The use of simile in Zora Neale Hurston's short story "Sweat" creates vivid images of the protagonist's difficult existence. It also reveals the robust humor with which the occupants of the town confront life's challenges. They compare each other to foods and animals, to comedic effect. While sitting on Joe Clarke's porch, Walter Thomas, a member of the town, remarks that Delia was once “ez pretty ez a speckled pup!” This simile conveys the fact that Delia was once beautiful and is no longer, but also illuminates the shared world that the townspeople occupy—one in which dogs and other animals are used as a common point of reference.
Similarly, Sykes uses a dog-related simile to insult Delia following a fight. Sykes states that he "hates [Delia] lak uh suck-egg dog." This phrase—which refers to dogs that develop a taste for eggs, and consequently become a serious inconvenience to a farmer—conveys deep animosity while bringing to mind a rural farmyard.
The use of this simile demonstrates the depth of Sykes's hatred for Delia, while demonstrating that he thinks of her on the level of a dog or animal and situating the narrative in a rural farming town. By comparing her to a dog, Sykes dehumanizes and belittles Delia, and reduces their marriage to the unequal relationship between a man and his dog. Hurston uses animal-related similes and imagery to flesh out the context of the narrative and to deepen the reader's understanding of the relationships between the characters.
In "Sweat," Sykes and Delia's decaying marriage exemplifies a paradox that Joe Clarke recognizes in abusive relationships. Joe Clarke compares women to sugar cane, and suggests that men wring all the sweetness out of their wives, effectively depleting them—and then resent their wives for not having any sweetness left. In other words, they make their wives miserable and then despise them for being miserable.
Joe Clarke outlines this paradox:
There's plenty men dat takes a wife lak day do a join uh sugar-cane. It's round, juicy an' sweet when dey gets it. But hey squeeze an' grind, squeeze an' grind an' wring tell hey wring every drop uh pleasure dat's in em out... Dey knows whut dey is doin’ while dey is at it, an’ hates theirselves fuh it but they keeps on hangin’ after huh tell she’s empty. Den dey hates huh fuh bein’ a cane-chew an' in de way.
Clarke uses a simile—comparing women to sugar cane—to illustrate this paradoxical relationship between abusive men and their wives. Sykes is a prototypical example of this kind of man; when he married Delia, she was a "pretty little trick," but Sykes's treatment has drained the life and beauty out of her:
Too much knockin' will ruin any 'oman. [Skyes] done beat huh 'nough tuh kill three women, let 'lone change they looks.
While Delia's lost youth is the direct result of Sykes's abuse, Sykes also claims it as the reason why he has moved on to another woman. Sykes tells Delia that he "hates skinny wimmen" and spends his time with Bertha, a woman whom Clarke describes as "fat." The physical difference between Delia and Bertha tracks the metaphorical "squeezin' and grindin" that occurs in an abusive relationship—because Delia has spent years with Sykes, she has become "skinny," while Bertha, a new addition to Sykes's life, is still "big." The paradox of this passage lies in the fact that while Sykes resents Delia for being a shadow of her former self, he has only himself to blame for her "empty" state.
