DELIA’S STRUGGLE IN SWEAT BY ZORA NEILE HURSTON

Atika Rahma Kurniasari

Debby Rosa Indriana
Fareza Kunthi Mutami
Fitri Novita Sari
UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya
ABSTRACT This research aims to analyze psychoanalysis in short story written by Zora Neale Hurston
entitled “Sweat”. Sweat tells about a nigger woman who experience emotional abuse by her husband. The
purpose of this research is to investigate the conflict that happen in this short story and also investigate the
types of domestic violence. This research uses descriptive analysis method. The result of this analysis is
Delia characterized as a hard worker with full of patiently, and curiosity. The conflict in this short
story are about domestic violence, such as psychological abuse and physical abuse, and also the
betrayal. The act of emotional or psychological abuse, such as threatening or intimidating, name-
calling, yelling, embarrassing, humiliation, terrorizing and so forth. While the physical abuse
depict with Delia’s struggle and the bad treatment from her husband.
Keywords: Characterization, Physical Abuse, Emotional Abuse
INTRODUCTION
Sweat is a short story by Zora Neale she is American writer, this short story first published
in 1926. This story tells about a female washer and her husband who is unemployed and insecure.
Zora Neale Hurston was an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a literary movement also
known as African-American Modernism that took place in the part of Manhattan Know as Harlem.
Her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is considered one of the great works associated with
that movement. According to Robert E. Hemenway, chancellor from University of Kansas and
biographer Zora Neale Hurston, praised Sweat as “an extraordinary work, and the best fiction of
the period”. In this story the wife is under pressure from her husband and if analyzed that includes
Psychoanalysis and domestic violence. Psychoanalysis method of treating mental disorders is
formed by the theory of psychoanalysis, which emphasizes unconscious mental processes and
sometimes described as “deep psychology”.

Domestic violence is one shape of violence that happened to women certain. Domestic
violence also known as domestic abuse, battering, or family violence is defined as physically
injurious assault by highlighting the irrelated range of abusive, coercive, controlling behaviours,
causing psychological, sexual or physical harms, which often accompany or precede the use or
threat of physical force (Barnish, 2004:6). In other hands, domestic violence is whatever behavior
is the goal is to gain strength and control over a partner, intimate partner or family members.

Domestic violence in marriage is conducted by husband to his wife. According to Slabbert

and Green, (2013:237-241) divided domestic violence into four types such as, physical abuse,
emotional abuse, sexual violence, and economic abuse. Physical abuse may include throwing
things, kicking, hitting, shoving, grabbing, restraining shaking, choking, burning, strangling and
inflicting head injuries, etc. (Slabbert and Green, 2013:237). According to Follingstad, Coyne, &
Gambone in Karakurt & Silver, (2013: 804) defines that emotional abuse is any non physical
behavior or attitude that is designed to control, subdue, punish, or isolate another person through
the use of humiliation of fear. Sexual abuse of women involves forcing and intimidating the women
to do sexual performance, or have sex with them when they do not want to, (Edlin & Golanty,
2007:514) But in this story there is no sexual violence. Economic abuse include preventing or
forbidding an intimate partner from working, controlling the financial resources, and withholding
access to economic resources, (Slabbert and Green, 2013:240).

The reason why the researcher used this short story because Sweat by Hurston talk about
the struggle of black women to voice their opinions, freedom to think and act, from gender
discrimination and race. Superiority of men makes women, especially skin women neglected black
and helpless. In short story Hurston wants to explore how the struggle of black women to survive
in the environment sexist and racist society.

The study of psychoanalysis and domestic violence has been conducted by several
researchers. The first researcher is Mashabah Baroroh and Linusia Marsih (2018) in her journal
article A Comparison of Types of Domestic Violence in Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat” and in
Sandra Cisneros’s “Woman Hollering Creek”. She explained types of domestic violence, and she
designed the journal to interpret phenomena of life associated to domestic violence reflected in the
selected stories.

The second researcher is Ratna Asmarani (2018) and the title is “The Potrayal of a Black
Woman’s perseverance in Zora Neale Hurston’s Short Story Entitled Sweat”. She analyze the
perseverance of the black female protagonist potrayed in the short story entitled Sweat written by
Zora. The perspective is used by the black female protagonist to face the domestic violence done
by her abusive husband.
 The third researcher his name is Sugiharto Indrazid (2017) in his thesis “A Psychoanalysis
of Kitty’s Decision Towards A Better Life in the Painted Veil by William Somerset Maugham”.
In his thesis tries to analyze in novel written by the author William Somerset Maugham with the
tittle The Painted Veil. In this story tells about a woman named Kitty Fane who fought for love
when she was in China of him had an affair, sho she followed her husband to go to China. He
focused analyze the characteristics of Kitty Fane, and to find out why Kitty prefers her husband to
her affair.

From the third previous studies above, the researcher concludes that first previous study
uses psychological aspects, the extrinsic approach is applied. The study finds out that the types of
domestic violence that exist in the stories are emotional violence and victims of the abuse response
somewhat differently to the abuse. The second previous study use the concept of perseverance
and domestic violence are used to analyze the life of black female. The result shows that
perseverance applied by the black female protagonist enables her survive the domestic violence
leading to her freedom from her abusive husband who dies because of his own evil plan actually
directed to his wife. The third previous study uses descriptive analysis method, and analyze with
two theories, the new criticism as the supporting theory and psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud as
main theory. The result of this analysis is that with caring, optimistic, courage’s and good people,
Kitty Fane defend her marriage because she knew the truth that her affair did not love her, and
Kitty Fane followed her husband to go to China to live a better.

Based on the reason and the background, this research aims to study the conflict which
depicted in story and the type of domestic violence in Sweat. This study use theory of
psychoanalysis and domestic violence which is experienced by Delia Jones from her husband and
society.

METHOD

RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The story of Zora Neale Hurston entitled “Sweat” tells about a marriage between black
woman and white man family, they are Delia Jones as a wife and also a black woman, then her
husband named Sykes as a white man. For fifteen years of their marriage, Delia Jones or, Delia
who gets a bad threat from her husband in the second month of her marriage and still continues.
In this story, the way Delia gets a bad threat from her husband and she is still struggle to survive
her life. In addition, Delia reveal the struggles in the kind of verbal abuse, psychological abuse,
and pyshical abuse. The evidences can be seen below:

a. Delia’s Struggle towards of Verbal Abuse

According to the statement of Colorosa (2007) states that seventy percents of bullying comes
from verbal abuse. In addition, the definition of verbal abuse is a form of violence of words who
becomes the tool or device for every human to oppress other people. Besides that, the action which
indicates verbal abuse includes threatening, cursing, scolding, and also giving a negative label. In
this story of “Sweat” by Zora Neale, the character named Delia as a person who is often gets a bad
threat like verbal abuse from her husband and the action of Sykes to do verbal abuse is the
beginning to lead to the other violence which is more cruel and degrading. According to the
statement of Hamarman and Bernet (2000) states that the term of verbal abuse can hurt the pride
and feeling of other people through words. However, the struggle of Delia Jones towards the verbal
abuse can be seen below.

“You sho is one aggravatin’ nigger woman!” he declared and stepped into the room. She resumed her work and
did not answer him at once. (Hurston, p. 1)

From the quotation above, Sykes uses the word ‘aggragatin nigger woman!’ refers to Delia
Jones as his frustation. The kind of that word which is used by Sykes can be classified as a verbal
abuse of humiliating towards Delia as a black woman. However, the action that show disregard
for what other people say can be said as a stuggle because not everyone is able to accept humiliate
or even ridicule from others, including Delia’s struggle who ignores the bad words spoken by
Sykes at her. Then, one of Sykes's bad attitude towards Delia can be seen below:

“"Well, Ah'm glad you does hate me. Ah'm sho' tiahed uh you hangin' ontuh me. Ah don't want yuh. Look at yuh
stringey ole neck! Yo' rawbony laigs an' arms is enough tuh cut uh man tuh death. You looks jes' lak de devvul's doll-
baby tuh me. You cain't hate me no worse dan Ah hates you. Ah been hatin' you fuh years." (Hurston, p. 7-8)

As we can see, people tend to use verbal abuse to hurt someone's feeling like Sykes does
to Delia Jones as her wife. The term of verbal abuse from quotation above is ‘ Look at yuh stringey
ole neck!” it can be indicated as a bad words to someone or intimidate someone because she is
difference with them or the appearance is not good.
 b. Delia’s Struggle towards of Emotional Abuse or Psychological Abuse

Emotional abuse can be called as psychological abuse, such as yelling, name-calling,

humiliating, and so forth. According to the statement of Arini (2013) states that psychological
refers to the soul, spiritual, mental, and it can be felt by the victim. In addition, the story of ‘Sweat’
represents how delia’s struggle during Delia’sives her a bad threat in the second month of her
marriage. The term of psychological abuse used by Sykes to Delia can be seen below:

“She was young and soft then, but now she thought of her knotty, muscled limbs, her harsh knuckly hands,
and drew herself up into an unhappy little ball in the middle of the big feather bed. Too late now to hope for love,
even if it were not Bertha it would be someone else. This case differed from the others only in that she was bolder
than the others. Too late for everything except her little home.” (Hurston, p. 3)

From the quotation above, we can see the significant differences who represented by
Hurston towards Delia ‘She was young and soft then, but now she thought of her knotty, ..... limbs`
it means that Delia does not feel happy when she gets married with Sykes. The one factor who
affects her psychological is Sykes’s bad attitude to Delia. In this story, we can say that the position
of Delia as a victim.

c. Delia’s Struggle towards of Physical Abuse

According to the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, physical abuse
is: "Non-accidental use of force that results in bodily injury, pain, or impairment. This includes,
but is not limited to, being slapped, burned, cut, bruised or improperly physically restrained.

In Delia’s life, almost every day she experienced physical abuse by her husband. It depicted
when everyday she must work as the wash-woman. Every day she must collected the soiled
clothes. Sunday night after church, she must sorted them and put the white things in different place.
She squatted when do it. Imagine if everyday someone should squatted not only one or two hours
by herself without anyone help to do her works. While her husband do nothing, she must work to
survive their life. Year by year she will experience a bodily injury. Such as, diseases of her feet. It
also creates pain in her heart. Anyone will feel same as Delia when her husband do nothing and as
a wife she instead to work hard.
“It was eleven o'clock of a Spring night in Florida. It was Sunday. Any other night, Delia Jones
would have been in bed for two hours by this time. But she was a wash-woman, and Monday
morning meant a great deal to her. So she collected the soiled clothes on Saturday when she
returned the clean things. Sunday night after church, she sorted them and put the white things to
soak. It saved her almost a half day's start. A great hamper in the bedroom held the clothes that she
brought home. It was so much neater than a number of bundles lying around.
She squatted in the kitchen floor beside the great pile of clothes, sorting them into small heaps
according to color, and humming a song in a mournful key, but wondering through it all where
Sykes, her husband, had gone with her horse and buckboard” (Page 1)

From this quotation it can show that Delia’s life is suffer by the indirectly stressing from
her husband. She is suffer by her physical and her heart. Suffer by the physical because she must
work with herself without help from anyone or from her husband itself. In reality, a husband should
support his wife in anything, help her to do something that he can help, but in this short story it
depicted differently. Sykes instead to do nothing with his bad behavior to Delia.

In her two months after he wedding, Delia’s also given her first brutal beating by her
husband. She must work for survived life with her tears, her sweat and her blood. When it happen,
Delia just lay awake and remembered about her life in the past. Every day her husband always say
in a harsh manner which make Delia feeling more stressed. Sykes never speak softly to Delia, he
always growling.

“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. She had brought love to the union
and he had brought a longing after the flesh. Two months after the wedding, he had given her the
first brutal beating. She had the memory of his numerous trips to Orlando with all of his wages
when he had returned to her penniless, even before the first year had passed. She was young and
soft then, but now she thought of her knotty, muscled limbs, her harsh knuckly hands, and drew
herself up into an unhappy little ball in the middle of the big feather bed. Too late now to hope for
love, even if it were not Bertha it would be someone else. This case differed from the others only
in that she was bolder than the others. Too late for everything except her little home. She had built
it for her old days, and planted one by one the trees and flowers there. It was lovely to her,
lovely.”(P.3)

"Naw, Walt, y'll jes' don't understand dese diamon' backs lak Ah do," said Sykes in a superior tone
of voice.” (P.7)

By these quotations it show that Sykes is very wicked to Delia. Right it from his words, his
treatment. While Delia just be patient and assumed it all as the test for their marriage life. She neve
reply Sykes bad treatment with the bad treatment also. She’s keep work without his help. When
she’s feel tired, she just lay awake and imagine something beautiful which make her smile again
after her tears.

4. Conclusion

After analyzing the data, the researchers concludes that Delia Jones is a nigger women who
is characterized as a someone with full of patiently. Patient when everyday she’s got bad treatment
from her husband itself. She is also a hard worker, because every day she’s work as a wash-woman.
She’s spend her time for wash, for collected the soiled clothes then sorted the white things to soak.
She repeat it every day to survive their family life while her husband do nothing. Delia also
someone who is full of curiosity when she know that her husband do an affair with other women,
she ask her husband briefly about that.

This research analyzed about the conflict and types of domestic violence that consist of
emotional abuse and physical abuse. The author in this story is depicted the Delia’s conflict about
domestic violence, such as psychological abuse and physical abuse, and also the betrayal. In this
story the researchers find some quotation which depict it. Emotional abuse can be called as a
psychological abuse. The act that can be classified as emotional or psychological abuse, such as
threatening or intimidating, name-calling, yelling, embarrassing, humiliation, terrorizing and so
forth. Here, the emotional abuse that happen in the life of Delia are humiliation, terrorizing and
also embarrassing. Humiliation. While the physical abuse depict with Delia’s struggle and the bad
treatment from her husband.
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