Flashcards for Sweat

Brucie

Brucie is a minor but significant character in Lynn Nottage's Sweat (2015), a Pulitzer Prize-winning drama set in Reading, Pennsylvania, during the early 2000s deindustrialization.

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Chris

Chris is a key working-class character in Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Sweat, which takes place in Reading, Pennsylvania, during the deindustrialization of the early 2000s. He is a young Black man and the son of Cynthia, working on the factory floor alongside his friends and family.

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Cynthia

Cynthia is a pivotal character in Lynn Nottage's Sweat (2015), a working-class Black woman who has dedicated her adult life to the factory floor of a steel tubing plant in Reading, Pennsylvania.

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Evan

Evan is a Pennsylvania State Trooper who serves as the moral compass and framing device of the play.

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Jason

Jason is one of the two young white men at the heart of Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize–winning play Sweat, which takes place in Reading, Pennsylvania, during the early 2000s when deindustrialization was in full swing.

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Jessie

Jessie is a white factory worker and a longtime union member in Lynn Nottage's Sweat, which takes place in Reading, Pennsylvania, during the deindustrialization crisis of the early 2000s. She plays a secondary yet vital role in the ensemble, often found at Stan's bar, embodying the camaraderie and escape that the working-class community leans on to deal with growing economic pressures.

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Oscar

Oscar is a Latino bartender at the local union bar in Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize–winning play Sweat, which takes place in Reading, Pennsylvania, during the deindustrialization of the early 2000s. Although he isn't a factory worker, Oscar plays a crucial role: he observes the community's slow disintegration from behind the bar, acting as both a confidant and a quiet witness to the regulars who form the backbone of the play.

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Stan

Stan is a long-time white union worker at the Olstead's tubing plant in Reading, Pennsylvania, and a central figure in the play.

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Tracey

Tracey is a white factory worker and one of the main characters in Lynn Nottage's Sweat (2015/2017), set in Reading, Pennsylvania, during the early 2000s deindustrialization.

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“You think I don't know what it's like to be passed over? To be invisible?”

This line is spoken in Zora Neale Hurston's short story Sweat (1926), a significant piece of the Harlem Renaissance.

Delia Jones

“This town is dying, and we're dying with it.”

This line comes from Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Sweat (2015), which takes place in Reading, Pennsylvania—a town that used to thrive on steel and manufacturing but has been devastated by deindustrialization.

Working-class factory worker (ensemble character) · N/A — play format

“I gave that factory the best years of my life, and what did I get?”

This line comes from one of the laid-off factory workers in Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Sweat (2015/2017), which takes place in Reading, Pennsylvania, during the early 2000s deindustrialization crisis.

Tracey (or displaced factory worker) · UNKNOWN

“We used to be friends. What happened to us?”

In Zora Neale Hurston's short story "Sweat" (1926), this line highlights the broken relationship between Delia Jones and her abusive husband Sykes.

Delia Jones

“There's nothing left here for any of us.”

This line comes from Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Sweat (2015), which is set in Reading, Pennsylvania, during the deindustrialization crisis of the early 2000s. The quote reflects the struggles of a devastated working-class community at the play's center, where long-time factory workers — connected through friendship, race, and shared labor — witness their livelihoods vanish as Olstead's plant locks them out and moves their jobs elsewhere.

Tracey (attributed; working-class factory worker) · Late in the play, post-lockout

“They're taking everything from us, and nobody's doing a damn thing about it.”

This line comes from one of the mill workers in Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Sweat (2015), which takes place in Reading, Pennsylvania, during the deindustrialization crisis of the early 2000s. The character expresses the shared frustration of blue-collar workers who feel left behind as the Olstead steel plant starts locking out union workers and opting for cheaper, non-union labor.

Mill worker (ensemble/unspecified character)

“I don't want to be management. I want to be on the floor with my people.”

This line is delivered by one of the main working-class characters in Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Sweat (2015/2017), which takes place in Reading, Pennsylvania, during the early 2000s deindustrialization.

Chris (or a central factory floor character) · UNKNOWN

“We built this place with our hands, our sweat, our lives.”

This line is from Zora Neale Hurston's one-act play Sweat (1926), spoken by Delia Jones, a long-suffering Black washerwoman and the story's main character.

Delia Jones

“You work hard, you get rewarded. That's the American way.”

This line is from Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Sweat (2015/2017), which takes place in Reading, Pennsylvania, among a group of blue-collar workers at a steel tubing factory.

Factory worker character (likely Stan or a bar patron) · N/A — stage play

Alcohol

In Zora Neale Hurston's one-act play Sweat, alcohol represents Sykes's moral decay, selfishness, and his oppressive control over Delia.

The American Flag

In Zora Neale Hurston's short story Sweat, the American flag symbolizes the empty promises of freedom and justice.

The Bar

In Zora Neale Hurston's short story Sweat, the local bar where Sykes and his friends hang out reflects a toxic world of male laziness and cruelty that sharply contrasts with Delia's hard work and self-respect.

The Factory

In Lynn Nottage's Sweat, the factory represents both the promise of the American Dream and its harsh reality.

The Union

In Zora Neale Hurston's short story Sweat, the Union represents the lack of institutional support for Black working-class women, particularly the protection and solidarity it could provide.

Dramatic Monologue

Nottage crafts much of Sweat's emotional depth through extended solo speeches where characters like Cynthia, Tracey, and Oscar speak directly to the audience or each other with a raw urgency that removes any pretense.

Irony

The play's central irony lies in its structure: the workers who have devoted their bodies and identities to Olstead's factory find themselves locked out of the very place that defines them, while Oscar and Jessie—the most economically vulnerable—manage to cross the picket line and survive.

Symbolism

The bar is the central symbol in the play: a communal space that offers the hope of togetherness but ultimately fails to maintain it as economic pressures divide the group by race and class.

Juxtaposition

Nottage builds the play around contrasting time periods, shifting between 2000—the year of friendship, overtime, and relative stability—and 2008, which represents the aftermath, parole hearings, and fractured relationships.

Motif

Alcohol serves as a recurring theme in Sweat: the characters drink to celebrate, to mourn, to escape, and ultimately to fuel the violence that leads to their downfall.

Pathetic Fallacy

Nottage uses the physical setting of Reading, Pennsylvania, to reflect the characters' emotional states.

Allusion

The play consistently references the broader history of American deindustrialization and the Rust Belt, using Reading as a stand-in for every mill town affected by offshoring and automation.

Narrative Poem

Although Sweat is a play, its storytelling feels more like a novel.

Metaphor

The title of the play, Sweat, serves as a central metaphor: sweat represents both the physical outcome of industrial work and symbolizes everything the workers have poured into their jobs—time, health, identity, and solidarity—only to have that effort dismissed by a company that sees it as worthless.

Extended Metaphor

The bar serves as the play's central metaphor for community life.

Aporia

Nottage creates genuine uncertainty within the play's moral framework, leaving the question of who is responsible for the community's destruction unanswered.

Polyptoton

Nottage's dialogue often revolves around the same root word in various grammatical forms, especially when discussing work and worth.