Mules And Men

"Mules and Men"

Zora Neale Hurston

Beneath the lies a hidden history of unorganized, everyday conflict waged by African-American working people. Once we explore in greater detail those daily conflicts and the social and cultural spaces where ordinary people felt free to articulate their opposition and power in African-American "folk" communities. Folklore's function as an everyday form of resistance in the Jim Crow South. Zora Hurston, narrative frame is far more supple than has previously been acknowledged. She gave the title Mules and Men a depiction of comparison of African Americans in the South(niggers) to mules. The mule is a work horse that is not used for speed, but known for eats weak minds and strong back. Hurston brings a clear view of the strong minds that enable this culture to thrive.

How does Hurston experience and transcribe the of everyday resistance if she herself as an outsider? Hurston encounters resistance from the workers on the job when she first arrives.(15) In these early scenes at the lumber camp, her narrative style is present as a clumsy "I" who can't quite fit in. She drives a fancy car, she wears expensive clothing, and the workers suspect that she is a detective. She explains what she had to do to become part of the "inner circle": "I had first to convince the 'job' that I was not an enemy in the person of the law; and, second, I had to prove that I was their kind" (65). As she gains their trust, her narrative persona shifts more easily between first- and third-person. Finally, when she follows the men on the job, her narrative practically disappears. Instead, she situates her tales in relation to conditions in the camp. Hurston learns to overcome resistance by fitting in, and her studied invisibility enables her to display folklore's power as a discourse of nonconformity.

The major event leading to her acceptance in the camp is her contribution to a group performance of "John Henry," a track-laying ballad. The ballad dramatizes a competition between John Henry, who is an excellent spike driver, and the steam drill his boss has procured to replace him. John Henry keeps up with the drill for an hour, until he collapses of a heart attack. The song is a parable of the manual laborer's promise under the industrial making of work: "I'll hammer my fool self to death" (56), John Henry sings repeatedly. By contributing verses to the performance, Hurston demonstrates that she shares a cultural language with the workers on the job. The form of the ballad allows her to occupy the same subject position as the others when she sings her piece, while the refrain allows all of the singers to come together as one. "John Henry" exemplifies the living language of nonconformity folk songs provide. As she notes in her glossary, the song's synopsis fits the rhythm of spike-driving, and this suggests that the song's origin is as a work song. In the context of the workplace, the song has operated as an articulation of obsessed resistance to the hard work of laying down track. But Hurston does not sing the song with railroad workers. The context for this performance is a pay-day party, a social event that celebrates the pay-off of hardwork. Here, the song serves as a reminder of workers' alienation under capitalism and of the ever-present threat of replacement by machines, while John Henry's story also serves to compare with the workers' attitude on the job. John Henry dies in his attempt to out run the machine, while the workers in the camp find ways to avoid labor.

Hurston's joining in the performance of "John Henry" marks a moment of transition in her narrative performance in the Polk County section of Mules and Men. Although the break is not decisive, one can detect a shift in her narrative voice from the first person to the third person. Her narration before the song concerns herself and her efforts to fit in. After she has occupied the singer's position in the ballad, however, she seems to slip more easily between first- and third-person narration.

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I examine the ways in which Hurston presents the telling of tales in the Everglades Cypress Lumber Company as performing everyday acts of resistance. Hurston investigates the telling of tales both on the job and during leisure time. In each context, the tales reference the presence of company supervision in the daily lives of the workers. On the job, the tales concern work and labor relations. I focus on tales about the meanness of bosses, the origins of work, and the advantage of stubborn literary form of resistance. During leisure time, the workers tell tales, sing, and dance; I examine how the company both supervises and profits from the workers' time off at the jook joint. Both on the job and off, Hurston shows us, the workers use folklore as a form of resistance to the company's considerable power over their lives.

Hurston determines to join the swamp-gang on the job one day in order to gather more tales. As she narrates her discoveries on this day, Hurston lays out the relation between work and leisure in the camp, while she also shows how the workers employ folklore in order to interpret this relation. Hurston's study of the work day begins at dawn; she shows how the camp is transformed from its silent "dawn gray" (66) into a frenzy of activity motivated by the fear of repercussion from the boss: "Grab your dinner-bucket and hit the grit. Don't keep the straw-boss waiting" (67). The unusual circumstances