Ritual Washing Leads to Complacency

Washing is an act featured prominently in Christianity. Baptism – which, though varied greatly in form today, involves some degree of washing – is considered a fundamental requirement for salvation. This concept of washing is utilized by Delia in Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat” as a self-cleansing ritual to eliminate sinful emotions like hatred and anger. Having thus cleansed herself of these emotions, Delia manages to survive an abusive marriage from day to day without jeopardizing her salvation. Yet this method of coping presents a highly problematic relationship model in which the abused wife can only wait for an intervening force to save her from her violent husband – she cannot actually take action to save herself.

Delia’s weekly schedule is entirely constructed around washing clothes. 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” (73). Although she receives the dirty clothes on Saturday, she does not start washing them until after church on Sunday. The act of washing clothes is an extension of worship, a week-long religious ritual which she uses to purge herself of the sinful emotions she struggles with daily as a result of her abusive marriage. Delia tells Sykes, “Ah hates you tuh de same degree dat Ah useter love yuh” (81). Such hatred is something which Delia must live with every day, so it is important that her washing ritual occur every day as well to cleanse her soul of that hatred.

Delia’s soul-cleansing washing ritual is what allows her to survive the day-to-day torment of her marriage to Sykes, a fact she calls to attention when she exclaims, “Ah been married to you fur fifteen years, and Ah been takin’ in washin’ fur fifteen years” (75). Using this ritualistic washing as a coping method, Delia is able to act with “triumphant indifference” to her husband’s threats (76).  While she occasionally responds directly to Sykes’ threats, like when she “seized the iron skillet from the stove and struck a defensive pose,” it is always in a “defensive” and noncommittal way (75). Her primary mode of defense is that “triumphant indifference” which relies on a “what goes around, comes around” model of supernatural justice.

However, this model of supernatural justice is modified in “Sweat.” Rather than referencing God in her desire for justice, Delia references the Devil – she reassures herself that “whatever goes over the Devil’s back, is got to come under his belly” (76). While this could be taken to mean that the Devil will get what’s coming to him, it is complicated by Delia’s address to the snake as “ol’ satan,” referencing Satan’s snake disguise in the Biblical story of Adam and Eve (82). In this revised model, the “Devil” who receives his comeuppance is Sykes, yet the punishment he receives is at the hands of “ol’ satan,” the snake. This dependence on a satanic figure to punish a different satanic figure is problematic for a woman whose day-to-day life is built upon a ritualistic, religious cleansing through washing.

In the process of creating a character who relies on ritualistic cleansing and supernatural justice, Hurston is presenting a fundamentally problematic relationship model based on submission and complacency. By developing a system which allows for “triumphant indifference” to the violence she experiences, Delia displays a great deal of complacency towards and acceptance of her abusive marriage. Although she frequently berates Sykes for his abuse, Delia ultimately does not choose to actively change her situation. She even acknowledges her complacency when she says to Sykes, “You done starved me an’ Ah put up widcher, you done beat me an Ah took dat” (81). The townspeople, too, acknowledge that Delia has taken beatings “’nough tuh kill three women” (77).  Still, she continues to act with general indifference, waiting for the supernatural justice she believes is coming for Sykes.