What is a major similarity between "Sweat" by Zora Neale Hurston and "Saboteur" by Ha Jin?

While on the surface these two stories seem vastly different, there are three major similarities between them.

First, each of the main characters are prisoners, just in different ways. In "Sweat," Delia is a prisoner of her marriage. Her husband, Sykes, is emotionally and physically abusive to her and she struggles to escape him. In "Saboteur,"Chiu is literally a prisoner in a Chinese jail. It is important to note that Delia and Chiu...

While on the surface these two stories seem vastly different, there are three major similarities between them.

First, each of the main characters are prisoners, just in different ways. In "Sweat," Delia is a prisoner of her marriage. Her husband, Sykes, is emotionally and physically abusive to her and she struggles to escape him. In "Saboteur," Chiu is literally a prisoner in a Chinese jail. It is important to note that Delia and Chiu both start out as powerless victims and prisoners who are innocent of any wrongdoing. Delia does not deserve to be abused and Chiu has done nothing to be imprisoned. Because each of them are prisoners, their free will is limited and their abuser/accusers hold all of the power.

A second similarity is that both Delia and Chiu find freedom. Neither one dies a prisoner, as each are freed from their respective prisons. Sykes dies, so Delia is no longer married to him, and Chiu is released from prison after having to sign a false confession. It is important to realize, however, that they arrive at their freedom differently. Where Delia has become stronger and more independent in her marriage, Chiu has become sick and signs the false confession because he is so ill he will die in prison if he doesn't.

Finally, each character has been changed significantly by their imprisonment. Delia was once a submissive wife who was forced to live with what she saw as routine abuse. During the course of the book she becomes more independent, she fights back against Sykes, and she eventually takes pleasure in watching him die. We see that she has gone from completely controlled to being in control. For Chiu, he began the story as a happily married newlywed. Over the course of his imprisonment he realized the world is not as happy as he had hoped, that many things were out of his control, and he becomes quite angry at the powers that be (mostly the Chinese officials who he sees as imprisoning and torturing innocent people). At the end of the story he also takes his power back, but in a more negative way than Delia. Chiu has hepatitis, a very contagious disease, and he walks around the city drinking out of one straw after another, causing a hepatitis epidemic. His anger becomes directed at society rather than at just one individual, like Delia's anger was.