils of her labor. Two, the passage shows his frustration with her white clientele, emphasized by the “whitest pile of things” that he kicks across the room—one of the story’s gestures to the racial tensions in the background.