Many states of mind are represented in Sweat by Zora Neale Hurston and The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. The respective authors describe not only states of mind that we are familiar with, such as Delia's sense of hopelessness in Sweat, but also states of mind that challenge our perception. This is especially true in The Things They Carried, which focuses on the emotional detachment of soldiers during the war. Throughout the two stories, we see how a single but sudden change in the characters' environment modifies their qualms and their emotional development. Both stories rely heavily on the character's internal frustration, as Delia struggles to understand Sykes' cruelty towards her while Cross tries to deal with his unrequited affections for Martha. Hurston and O'Brien focus more on a symbolic representation of the characters' mental development rather than a series of extreme confrontations between characters. From the start of both texts, we are immediately immersed in the state of mind of their respective characters. Delia is immediately introduced as “crouching on the kitchen floor…humming a song in a sad tone” (Hurston, 353). Even this setting reflects her mental position, a slave to Sykes, their relationship, a shadow of their fleeting marital happiness, ultimately “becoming a struggle for autonomy” (Lupton, 46). Her determination to continue working shows that she unconsciously leans towards Sykes initially. Despite the physical and mental torment he inflicts on her, she would prefer to “return to her work and not respond to him” (354) in order to maintain a dignified attitude, in order to maintain their relationship. Her state of mind appears tormented, as she silently attempts to uncover where her relationship went wrong. N...... middle of paper ...... sensitive aspect of humanity which is at the origin of the most immense changes in the lives of the characters. Bibliography: Hurston, Zora Neale and Cheryl A. Wall. Sweat. Rutgers University Press, 1997. O'Brien, Tim. The things they carried. Harcourt: Houghton Mifflin, 2009. Chen, Tia. “Unraveling the Deeper Meaning”: Exile and the Embodied Poetics of Displacement in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. ". Contemporary Literature. 39. 1 (1998). Gelfant, Blanche H. (editor); Graver, Lawrence (associate editor). 'The Afro-American Short Story' from the Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story. New York : Columbia University Press, 2001Hupton, Mary Jane. “Zora Neale Hurston and the Survival of Women” from Southern Literary Journal Vol. 15, No. 1 (Fall. 1982)..