How does Zora Neale Hurston use imagery in Sweat?

In keeping with the Edenic imagery is the serpent in Delia's house, her husband. Sykes is not an Adam at all; his potential as a mate has been supplanted by the bullwhip he carries, which is the satanic object associated with a snake as it "slithers to the floor" when he threatens to strike Delia with it, as Robert Hemenway has noted. Sykes attempts to destroy everything Delia has created.