The Gilded Six-Bits

Zora Neale Hurston

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1986

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Story Analysis

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

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Literary Devices

Allusion

Allusions—such as references to well-known figures, events, and works of literature—appear in several places in “The Gilded Six-Bits,” including a reference to Lot’s wife and a comparison of Joe to Sampson when he discovers Slemmons in his bed. The references provide added context for a reader familiar with the Bible (as most of Hurston’s contemporary readers would have been). For example, when Joe tells Missie May to stop crying the morning after he finds her in bed with Slemmons, he tells her, “Missie May, you cry too much. Don’t look back lak Lot’s wife and turn to salt” (93). The reference is to Lot and his family fleeing Sodom, when his wife turned to look at the destruction of the city; for violating the angels’ orders, she was transformed into a pillar of salt. In keeping with his firm but kind nature, Joe both evokes and softens this ominous story of female disobedience. The danger is that Missie May will turn herself to salt (via the salt of her tears) by fruitlessly “looking back” on an action she can’t change.

One of the most significant allusions occurs earlier in the story and describes the sun rising as Joe returns from work, likening its reflection on the water to a “flaming sword.” In Genesis, God sets a flaming sword before the gates of Eden to prevent Adam and Eve from returning after their expulsion. The allusion therefore evokes lost paradise, developing the theme of The Function and Morality of Money: Significantly, the image appears after thoughts of Slemmons’s wealth have entered Joe’s and Missie May’s minds, spoiling the couple’s previously idyllic existence.

Figurative Language

Figurative language appears throughout “The Gilded Six-Bits,” particularly at pivotal moments in the text. Figurative language uses words in other senses than their literal, or denotative, meaning. For example, when Hurston writes that “[t]he hours went past on their rusty ankles” (94), the metaphor expresses the slowness with which the night goes by: Something that rusts is usually old, and the process of rusting itself takes time. The comparison is also an example of personification, as Hurston gives time the human quality of bipedalism. Other examples of figurative language include simile (using “like” or “as” to compare one thing to another), as in Joe’s fight with Slemmons: “Joe’s own [fist] rushed out to crush [Slemmons] like a battering ram” (93). The comparison emphasizes Joe’s strength and solidity, particularly in comparison to Slemmons’s moral and physical weakness.

Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing is a literary device that alludes to future narrative events, and it occurs several times in Hurston’s short story. One example is the silver dollars Joe throws in the door for Missie May every payday; this prefigures Slemmons’s wealth, false though it is, which will dramatically affect Joe and Missie May’s happy marriage. Another example of foreshadowing occurs when Joe, let off early from work, sees the moon on his way home and begins to “yearn” for Missie May and think about having a child. This foreshadows his arrival home to find her in bed with Slemmons, where a baby may or may not have been conceived.

Vernacular

Hurston’s use of the vernacular—the everyday language or dialect spoken by a group—stands out for several reasons. Her dialogue captures the Eatonville (and more broadly African American) dialect through misspelling and idiomatic language: “A’hm” for “I’m,” “gointer” for “going to” and “jes” for “just.” This lends a more realistic tone to the short story and gives her characters greater authenticity. Hurston also uses common or idiomatic expressions, like “down the road” or “puzzle-gutted” (pot-bellied). Put together, these stylistic choices convey the rhythm of everyday African American speech during this period: “We goin’ down de road a lil piece t’night so you go put on yo’ Sunday go-to-meetin’ things” (89). The store clerk Joe talks to at the end of the story (presumably white, given his remarks about Black people) also speaks in vernacular, of a working-class kind: “Ain’t seen,” “eat good,” “doggone,” “git” for “get,” etc. This underscores the story’s setting, in which the kind of wealth Slemmons supposedly possesses is a once-in-a-lifetime rarity; as Joe says, not even “white folks” wear gold the way Slemmons does.