Moral Obligation

Moral Obligation

` To answer the question of whether or not Delia Jones was morally obligated to warn her husband, Sykes or even assist him in his final moments I wanted to first take a closer look at what exactly morally obligated meant. According to the website "the free dictionary.com" a moral obligation is an obligation arising out of consideration of right and wrong. Although it is not a legal question of right and wrong more of an internal belief of right and wrong, which then begs the question of what do people, and I guess more specifically Delia Jones think in this case is the right thing to do in this moment.. So back to the question, Did Delia Jones have a moral obligation? Based on the physical and mental abuse she endured for years, based on the fact that Sykes brought upon his own death and base on the fact that her faith in God and her religion led her to make her decisions no I don't believe she did have a moral obligation.

Delia Jones is a hard working African American woman. She is a washerwoman that is married to Sykes, a man that no longer loved her and has been abusing her since two months after their wedding. She is deathly afraid of snakes and her husband knew this about her and in the beginning of the story uses that information to scare her half to death. He even admits to her in paragraph 5/6 he knows and that is why he has done it, "Sykes, what you throw dat whip on me like dat? You know it would skeer me-looks just like a snakes." "Course Ah knowed it! That's how come Ah done it." It is this kind of mental abuse that has weakened Delia's spirit but she still goes to church and remains faithful in her beliefs in God. She knows that God will take care of Sykes in one way or another and that in the end he will get what he deserves. She says "whatever goes over the Devil's back is got to come under his belly. Sometime or ruther, Sykes like everybody else is gointer reap his sowing." She doesn't know now how true this statement will become.

Sykes was physically and mentally abusive to Delia from early in their marriage. He did not provide for her, he did not love her and he cheated on her openly on numerous occasions. One night Delia lays awake remembering "she brought love to the union and he (Sykes) had brought a longing after the flesh. Two months after the wedding, he had given her the first brutal beating." And if that wasn't bad enough he was also the type of husband that would not help support the household. He would spend all of his earnings outside of the house and come home with nothing, "She had the memory of his numerous trips to Orlando with all of his wages when he had returned to her penniless". His current fling was with a woman named Bertha. "This case differed from the others only in that she was bolder than the others." Sykes would take Bertha to the local stores and buy her things and make sure that Delia could see him doing it. And Bertha would come right to the gate of the house to call on Sykes. Even the men of the town thought that