The Journey of I: Mules and Men as Autobiography
Mules and Men provides an account of folk culture created by the
southern black masses, yet the word "I" appears as the first word printed in the
text. As discussed in the section on Anthropology, the
style of narration as well as certain indiosyncracies within the folktale section of the
text complicate any reading of Mules and Men as straight
folklore.Although the folktales and Hoodoo rituals collected by Hurston form the bulk of
the text, Hurston's own journey provides the text with its framework. Mules and Men contains various elements consistent
with the genre of autobiography suggesting the significance of the Hurston's
own story to her construction of black culture. While the text is an account of black
culture it is also an account of the journey of Hurston's "I" as she
travels back to the land of her birth to collect the folk treasures that formed her
I pitched headforemost into the world I landed in the crib of Negroism. From the earliest
rocking of my cradle, I had known about the capers Brer Rabbit is apt to cut and what the
Squinch Owl says from the house top."
Mules and Men p.1
||Hurston's life story
plays an intregral role in the production of Mules and
Men. She chose Eatonville's inhabitants as her subject matter because
by returning home she could become "just Lucy Hurston's daughter, Zora and even if I
had-to use one of our down home expressions-had a Kaiser baby [Have a child by the
Kaiser]...I'd still be just Zora to the neighbors."(Mules and Men) In going home,
Hurston returned to the land that had provided her with the native
folk knowledge and appreciation for the "big lies" told in front
of Joe Clark's store that had provided the original impetus for Mules
In her autobiography Dust
Tracks on A Road, Hurston recounted her early experiences on the porch of
"I know that Joe Clarke's store was the
heart and spring of the town. Men sat around the store on boxes and benches and passed
this world and the next one through their mouthes. The right and the wrong, the who, when
and why was passed on, and nobody doubted the conclusions...For me, the store porch was
the most interesting place that I could think of.I was not allowed to sit around there,
naturally. But, I could and did drag my feet going in and out whnever I was sent
there...But what I really loved to hear was the menfollks holding a "lying"
session. That is, straining against each other in telling folktales. God, Devil, Brer
Rabbit, Brer Fox, Sis Cat, Brer Bear, Lion, Tiger, Buzzard, and all the wood folk walked
and talked like natural men."
Tracks on A Road p. )
began to consider writing a collection of black folklore Hurston "thought about the
tales I had heard as a child. How even the Bible was made over to suit our vivid
imagination. How the Devil always outsmarted God and how that over-noble hero Jack or
John...outsmarted the devil. Brer Fox, Brer Deer, Brer 'Gator, Brer Dawg, Brer Rabbit, Ole
Massa and his wife were walking the earth like natural men way back in the days when God
himself was on the ground and men could talk with him." (Dust
Tracks on A Road p. )
begins Mules and Men by telling her own story: "I
was glad when somebody told me, 'You may go and collect Negro folklore.' In a way it would
not be a new experience for me. When I pitched headforemost into the world I landed in the
crib of negroism..."
By framing the folk tales with her own story,
Hurtson gives Mules and Men the feel of a travel narrative. The text is
filled with both seemingly superfluous details, such as "I got home and to bed and
Armetta had Georgia syrup and waffles for breakfast" as well as accounts of her
various initiations into different segments of black culture (Mules
||The Hurston that guides readers through Mules and Men acts both as observer and participant in the
folk world she recreates.As a narrator she never uses her "I" to intervene or
give judgements, except in the rare exeptions when she uses her voice to validate the
culture recounted in Mules and Men. Rather her adventures go
purposely without analysis.
Hemeway observes unlike an autobiographer like Henry David Thoreau who "embarks
on a voyage of spiritual discovery, Zora Neale Hurston always remains close to shore, her
description directed away from the inner self toward the words of her informants" (Hemenway 165).
Hurston presents folktales and hoodoo rituals
without editorial intervention. She does not point out the inherent racism directed
against truly dark black women like "Gold" in chapter
2 or at the sexism directed at women throughout the book. She does not comment on the
slavery-like conditions of the turpentine mill ruled by a "Ole Massa" type
over-seer in Polk County.
||One of the few instances of intervention that
Hurston makes in the text occurs when she validates the practice of hoodoo. Unlike the
"white, racist anthropologists and folklorists of the period" who thought
"blacks inferior, peculiar and comic" in their hoodoo practice, Hurston's
accounts demonstrate her belief in the powers of hoodoo ("Hemenway
xix). In the first chapter of the Hoodoo section Hurston explains the origins of Hoodoo
before providing an account of a conversation between herself and Mrs. Rachel Silas of
Mrs. Silas plays the role of
the doubter as Hurston affirms her own belief in the faith of hoodoo:
|"Do you believe in that old fogeyism,
chile? Ah don't see how nobody could do none of dat work, do you?" She laughed
unnecessarily. "Ah been hearin' 'bout dat mess ever since Ah been big enough tuh know
mahself, but shucks! Ah don't believe nobody kin do me no harm lessen they git somethin'
in mah mouth."
yourself," I answered with assurance. "People can do things to you. I done seen
The rare incidences when
Hurston intervenes in her own narration to make judgements signify the texts attempt to
redeem black folk culture. Just as she begins the Hoodoo section by affirming the value of
Hoodoo as a spirituality worth studying she begins the Folklore section by asserting the
cultural value of folktales.
|"Ah come to collect some old stories and
tales and Ah know y'all know plenty of 'em and that's why Ah headed straight for
"What you mean, Zora,
them big old lies we tell when we're jus' sittin' around here on the store porch doin'
nothin'?" He asked.
"Yeah, those same ones about Ole Massa,
and colored folks in heaven, and--oh, y'all know the kind I mean."
"Aw shucks," exclaimed George Thomas
doubtfully. "Zora, don't you come here and tell de biggest lie first thin. Who you
reckon want to read all them old-time tales about Brer Rabbit and Brer Bear?"
"Plenty of people George. They are a lot
more valuable than you might think. We want to set them down before it's too late."
Any reading of Mules and Men as Autobiography must take into account the
pressures put upon Hurston by her publisher to make the book "very readable." As
she revealed in a letter to Franz Boas "He [Lippincott, the Publisher] wants a very
readable book that the average reader can understand, at the same time one that will have
value as a reference book. I have inserted the between-story conversation and business
because when I offered it without it, every published said it was too monotonous" (Hemenway 163).This letter does not make clear exactly what
Hurston meant by "between-story conversation and business" but from a comparison
of Hurston's 1927 article "Hoodoo in America," written for the Journal of
American Folklore in the traditionally cold style of sociologists, it be assumed that Mules and Men would have remanined outside the realm of autobiography if not for the
pressures put on Hurston by her publisher.
Yet, although the text's autobiographical
leanings may have been publisher induced perhaps the best attribute of the test is the art
with which Hurston constructs herself both in relation to her journey and to her fellow
The initiations Hurston' undergoes in the
Hoodoo section of the text provide the perfect metaphor for the journey of Hurston's
"I" throughout the text. Just as she layed on a couch covered with nothing but a
snake skin for three days, throughout the text Hurston must transform herself in order to
attain the position of cultural insider that in Eatonville was her birthright. Hurston
does this by
performing a variety of different roles throughout the text.
For a Critical Biography of Hurston See Who Was Zora Neale Hurston?