The short story of Zora Neale Hurston Sweat is a visceral reminder of the acute oppression and sexism that women have always faced in American society. The story's protagonist, Delia, is married to a cruel and angry man named Sykes. Through a description of their married life, this short story shows that despite patriarchal oppression, women exercised their free will and resisted in multiple ways. The story begins with Delia, a black woman working in Florida, who is a laundress. It's a warm spring day and she's sorting and soaking the clothes she's washing for the white residents of her town. Her husband enters the house and immediately seeks a confrontation. It is throughout this confrontation that the exploitative and abusive nature of Delia and Syke's relationship becomes clear. Syke taunts her with his whip, rolls around laughing in glee at her fear, and continually kicks the piles of clothes she's working on. Syke, authoritarian and domineering, paints a vivid portrait of sexist masculinity. It clearly contrasts with the way Delia is described in his presence: her “thin, hunched shoulders” sag deeper and deeper. In all her masculine, angry bravado, Delia is painted as her opposite, a portrait of gentle servitude. As he leans over her as she tries to do her job, he shouts, “You are an annoying black woman!” » he declared before entering the room. She resumed her work and did not answer him right away. Ah, it's over, I made you many times to keep white people's clothes out of the house. (Hurston, 1926) Her work as a washerwoman becomes a crucial point in the story. She's not willing to engage in this confrontation until Syke pushes her to snap. She stands up to him in an act of both agency...... middle of paper...... troy her "interiors", her mind. Faced with his persistent indifference, she lashes out at him and tells him that she hates him and everything he is. This striking display of female power illustrates the resistance against sexist oppression that Delia and women have engaged in throughout the ages. Much like Delia's earlier prophecy, Syke does indeed reap the seeds he sows. In the darkness of the night, as he searches for a switch, the hungry rattlesnake bites him. Frightened and in pain, he desperately calls his wife. But Delia makes a choice, Delia, in a powerful display of female agency, does not answer her calls. By not acting, she makes the most important choice in the entire story and lets Syke die. Delia, in this short story, demonstrates the agency that women have in the face of oppression and the way in which they resist sexism and all its economic consequences. and social implications.