Feminist Literature: ‘Sweat’ and ‘Strong Tea Horse’

Feminist literature is greatly represented in the two stories, Sweat, by Zora Neale Hurston and Strong Horse Tea by Alice Walker. Females in society have it much harder than men, in reality; females still make seventy cents of a dollar that men make. It is a fight for women everyday in the world. Feminist literature, as the name shows, is based on the values of feminism, and refers to any literary work that centers on the fight of a woman for equal opportunity, and to be acknowledged as a human being, before being shed into a gender stereotype. Not all these works follow a straight approach towards this goal of parity. It is only through such media that women alleged a change was possible in the way they were professed in society.

Alice Walker wrote many stories. She was born on February 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia. She was the youngest child of eight siblings. A scholarship student, Walker went to Atlanta’s Spelman College for two years and then transferring to Sarah Lawrence College in New York. After graduating in 1965, she began her career as a poet, publishing her first book in 1968. She early exhibited an awareness of her forbears in the Harlem Renaissance, editing a collection of the writings of Zora Neale Hurston.

Zora Neale Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama; no actual date of birth even exists. She too is a child of eight siblings. Hurston published her first story while a student at Howard. In early 1925 she moved to New York, arriving with “$1.50, no job, no friends and a lot of hope” (377). She soon became an important member of the Harlem Renaissance, a group of young black artists, musicians, and writers who sought “spiritual emancipation” for African Americans by exploring black heritage and identity in the arts.

Although sex/gender systems differ cross-culturally, most known societies have used and still use sex/gender as a key structural principle organizing their actual and conceptual worlds, usually to the disadvantage of women. Hence feminist scholars argue that gender is a crucial category of analysis and that modes of knowledge which do not take gender into account are partial and incomplete. Feminist literature is known by the characteristics of the feminist movement. Authors of feminist literature are identified to appreciate and make clear the distinction between sex and gender. They think that though a person’s sex is programmed and natural, it is the gender that has been created by humanity, along with a picky insight about gender roles. Gender roles, they consider, can be changed over time. The preponderance of one gender over the other is a frequent notion across almost all societies, and the reality that it is not in favor of women is a fundamental, yet obvious, trait of feminist or women’s literature. Here, it is argued that a number of societies that does not give channels of learning and knowledge to both genders evenly are not a absolute and objective society.

“In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: The Creativity of Black Women in the South (1974)” by Alice Walker is a great representation of feminism but also the African American women. It is said that these women in the early twenties became more than “Sexual objects”, in today’s society, that stereotype is still around, men look down at women and looking at women like a piece of meat. This quote from “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: The Creativity of Black Women in the South”

“Black women whose spirituality was so intense, so deep, so unconscious, that

they were themselves unaware of the richness they held. They stumbled blindly

through their lives: creatures so abused and mutilated in body, so dimmed and

confused by pain, that they considered themselves unworthy even of hope. In the

selfless abstractions their bodies became to the men who used them, they became

more than ‘sexual objects,’ more even than mere women.” (Walker 2380)

This quote can show that this is how women can be perceived as in others eyes. For many years it was a punishable crime for African Americans to read or write, even worse for African American women. Life wasn’t easy for African American women yet they kept traditions in their family.

The story, Strong Horse Tea, by Alice Walker is a striking, strong story. Rannie Mae Toomer’s infant son Snooks is deathly sick with pneumonia and whooping cough. Rannie’s neighbor, Sarah, tries to persuade her to use some home remedies to try to get Snooks better without a doctor. Rannie is waiting for white medicine; she believes that a white doctor will come through the storm that is brewing outside her shaft. The morning that Snooks was very ill, she met this mail carrier who she wanted him to bring a doctor but he sent Sarah, Rannie’s neighbor back over. Finally Rannie listened to Sarah and went out through the lightning and thunder to collect this strong horse remedy. She is determined to save Snooks, even as Rannie slips and slides through the mud to return with the “tea” that Sarah needs, the reader is told that Snooks’s frail breathing has already stopped with the thunder. The final paradox is Rannie’s use of her leaky plastic shoe to catch the “tea” and her sealing the crack by holding her mouth to the toe. All at once, ignorance is triumphant, and Snooks is dead, even the mail carrier is perceived as to be “ignorant” because he doesn’t understand that Rannie wanted a white doctor to be sent to her house. He instead delivers Sarah again to her shaft for her home remedies, the mail carrier does not know that Rannie denied Sarah once before. Ignorance is a big theme to this story.

Alice Walker often writes works in which a black protagonist, usually a woman, is caught between black and white cultures and certainly becomes the victim of both. At her best, Walker neither indulges in polemics nor seeks to fault; without a doubt, here, as third-person narrator, she distances herself from her characters and allows the story to tell itself. The result of this method is similar to high tragedy. The reader of “Strong Horse Tea,” for example, knows that the white doctor will not come, that also Sarah will refuse to help once Rannie has rejected “witch’s remedies” or that Sarah’s aid will probably come too late. What comes as a shock is the monstrous disgrace to which Rannie submits in arrange to do what she dreadfully hopes will help her child. Here, most of all, Rannie’s straightforward innocence comes into its sharpest focal point.

Hurston’s story “Sweat” depicts an abusive and selfish husband, Sykes. Deliah, Sykes wife, has taken physical, emotional, and verbal abuse from Sykes for more than fifteen years. Sykes treats his wife as a grouchy teenager treats his mother: with small respect, but still expecting to be completely taken care of. Positively, Sykes has some sort of mother-complex, even preferring big women to the skinny Deliah. Though his mistress is described in an unattractive light “a hunk uh liver wid hair on it” (Hurston 378-87), it could be that Sykes finds bigger women attractive because he associates soft curves with a motherly figure. All the same, Deliah does seem somewhat trapped in her situation because of her race. The men in town talk about Deliah and Sykes, fully aware of how he has beaten her for their whole marriage. Not one of the gossipers mentions to help Deliah, or calling the police on her behalf. The one thing that works as a temporary prevention against Sykes is when Deliah threatens to call “the white folks” on him. Would Deliah have felt as powerless against an abusive husband had her character been white? I think so. Any woman who takes physical abuse for fifteen years might feel as though she had no other choice but to take the abuse for the rest of her marriage. However, this warrants reports: Deliah does seem somewhat stuck in her situation because of her race.

Symbols are current in the story, as well, additional emphasizing the story’s themes. One of the main symbols in the work is Delia’s sweat. First, sweat is the title of the story, which suggests significance. Delia’s sweat could be viewed as symbolic of all of the hard work she’s done and all of the years of struggling she has been through. Her sweat is a real reminder of the rough life she’s lead. Likewise, another frequent symbol in the story is the snake. In the opening scene of the story, Sykes scares Delia with a bullwhip because it looks like a snake, and he knows that she is scared of snakes. The snake also becomes the central component of Sykes’s plot alongside Delia and eventually the tool of Sykes’s own termination. The snake could symbolize Sykes, Delia’s newborn strength, evil, or destiny, among other possibilities. “Sweat” is a short story loaded in meaning, a story of finding strength, salvation, and of karma stuffing a blow. The genuine feel as a result of the language adds an extra layer of mastery to the telling of this brief but influential story.

In a short story criticism by Jelena Krstovis, she talks about Alice Walker and all of the works she has done, but in the views of feminism in Alice Walkers’ short fictions it is widely known that Walker has

“sympathetic portrayal of plight of African American women. The diversity of social circumstances and inner depth of her female characters have prompted a general reevaluation of black womanhood among literary and cultural critics. For example, they have analyzed Walker’s treatment of feminine consciousness in theoretical terms concerning female subjectivity and black identity development.” (Krstovis 247)

It is definitely shown through Walker’s work that she shows female subjectivity; in “Strong Horse Tea” a theme that is described is ignorance of Rannie. Believing in white medicine did not help her baby, Snooks. The ignorance of Rannie being so stubborn, if she had not been so closed minded and listened to Sarah, Snooks may have been alive.

Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J discuss Zora Neale Hurston’s literature in their short story criticism, Zora Neale Hurston 1891-1960; they state under the section Critical Reception,

“Commentators have asserted that these and other stories reflect Hurston’s attitude toward racism: she refused to focus on the limitations of the Black experience, instead emphasizing the creativity and imagination of African Americans and celebrating her Black cultural heritage. Other critics have explored her depiction of the African American struggle with economic oppression and the relationship between men and women in her stories” (Schoenberg, and Trudeau 42-165)

It is very true in Hurston’s story Sweat that the relationship between Delia and her husband is abusive and Delia struggles for fifteen years always being abused, physically and emotionally. Delia’s sweat is showing the struggle that she goes through on a day to day basis.

Though a lot has changed in today’s time, from the stories of Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker, but there is still a fundamental wave of feminism, the company of which one can sense all over the world. While in the urban setting, women have almost been known their dues, in the rural setting, women are still expected to live by the stereotypes spread by society. Even in the urban surroundings, though women have achieved a lot more than society has given them credit for, they are still expected to accomplish certain roles and stereotypes that have been the “norm” for centuries. Feminist literature of diverse periods will portray different needs and different wants beneath the purview of feminism. The roles of daughters, wives, and mothers in literature will keep altering, and so will their necessities and beliefs. The notion of gender equality that focuses mainly on women’s rights has come a long way, and feminist literature has been a immense medium to bring about any noticeable changes in the outlook towards women. Yet, it is a extensive fight that is being fought, and it will be a while before gender equality and the role of women in society will be obvious in the ideal sense.