Dialogue in Zora Neale Hurston’s "The Gilded Six Bits"

Jade Harrison

Where characters talk in a story can show how their relationship changes.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s “The Gilded Six Bits” (1933), Joe and Missie May Banks, a married couple, talk to each other most in their kitchen.

Before Joe finds Otis D. Slemmons in their bedroom with Missie May, the couple speaks 931 words in the kitchen. Afterward, they speak only 30 words there, a drop of about 97 percent.

In their early kitchen conversations, Joe and Missie May tease each other and talk about people and places outside their home. Missie May praises Joe: “God took pattern after a pine tree and built you noble.” Joe answers, “Ah know Ah can’t hold no light to Otis D. Slemmons.”

After Joe discovers Slemmons, their kitchen conversations nearly disappear. In the whole story, Missie May’s words drop from 575 to 114, and Joe’s drop from 704 to 275. Hurston does not depict a fight. She shows how the betrayal changes their relationship through how little they talk.

Missie May speaks all 114 of her words to Joe, but Joe speaks only 91 words to her. He speaks 169 words to a white clerk at a candy store in Orlando, and 69 percent of them are about Slemmons. The story ends at their front door, not in the kitchen. Missie May’s last line echoes her first words to Joe: “Joe Banks, Ah hear you chunkin’ money in mah do’way.”

Hurston depicts a marriage in conflict by removing dialogue from the kitchen, where the couple once talked most.

Before the betrayal, Joe and Missie May’s words to each other drops by 97 percent. Across the whole story, Missie May’s words fall 80 percent, from 575 to 114. Joe’s fall 61 percent, from 704 to 275.

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