As a young adult, she was forced to work menial jobs for a living. When she had the chance to she briefly attended school. Hurston never had a married couple as a role model. She married twice, and divorced both husbands. The absence of her mother and the rejection of her father made her feel neglected, --- the reader often finds this sadness in her stories. Her main characters are dreamers who search for spiritual freedom and a break from reality.
"Sweat" is the story of a marriage gone sour. It is about adultery, hatred, and death. The story explores the marriage of Delia and Sykes Jones. As the love between them disappears Sykes soon grows tired of his wife: "two months after the wedding, he had given her the first brutal beating" (Hurston, "Sweat" 225). Now he seeks companionship with his mistress, Bertha. .
Delia is the head of the household. She stays home to do "white folks" laundry and provides for herself since Sykes plans on spending his money elsewhere. Delia worked hard for fifteen years to pay for the house that Sykes wants to give Bertha. Sykes .
preys on his wife's obsessive fear of snakes. As their story begins, he tries to scare her with a whip that looks like a snake. A few days later he puts a rattlesnake near the back door. When he notices that Delia is not intimidated, he places the snake in the clothes hamper where she is sorting out the laundry. He hopes that the snake will kill her. His plan backfires and Delia escapes. While hiding in the front yard Delia watches as Sykes comes home and gets bitten by the snake. "She saw him on his hands and knees as soon as she reached the door. He crept an inch or two toward her --- all that he was able, and she saw his horribly swollen neck and his one open eye shining with hope" (Hurston, "Sweat" 415). Delia could have warned him or saved him, but she just let him die. She was bitter because he had made her life so miserable.