“Sweat”

The Limits and Freedoms of Literary Regionalism: Taking the Temperature of Zora Neale Hurston’s Central Florida
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The Limits and Freedoms of Literary Regionalism: Taking the Temperature of Zora Neale Hurston’s Central Florida

Central Florida, sticky with humidity and restless with sea breeze, inspires the temperature of Hurston’s fiction and, in turn, the temperament of her characters. In her 1926 short story “Sweat,” Hurston chronicles the marriage of Delia, a washerwoman, and her unemployed, abusive husband Sykes.