David Esterly
Cal Poly University (San Luis Obispo, California)
May 2002

The New Delia:
Quest for Feminine Identity and Literary Zeal of Zora Neale Hurston

Flower blossoms blooming can seem so beautiful with a myriad of designs, colors and contrasting shades reflected within the look of a beholding eye, so rich with complexity in aromatic fragrances sniffed into a perceptive nose, so soft and velvety to a delicate touch by curious fingertips, so tasty and scrumptious upon the tip of a discerning tongue. Strong impressions are easily left upon the mind of someone just titillated with such a variety of sensory stimuli--even if by the written word. In literature, these strong impressions can be exploited to conceal other meanings. Unraveling these mysteries of symbolic word puzzles can be one of the most fascinating investigations for the discerning reader to undertake because the process may reveal insights into one's own secrets. A comparison between selected passages of two books: Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and Francis Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, will show that symbolical language can reveal even more insight. In this comparison, symbolism in the passages containing variations of the words "blossom" or "blooming" will be examined to reveal human development beyond sexuality and anatomy.
    As perhaps the most significant result of the "Second African Diaspora," the Harlem Renaissance was known as a period of rebirths. Traditions were rethought and re-evaluated; conceptions of "the new Negro" emerged. Published in 1926, Zora Neale Hurston’s short story, "Sweat," appeared in the midst of the movement, but was directed toward a different issue. Hurston’s writing sought to broaden the areas of progress by addressing issues of gender.
    In a story about female empowerment, Hurston’s "Sweat," asserts that women must free themselves from sexual oppression through the search for personal identity. This search requires the blatant defiance of the traditional role of women, the mastery of verbal resistance, the adoption of traditionally masculine characteristics, and the aspiration of spiritual serenity—the sense of owning oneself. The story portrays a poor and abused but good-hearted black woman in an all-black southern community during the early 1900’s, who is forced to come to terms with her parasitic and brutally immoral husband. "Sweat" traces her transformation from a meek and timid wife to spiritual enlightenment at the destruction of her tormentor. Hurston achieves this through the portrayal of archetypal characters, the use of Biblical, domestic, and sexual symbolism, and the fusion of southern African American vernacular with northern Standard American English. While the spirit of Hurston’s writing was in accordance with the Harlem Renaissance, the specific concerns were not. Accused of being disloyal, Hurston was condemned by critics and colleagues for her treatment of gender before race.
    "Sweat" is a story of remarkable complexity, at both the symbolic and narrative levels. But Hurston uses such subtlety in her story construction, that a first reading only appears to yield a fast-paced and simple story. On the surface level, "Sweat" is a story about escape from spousal abuse and oppression within marital relationships. But it is also a comment on the nature of power between the sexes, as well as a portrayal of archetypal characters in an allegory between good and evil.
    The plot of "Sweat" can be reduced to the following: two major confrontations occur between Delia and her husband Sykes; each is a progressively greater victory for Delia, who then enters a period of reflection and introspection. Dialogue and actions increase in intensity until the feverish climactic scene, when Delia is metaphorically reborn at the ironic death of her tormentor. Through this simplification of plot, several patterns emerge and become clear. The two archetypal characters, one wholly benevolent and the other entirely evil, undergo drastic and opposite character transformations.
    Delia’s path toward enlightenment begins at the lowest possible rung of the societal ladder: she is African American, female, impoverished, and mentally and physically abused. For fifteen years, she has tolerated inhuman abuse and accepted her predicament. Delia’s behavior had been characterized by "habitual meekness." She was timid, non-confrontational, tolerant, and even forgiving. She withstood her treatment by concentrating on her work, and by being a devote Christian—her marriage to Sykes required Christ-like suffering and sacrifice. Essentially, her marriage has been fifteen years of blood, sweat, and tears. Her "efforts to remain blind and dumb" only validated Sykes’s license for abuse.
    Delia’s transformation begins to occur when, during the first confrontation, Sykes grinds dirt into her white laundry. This is an act which symbolizes both sexual oppression, and an attack on Delia’s only sign of independence—her work. Delia’s seemingly uncharacteristic temper is sparked as her "habitual meekness seemed to slip from her shoulders like a blown scarf." Delia begins to assert herself verbally, which is a crucial step in freeing herself from Sykes’ oppression. She strikes a crippling blow to Sykes’ self-concept as a man, as she points out that she has taken over his role as the provider and breadwinner. "Mah tub of suds is filled yo’ belly with vittles more times than yo’ hands is filled it. Mah sweat is done paid for this house." This is Sykes’ real reason for his contempt for Delia: she is a living reminder of his utter failure in life. Delia then establishes physical resistance by defending herself with an iron cooking pan, a feminine domestic symbol. Sykes is dumbfounded and leaves, slamming the door in the face of the "new Delia." After her first victory, Delia begins to "build a spiritual earthworks against her husband." She comforts herself with a bit of Old Testament wisdom, which also foreshadows the future: "Sometime or ruther, Sykes, like everybody else, is gointer reap his sowing."
    In the second confrontation, Delia grows more and more fierce in her resistence. She is, for the first time, aggressively defiant and assertive in her language: "Ah hates you, Sykes…gwan ‘way fum me an’ mah house. Ah hates you lak a suck-egg dog." She compares her hatred for Sykes to the hatred farmers have for transient dogs that enter into hen houses at night to steal eggs. This is an reference to Sykes’ parasitic an undignified life.
    Once again, this outburst dumbfounds Sykes, as the cornbread he was chewing "fell out of his mouth in amazement." With "no signs of fear," Delia resolutely proclaims "mah cup done run ovah." Sykes does not return that night.
    After finding and successfully eluding Sykes’ death trap consisting of the loose rattle snake, Delia climbs up into a hay barn, in a spiritual retreat. This is the fundamental turning point of both Delia’s character, and the story of "Sweat" itself.
    Finally she grew quiet and after that, coherent thought. With this, stalked through her a cold bloody rage. Hours of this. A period introspection, a space of retrospection and then a mixture of both . Out of this an awful calm.
    In this strange spiritual transformation, Delia both learns to hate, and finds inner-serenity. She reaches a definition of self; she finds the essence of owning oneself. After this metamorphosis occurs, she cannot be touched.
    In the spirit of the Old Testament justice, the "new Delia" chooses not to warn, (and thus not save) Sykes in the final scene. Instead, she bears silent witness to his death. In the glowing red light of dawn, Sykes life ends, and Delia, who has gained new knowledge and power is reborn.
    In stark contrast of the spiritual enlightenment of Delia, is the transformation of Sykes’ character. In the beginning, Sykes is described as powerful "strapping hulk." But with each of Delia’s victories, his power diminishes. As the story progresses, he becomes more drastic in his attempts to exercise power over her, becoming less and less human in the process. Finally, with an ironic twist of fate, all traces of humanity vanish:
    Sykes’ ability to think had been flattened down to primitive instinct and he leaped onto the bed. Outside Delia heard a cry that might have come from a maddened chimpanzee, a stricken gorilla. All the terror, all the horror, all the rage that a man possibly could express without a single recognizable human sound.
    His life ends "on his hands and knees," at the foot of a true human being—an animalistic image of complete submission.
    Another layer to the transformation of Sykes is his relationship with the snake. As the story progresses, the character of Sykes becomes increasingly blurred with the presence of the snake. Each of the confrontations begins with the issue of a snake: the first, with Sykes’ cruel deception using the bullwhip; the second, with a real rattler in a box brought home; and the third, involving the loose rattler as an instrument of murder. Aside from the physical appearances, there are multiple levels of depth associated with the snake, being by far the most pervasive and complex symbol in "Sweat."
    The symbol of the snake serves in three ways. First, the snake is a tool of physical intimidation—Delia is literally frightened by snakes. She repeatedly says, "You know how skeered Ah is of snakes." Second, is the phallic symbolism; the repeated forcing of the snake into Delia’s house, her place of refuge, is a symbolic rape. Third, is the strong tradition of the snake in the Biblical tradition. The serpent is a physical manifestation of evil, which Delia refers to as "Ol’ Satan." In the fall story, Satan is embodied in the serpent and deceives Eve, thus deceiving Adam. Eve then appears to have directly caused the fall of man.
    In "Sweat," however, "The Fall" story is subverted. In this retelling, the man uses the serpent in an attempt to cause the fall of the woman. But in an ironic twist, the serpent again causes the fall of the man. In this version of "The Fall," the woman appears to be an impartial observer rather than a naïve agent. This point, however, is ambiguous. It may be argued that, effectively, she was a participant in her lack of action. Rather than selling knowledge, the snake offers power—for Sykes, the power to influence others; for Delia the power of liberation, the freedom from male oppression. She tacitly accepts the snakes offer to kill her oppressor. This is a necessary step for Delia’s liberation—she must incorporate within herself some aspects associated with the snake. In other words, for Delia to secure independence, she must cultivate within herself characteristics normally associated with masculinity.
    In the final scene, Delia had both the courage to witness the agonizing death, and the hatred to let it happen. Yet she still maintained a genuine sympathy for her dying tormentor. "A surge of pity too strong to support bore her away," as she looked into his eyes. In essence, she was able to hold several seemingly contradictory feelings simultaneously. This does not mean she would live guiltlessly; it only means that she had matured to become spiritually complete. Delia had finally come to proper self-definition; she could appreciate her relationship to the surrounding world, because at last, she owned herself.
    Delia’s spiritual maturation necessitated the embracement of both masculine and feminine natures. After all, Delia had replaced her husband as the provider and breadwinner; she had bought and maintained the house; and, by the ending, she had become verbally and physically dominant. This incorporation of female and male spirits alludes to the archetypal tradition of androgyny. In Mythmaking and Metaphor in Black Women’s Fiction, Jacqueline de Weever discusses the subject:
    The adrogyne, as creator, healer and medium of transformation, figures significantly in Black women writers’ mythic narratives. The adrogyne, whose double life both as a man and as woman provides the possibilities for achieving great wisdom, is applied mostly to women…The essence of owning oneself is the essence of androgyny (Weever 33).
    In The Religion Spirituality, and Thought of Traditional Africa, Dominique Zahn discusses the roots of the concept of androgyny:
    "The idea of androgyny, the ideal form of the human being, reflects the concern for perfect equilibrium between male and female, of which many African peoples seem to have retained recollections in their religions (Zahn 11).
    In many ways, Hurston’s personal life greatly mirrored the portrayal of her androgynous female protagonists such as Delia. Placing great emphasis on strength, self- reliance, and individualism, Hurston once said, "Let me personally and privately be responsible for my survival or failure in this man’s world." She wrote and acted in the same wildly unorthodox, assertive and free-spirited fashion. "Like the men of her day she smoked in public, wore pants, spoke her mind, loved setting her hat at that raking angle—just like her father" (Plant 178). On a similar note, Hurston once wrote, "every tub must sit on its own bottom—regardless"
    Hurston’s childhood necessitated the development of a survival strategy based on strength. She grew up in an all black southern community until, at eight, her mother died. Afterwards, she grew up largely in white communities. Hurston thrived in both atmospheres because she recognized the value in adopting the best aspects from each community. From her black Floridian community, she learned the oral tradition as the primary means of statement and existence. From white communities, she was taught the value and potential of the written word (Hodges xii). This allowed her to thrive in both the North and the South, in both white and African American communities. This duality of influences is obvious in her writing, as she fuses together the southern black vernacular and the northern Standard American English, creating truly original literature.
    This bridging of two worlds served several purposes. One of which was, in the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance, to assert the authenticity and value of African American culture and the universal wisdom of Black tradition in folktales. But her usage of Standard American English was also to legitimize herself as a well-educated and intelligent writer, capable of performing with any medium.
    With the creation of new literature, Hurston was also able to create a new message and a new direction. Often, the gift of artists is that of exceptional clarity of vision; the ability to see what the majority of people cannot. With this vision, artistic talent, and bold assertiveness, Hurston’s literature would push for new social and political directions for African America. She would "argue both explicitly and implicitly that liberation from oppression could in fact be achieved" (Plant 176).
    This spirit of revolutionary literature would eventually lead Hurston to both success in white communities and failure among educated African Americans. Hurston’s spirit was in accordance with the Harlem Renaissance but her message was not, for Hurston was primarily concerned with Feminism. Her literature dealt with the interplay of power between the sexes and the nature and tradition of gender roles. She portrayed assertive women exercising their power in both conversation and combat. The majority of Hurston’s most famous literature portrayed assertive women who resemble Delia. These embodiments of the ideal African American female voice served as the heart of Hurston’s literature, and she was sacrificed for it.
    During the height of the Harlem Renaissance, America was learning something new: an awareness race. The arising consciousness about the racial issue made it difficult for women writers to address the topic of gender. The issue of sexism would be seen as trivial and immediately dismissed. Writers such as Hurston were often perceived as traitors to their race, because they chose subjects other than the issue of race.
    Hurston’s’ audience was fatally fractured. Each critic heard a different story in her literature. In Women of the Harlem Renaissance, Cheryl Wall points out how "heightened race consciousness of the period—a race consciousness that gendered the ‘New Negro’ as male—made it extremely difficult for black women writers to address issue of sexism directly" (Wall 7). Hurston and the several other black women writers wanted only to "forge a revised racial identity." Black men saw much of black women’s work as "not an affirmation of black women, but as an assault on black men" (Wall 196).
    Leading Black voices of the Harlem Renaissance, (almost exclusively male) were infuriated by Hurston’s writing. Langston Hughes called her "a perfect darkie." He believed whites were paying her for being their happy stereotype so they could feel okay about blacks inequality (Hemenway). Alain Locke, another leading voice of the Harlem Renaissance, criticized her avoidance of interracial confrontation. The Black critics were ruthless; they felt the lack of racial confrontation was due to the influence of white patrons.
    It was true that Hurston was treated by the white benefactors as "the Pet Negro." But on this point, both Hurston’s perspective and intentions were greatly misunderstood. The tradition of the subversive African American folktale gives great insight into the reason why treatment of race was absent from the surface of her writing. In Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick (of which the very title provides insight), Susan Meisenhelder discusses the issue:
    "[Hurston] repeatedly pointed out how the appearance of subservience can be a self conscious mask blacks use to their advantage…. planning her own racial manipulations, she rarely addressed race in ways that might offend white readers; instead she adopted a more subversive strategy, often donning the mask of the ‘colorful darkie’ to gain entry into mainstream publishing circles while submerging treatment of controversial themes…. Hurston developed her themes from a position of racial and sexual subordination that required indirection, masking, and ambiguity too often seen simply as conventionality and conservatism (Meisenhelder 4).
    In this way, Hurston continues the tradition of the subversive message, seen so frequently in traditional African American folktales. Instead of being silenced, or abandoning the message, Hurston finds an indirect way to express herself. In other words, "Tell the truth, but tell it slant."
    Therefore, in the wave of the Harlem Renaissance, when something new was being learned and expressed, women who attempted to plug the issue of sexism into the discourse, were seen as disloyal, and were silenced. For the public, this reduced the complex interaction between Racism and Sexism to simplicity and misunderstanding. The fervor of the progress being made disallowed for the public to see what the Black woman saw with vivid clarity: that oppression was a beast with two hideous faces. Perhaps the sexual oppression was even the more potent of the two, for it allowed the advancement of black men, thus leaving black women even further behind.
    Dust gathered over Hurston’s misunderstood writings, leaving her to die in relative obscurity. Not until forty years later, was Hurston rediscovered and hailed as the "foremother" of black women’s literature. With Alice Walker leading the way, black women of the 1970’s dug up Hurston’s literature and found a woman’s voice who had never been properly heard. Hurston was re-analyzed and re-evaluated, thus influencing an entire generation of Black women writers, who this time around, were able to openly address both race and gender in their work. Hurston is separated most sharply from more modern black women writers such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, by the directness with which they are able to address themes which she was forced to mask. Contemporary black women writers no longer need to be subversive for their messages to be heard. In Women of the Harlem Renaissance, Cheryl Wall describes the difference: