Where It All Goes Down
Small town in central Florida, 1920s
Summertime in rural Florida: a land of snakes, gators, and sweltering heat. Okay, perhaps it's not the ideal place and time for a vacay, but it's perfect for a short story. The fact that Hurston spent many years in Eatonville, Florida as a child and often went back for visits and to perform research for anthropological studies adds a layer of authenticity to it all.
It should be of interest to us, too, that when Hurston was commissioned by the US government to write a guidebook for the state of Florida, she wrote five paragraphs about Eatonville, in which she steered readers to the store owned by Eatonville's first mayor, a Mr. Joe Clarke. Sound familiar?
In "Sweat," the village men on Joe Clarke's porch, "[…] chewed cane listlessly. They did not hurl the cane-knots as usual. They let them dribble over the edge of the porch" (30). Something about this description tells us Hurston was talking from personal experience.
We love the setting not only because it's based on a real place, but also because it's a place unlike anywhere we've been to, fact or fiction. How can we not become intrigued with a town of historic and cultural significance, where heat "[…] streamed down like a million hot arrows, smiting all things living upon the earth. Grass withered, leaves browned, snakes went blind in shedding and men and dogs went mad. Dog days!" (61).