50 pages • 1 hour read
Zora Neale HurstonMules and Men
Nonfiction | Anthology/Varied Collection | Adult | Published in 1935A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Folk Tales”
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary
Hurston arrives in Eatonville, a small, primarily Black township in central Florida. A group of local people who know Hurston from her childhood are sitting on the porch of the town store. When Hurston tells the locals of her plan to collect folklore, they are uncertain if anyone would ever want to read them but agree to share their “lies.” Two local men share a couple of humorous stories—one about a bullfrog scaring John, and another about John ironically bragging about the flood he died in and comparing it to the biblical character Noah—with her before inviting her to a “toe-party” that night. A toe-party is a gathering wherein the women guests hide behind a sheet, revealing only their toes underneath, and the men “buy” the woman they want to dance with for a small amount of money. At the party, there is much dancing, eating, and “woofing”—a slang term for speaking, bragging, or flirting without true intent to follow through). Many of the partygoers drink “coon dick,” a type of homemade raw liquor, and become very drunk before the night’s end.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary
The day after the toe-party, a group of Eatonville locals gathers to tell Hurston their stories. When they hear a preacher at the church across the street, the conversation shifts to religion. Ellis Jones shares two stories: one about two brothers who are preachers, though one falsely thought that God had called him to preach when it was actually a mule braying; and one about why there are so many “split-off churches” (22), or various sects within the same religion. Charlie Jones shares another story about “split-off churches” and how Jesus established this tradition (22). The conversation flows naturally, and Hurston records both the regular discussions and storytelling. The group discusses why Black people have dark skin, and “why women always take advantage of men” (31), courting multiple people at the same time. The chapter concludes with feuding step-siblings Shug and Bennie Lee arguing over the validity of Bennie’s story about multiple courtships and his drunkenness.
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary
This chapter continues the events of Chapter 2. Shug tells her own story of multiple courtships about three men courting one woman. Her story is a bit subversive, as the opposite scenario—multiple women courting the same man—is a much more common setup. The locals continue telling their stories, with each one inspired by a component of the previous story: Shug’s courtship tale prompts a story about a man whose daughter learns to write, which inspires another story about a letter. When Little Julius Henry begins a story about a horse, the group first discusses his age before allowing him to tell it. Julius’s long and humorous story follows John as he outsmarts Ole Massa with his fortune-telling abilities. The story only involves horses tangentially. John French then tells another long story about Jack, who outsmarts the Devil after losing all his money on a bet.
As Hurston continues her stay in Eatonville, she enjoys collecting stories and watching the children play. She collects several songs, both those sung during children’s games and those sung by the adults. Many are working songs from “railroad camps,” groups of often marginalized workers who built the transcontinental railroads during the 19th and 20th centuries. The locals encourage Hurston to go to Polk County to collect more stories, and she hastily leaves Eatonville at the end of this chapter.
Part 1, Chapters 1-3 Analysis
One of the most salient qualities of Mules and Men is the distinct representation of speech. Hurston uses semi-phonetic spellings to convey the dialectal pronunciation characteristic of the communities she researches. This authentic representation of Black language is essential to Hurston in communicating the cultural nuances of these communities. This language, however, can be difficult to read. This excerpt from the first story in Chapter 1 illustrates Hurston’s style of representing these speech patterns:
It was night and Ole Massa sent John, his favorite slave, down to the spring to get him a cool drink of water. He called John to him.
‘John!’
‘What you want, Massa?’
‘John, I’m thirsty. Ah wants a cool drink of water, and Ah wants you to go down to de spring and dip me up a nice cool pitcher of water.’
John didn’t like to be sent nowhere at night, but he always tried to do everything Ole Massa told him to do, so he said, “Yessuh, Massa, Ah’ll go git you some!’ (9).
There are several nonstandard spellings: “Ah” represents the southern pronunciation of “I,” “de” represents “the,” and “git” represents the verb “get.” The double negative “John didn’t like to be sent nowhere” emphasizes the negation, rather than cancelling it out (i.e. John really does not like to be sent places). The third person verbal conjugation used in first person (“Ah wants,” meaning “I wants” instead of “I want”) is somewhat consistent in this excerpt. These linguistic elements represent a southern American accent as well as Black speech, also called African American English in linguistics). Hurston’s representation of Black speech is essential in her retelling of folklore because these linguistic elements are directly linked to identity.
These chapters also introduce more clearly the folklore character tropes of John/Jack, Ole Massa, and the Devil. John, as Hurston clarifies in the Glossary of this book, is a trope who represents heroic cleverness and often vanquishes the Devil and Ole Massa. This trope is tied to southern Black culture directly through slavery, and John is often a slave in the stories recited by the locals. The Ole Massa trope is almost an exact subversion to the John/Jack trope: Ole Massa is stuck in his ways and unable to act for himself. The stories reveal that the dynamic between John and Ole Massa is not simple because the two characters sometimes work together or appear almost as friends, despite the constant underlying power imbalance between them. These two character tropes illustrate how Black communities can reclaim their agency over their pasts by building their own narratives about historically informed tropes. The Devil trope operates on Christian values, but not exclusively because the Devil in these stories is not entirely bad. Instead, he is also clever and even works with John at times to fool Ole Massa. This illustrates how many non-Christian spiritual beliefs are maintained in Black culture despite their community being practicing Christians in Eatonville and the other communities detailed in the following chapters.
Overall, these chapters set the tone for this book, as it deals with both extremely serious topics—like slavery, oppression, and seeking autonomy—and much lighter ones. Most of the stories in these chapters aim to explain origins of certain parts of life, and because none of the stories are based in fact—and many are flagrantly incorrect—the reader gains a greater sense as to why these stories are called “lies” by the in-group members. Lying might have a negative connotation, but these stories are not manifestations of dishonesty; they are instead social forums aimed to grant everyone a place in conversation. The stories simultaneously act as entertainment and serve to establish identity for groups that are consistently marginalized and alienated from other, more formalized literary traditions.
Related Titles
By Zora Neale Hurston
