The Gilded Six-Bits

“The Gilded Six-Bits” is a short story written by Zora Neale Hurston and originally published in 1933 in Story magazine. The story explores themes of Sex, Physical Desire, and Marriage, The Function and Morality of Money, and Appearance Versus Reality. Hurston, in addition to being a noted African American author, was also an anthropologist and folklorist. She is best known for her 1937 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. “The Gilded Six-Bits” is Hurston’s most anthologized short story, and it anticipates many of the themes in Their Eyes Were Watching God. A film adaptation of “The Gilded Six-Bits,” directed by Booker T. Mattison, was released in 2001.

This guide refers to the 2008 HarperPerennial Modern Classics version of “The Gilded Six-Bits” found in The Complete Stories by Zora Neale Hurston.

Content Warning: This study guide quotes and obscures Hurston’s use of the n-word. The source material also contains instances of racial stereotyping.

The “Gilded Six-Bits” opens in a house in Eatonville, a historically Black community in Central Florida. The house belongs to Joe and Missie May, a young couple who appear happily married. The house likewise seems “happy,” with its outer appearance being both neat and clean: “The fence and house were whitewashed. The porch and steps scrubbed white” (86). The interior of the house is similarly tidy.

Missie May has cleaned the house and bathed to prepare for Joe’s return home from work at the local fertilizer plant. It’s payday, and his return home is a familiar routine in their married life: He throws a stack of silver dollars inside the door for her to find “and pile beside her plate at dinner” while he hides outside in their cape jasmine bush (87). After a “mock battle” during which Missie May finds candy kisses and other small items Joe has hidden in his pockets, Joe bathes, and the two sit down to a hearty dinner. Joe tells Missie May not to eat dessert and to put on her Sunday clothes. A man from out of town, Otis D. Slemmons, has opened up a new ice cream parlor, and Joe wants to take her.

Joe and Missie May discuss Slemmons’s clothes and paunch, which make him look like a rich white man. Slemmons’s hallmark accessories are a $5 gold piece for a stickpin and a $10 gold piece on his watch chain. Joe expresses dismay that he doesn’t look like Slemmons (who has boasted to Joe that women chase after him wherever he goes) or have his wealth or worldliness. Missie May assures Joe that she is satisfied with him just the way he is and expresses doubt that Slemmons is telling the truth, at least about his female admirers.

On the way home from the ice cream parlor, Joe and Missie May reflect on meeting Slemmons. Joe tells Missie May that Slemmons complemented him on Missie’s beauty. Missie May suggests Slemmons’s gold would suit Joe better. She also suggests that they might find some gold “goin’ long de road some time” (91). Joe insists he is happy as long as he is Missie May’s husband.

The Saturday trips to the ice cream parlor become a weekly outing until one day when Joe, who works the night shift every other night, is let off work early. Coming home, he thinks he hears an intruder and imagines someone is robbing or hurting his wife. Instead, he finds Missie May and Slemmons in bed together. Slemmons pleads for his life, offering Joe the money he has at the store. Joe hits Slemmons, who flees the house. In the tussle, Joe inadvertently pulls the $10 piece off of Slemmons’s watch.

Missie May cries hysterically, but Joe is calm. When Missie May declares that she still loves Joe but is certain he doesn’t love her, her tells her not to be so sure. She further explains that she only slept with Slemmons because he promised to give her his gold coins. Joe tells Missie May he has Slemmons’s $10 piece, so she can stop crying.

The next morning, Missie May, who spent the night crying, believes her marriage is over. When Joe casually asks for breakfast, Missie May springs into action, making him his favorite meal. Though the affection has left their relationship, they continue to go through the motions of married life. Missie May is determined not to leave Joe—she loves him too much—but she doesn’t understand why he doesn’t leave her. Joe continues to carry Slemmons’s gold coin around in his pocket, “like a monster hiding in the cave of his pockets to destroy” Missie May (95).

One day, Joe comes home from work and asks for a back rub. Missie May massages him with liniment, and they make love for the first time in three months. The next morning while making the bed she discovers that Joe has left Slemmons’s gold coin under her pillow. As she inspects it, she sees that it isn’t actually gold but merely a half-dollar that has been painted to look so. She puts the gilded half-dollar in Joe’s pocket and resolves to leave him, feeling like he bought sex from her. Headed away from their home, however, Missie May meets Joe’s mother, who has never approved of Joe’s marriage to her. Refusing to prove her mother-in-law right, Missie May returns home and decides it will be “Joe [who] must leave her” (96).

Some time later, Joe reveals that he knows Missie May is pregnant. He assures her that the thought of a child pleases him but says nothing when she attempts to tell him that the baby is his. About six months later, Missie May has a baby boy. Joe’s mother, who is there to assist at the birth, eagerly tells her son, “[H]e sho is de spittin’ image of yuh, son” (97).

A week after their son is born, Joe goes to the market in nearby Orlando. As he’s buying groceries, he tells the clerk the story of the gilded half-dollar, which he uses to buy candy kisses for Missie May. The clerk tries to convince Joe that 50 cents worth of candy kisses is “a mighty lot” (98), suggesting he add some chocolate bars to the order. Joe insists on only candy kisses because that’s what Missie May likes. Back home, Joe sends 15 silver dollars raining down on the doorway of his home and Missie May makes her way to fetch them, telling herself she’ll “fix” Joe for the gift once she’s stronger.