The Gilded Six-Bits

“It was a Negro yard around a Negro house in a Negro settlement that looked to the payroll of the G. And G. Fertilizer works for its support.”

The opening paragraph, a single sentence, establishes the location of the story, historically Black Eatonville. It also makes clear that the town’s inhabitants, including the story’s main characters, are working-class, an important consideration in a story set during the Great Depression in which money plays such an important role. The use of repetition (“a Negro yard […] a Negro house […] a Negro settlement”) reflects the story’s debt to folk tales, where such devices are common.

“The front door stood open to the sunshine so that the floor of the front room could finish drying after its weekly scouring. It was Saturday.”

The cleanliness of the home and the day of the week are important because cleaning the house is part of the ritual that takes place on payday, which is on Saturday. The passage hints at the reciprocal roles each partner plays in the marriage, with Missie May fulfilling her job as homemaker in anticipation of Joe bringing home his wages.

“Who dat chunkin’ money in mah do’way?”

Missie May says this every week on Saturday when Joe throws silver dollars in her doorway; it’s a playful prelude to their “mock battle” and foreshadows intertwined themes of Sex, Physical Desire, and Marriage and The Function and Morality of Money. It also represents Hurston’s use of African American