The Gilded Six-Bits

Missie May is one of two main characters in “The Gilded Six-Bits.” She is an attractive young woman who is happily married to her husband, Joe, at the beginning of the short story, and she takes pride in keeping her humble home clean and neat, especially in anticipation of her husband’s homecoming on “payday” Saturdays. She is also an excellent cook, and she shows her love for Joe through her cooking. Her meals include “[h]ot fried mullet, crackling bread, [and] ham hock atop a mound of string beans and new potatoes” (88), placing her cooking firmly within the realm of Southern cuisine.

Missie May evokes youth and sexual appeal in her appearance and attitude: “Her dark brown skin glistened under the soapsuds that skittered down from her washrag. Her stiff young breasts thrust forward aggressively, like broad-based cones with tips lacquered in black” (86). Her interest in money and subsequent decision to sleep with Otis D. Slemmons creates the story’s central conflict and develops the theme of Sex, Physical Desire, and Marriage. Though she loves Joe, her desire for wealth—possibly for Joe’s sake—momentarily overcomes her. She spends the rest of the story suffering the consequences of that decision, though she decides not to leave Joe.