"Sweat" Hurston

The narrative strategy and point of view in Zora Neale Hurston's "Sweat" mold the reader's understanding of the story. They craft the personalities of both Delia and Sykes as well as developing their relationship. The choice of a third person omniscient narrator charges the story with more brutal honesty than would any other type of narration. The scene where the village men discuss Sykes and Delia holds relevance as a narrative tool and explores an alternative point of view to the narrator.

The narrator draws the character sketches of both Sykes and Delia. Hurston lets us see their thoughts that allow her to develop their personalities rapidly and thoroughly. In a story of roughly only seven and a half pages Hurston manages to create vivid and complex characters. Much of this can be credited to her choice of narration. Long passages of narration mixed with the dialogue design a relationship fed on pain:

" She lay awake, gazing upon the debris that cluttered their matrimonial trail. Not an image left standing along the way. Anything like flowers had long ago been drowned in the salty stream that had been pressed from her heart. Her tears, her sweat, her blood" (1675).

Since the thoughts of Sykes and Delia are so different, a series of contrasts develops their relationship and personalities. Hurston's choice of narrator lends believability to the entire story and makes Delia's plight more extreme. If Delia were the one telling the story things would be quite different. The reader would not give her version of the story the same credibility he gives that of an outside narrator. It also makes the reader more sympathetic for Delia. A combination of what Delia feels and what Sykes does to her leads the reader to feel sympathetically towards her. This can be clearly seen with the addition of Bertha--the other woman in Sykes life. "Too late now to hope for love, even if it

...