"He crept an inch or two toward her—all that he was able, and she saw his horribly swollen neck and his one open eye shining with hope. A surge of pity too strong to support bore her away from that eye that must, could not, fail to see the tubs. He would see the lamp. Orlando with its doctors was too far. She could scarcely reach the Chinaberry tree, where she waited in the growing heat while inside she knew the cold river was creeping up and up to extinguish that eye which must know by now that she knew." pg. 6
This is the quote not only closes the novel, but also reveals to the reader the extent to which Sykes's unrelenting abuse and brutal torment has turned Delia against him. In the quote Sykes has fallen prey to his own instrument of torment for Delia and as he slowly and painfully dies from the snake bites he literally looks to Delia out of his one good eye to help. However a characteristic of this quote that makes it so interesting is that Delia points out that Sykes will be able to see the tubs and the lamp. The washing tubs can serve as symbolic representation of years of continuous , toil, hardship, and sweat Delia has had to undertake and endure in order to support Sykes, herself, and the home they reside in. As Delia puts it every live long day all she does is "Sweat, sweat, sweat! Work and
sweat, cry and sweat, pray and sweat!". However the one thing that brings Delia some source of solace and pride in her life is the little home she has built. According to Delia, "she had built it for her old
days, and planted one by one the trees and flowers there. It was lovely to her,
lovely". Then Sykes dares to come and defile this one source of loveliness in her life by keeping a huge hungry snake-Delia greatest fear, and bringing his mistress into the home. Not to mentions he places the extremely hungry snake in Delia's laundry basket for her to find after she threatens to report his abuse to the authorities. After this incident takes place it's as if Delia has finally been pushed over the edge for in the passage it claims that " with this, stalked through her a cold bloody rage, Hours of this. A period of introspection, a space of
retrospection, then a mixture of both. Out of this an awful calm". It was then as a reader that I postulate that Delia came to the realization that she wanted Sykes to die. There fore she doesn't put the lamp in a place Sykes could easily find it, nor does she warn Sykes they are out of matches. Rather with the knowledge that the snake is loose in the house and that there are no lighting apparatuses for Sykes to use to see the snake coming, Delia lays await outside the house to watch and hear the terrible drama which is about to unfold. Repeatedly before being bit by the snake Sykes exclaims that the situation would have been okay if only he had a light for he knows how to handle snakes. This then bring me to the second part of the quote where Delia reasons that with with his one good eye he should not only be able to see the tubs, but also the lamp. Delia's reasoning leads me to believe that she possibly but the lamp which could have save Syke's life either in, on, or abound her washing tubs-a location where Sykes would have never thought to look for it. However as he is dying the tub and lamp serve as a message to him from Delia that the predicament he is in currently wasn't an accident, but rather retribution he had brought on himself. The situation is comparable to saying Delia put forth earlier in the short story-"whatever goes over the
Devil's back, is got to come under his belly".
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