Comparison of Sweat and the Color Purple

“Sweat” By Zora Neale Hurston and “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker

“It takes three to make love, not two: you, your spouse, and God. Without God people only succeed in bringing out the worst in one another. Lovers who have nothing else to do but love each other soon find there is nothing else. Without a central loyalty life is unfinished.”

― Fulton J. Sheen, Seven Words of Jesus and Mary: Lessons from Cana and Calvary

In “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston and “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker are closely related in regards to being oppressed by their husbands then over coming it by what their husband dangled in their faces. They are also were in dysfunctional marriages and had to deal with infidelity. They both also turned to God at a certain point of the story for guidance . During both of the stories the authors touch some of the same themes like domestic violence, infidelity, finding yourself, and many more.

During Delia’s marriage to Sykes, he is a very abusive and often tries to oppress her and put her down. During the story he goes up to Delia and takes her clean white clothes and throws them in the dirt and rubs them into the ground and dirties them. (Hurston) This symbolizes how Delia is pure and how Sykes wants to disrupts her purity. Also since Delia is a devoted Christian, it shows how she is also pure in God’s eyes and this marriage is unclean. Also in the story when Delia pulls out the pan and threaten Sykes , this is a turning point for her as well and tells him that he will not take her house because all the “sweat’ she has put into the house. This shows how Delia is taking back her life. The story then goes to tell how one day Sykes bought a snake to scare Delia but the snake ended up biting Sykes when he came home one night drunk and after hearing Sykes moaning in pain Delia runs under a Chinaberry tree. This is a very strong symbol in itself because the snake symbolizes the fear of Delia and when it bit Sykes that’s showing how...