Indiana State University
Mule Bone: Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston's Dream Deferred of an AfricanAmerican Theatre of the Black Word
Author(s): Carme Manuel
Source: African American Review, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Spring, 2001), pp. 77-92
Published by: Indiana State University
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Mule Bone:LangstonHughes and ZoraNeale
Hurston'sDreamDeferredof an African-American
Theatreof the BlackWord
There ought to be a Negro play written by a Negro that no white could ever have
conceived or executed. (Eugene O'Neill, 1925)
ichael G. Cooke, in his study of Afro-Americanliterature
in the twentieth century,notes that,whereas modernism
in Anglo-Americanliteratureadapted the form of an artificial
detachmentfrom the human, in Afro-Americanliterature"it took
the form of a centeringupon the possibilities of the human and an
emergentsense of intimacypredicatedon the human."
Consequently,black literatureundertook"to reincarnateand reinvest with value the culture'slost sense of being and belonging"
(5). This grappling with a sense of intimacyinvolved a reaching
out of the self into an unguarded, uncircumscribedengagement
with the world (9). ForHarlem Renaissanceleaders, one of the
ways to accomplishthis was with the retrievalof black culture
within black drama.Yet their approachesdiffered substantially.
Samuel A. Hay, in his revisionaryreading of AfricanAmerican
theatre,tracesa separationof schools, periods, and classes of most
of the plays written by AfricanAmericansbetween 1898and 1992
to the criteriabased on the theories espoused by W. E. B. Du Bois
and Alain Locke.The Du Bois school of theatrewas "strictlypolitical,"since he thought that dramashould teach "coloredpeople"
the meanings of theirhistory and, above all, should reveal the
Negro to the white world as a "human,feeling thing."The sociologist called this new theatre,based on charactersand situations
that described the struggle of blacks against racism,"OuterLife."1
On the other hand, Lockewanted "believablecharactersand situations that sprang from the real life of the people, from what
Du Bois called 'InnerLife'" (2-3).Lockeunderstood that AfroAmericanplaywrights should concernthemselves not so much
with protest or propagandaplays -specifically those under the
aegis of Du Bois-as with folk drama:"the uncurldled,almost
naive reflectionof the poetry and folk feeling of a people who
have afterall a differentsoul and temperamentfrom that of the
smug, unimaginativeindustrialistand the self-righteousand
inhibited Puritan"(Bigsby241). Lockesaw through the surface to
discover resourcesin Afro-Americanfolklorewhich could be
transposedto the stage. As ErrolHill writes, Lockefelt "theneed
for experimentationin form and urged on Blacktheatreartists the
courage to be original, to breakwith establisheddramaticconvention of all sorts and develop their own idiom" (5). Lockebelieved
that dramawas the most crucialform of all arts for the future of
black artisticdevelopment and emphasized the idea that the literary beauty revealed to the black artistwas contained in his oral
M
Carme Manuel is Assistant
Professorof Englishat the
Universitatde Valbncia,
Spain, where she teaches
Americanliterature,witha
special focus on African
Americanwriters.She is the
authorof a book on
nineteenth-centurySouthern
fictionand of criticaleditions
of HarrietBeecher Stowe's
Uncle Tom'sCabinand Mark
Twain'sA Connecticut
Yankeein KingArthur's
Court.She is currently
workingon a translationinto
Catalanof a selection of
poems by eighteenth-and
nineteenth-centuryblack
women writers.
African American Review, Volume 35, Number 1
? 2001 Carme Manuel
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77
folk traditionand in its vernacular
manifestationswith its vast universe of
themes and images and its strategiesof
renderingthem into the written medium. The black playwright'sproblem,
then, was how to actualize the oral tradition-profoundly enmeshed in the
notion that dialect was an inept imitation of the standardlanguage-in written form and at the same time how to
recreatethat vital force on stage.
Consequently,in theirprofound desire
to representAfricanAmericanculture
within dominant Westernepistemologies, dramatistswere urged to become
what in CliffordGeertz'sreadings of
culture as texts emerges as the anthropologist who "strainsto read over the
shoulders of those to whom they properly belong" (452).
The tandem of LangstonHughes
and Zora Neale Hurston would actually flesh out these inspiring sentiments
in a play they titled Mule Bone,which
was never staged during their lifetime
because of a quarrelbetween the
authors.2Of these two, Henry L. Gates
writes that "a more naturalcombination for a collaborationamong the writers of the HarlemRenaisance,one can
scarcelyimagine-especially in the theatre!"("Tragedy"9). David Levering
Lewis also underscoresthe fact that
Mule Bone was "an almost perfect
union of the talents of Hughes and
Hurston. In Hughes's hands, Hurston's
yarn about two hunters who quarrel
over a turkey until one knocks the
other cold with a mule's hock bone
became a well-knit full length comedy"
(260).
In February1930,Hurstonheaded
north, settling in Westfield,New
Jersey.GodmotherMason (Mrs.Rufus
Osgood Mason, theirwhite protector)
had selected Westfield,safely removed
from the distractionsof New York
City, as a suitable place for both
Hurston and Hughes to work.
Delighted to be reunited and eager to
make up for lost time, they soon began
to plan the folk opera they had debated
for so long. Then, aftersome discussion, they decided to write a comedy
78
instead, based on a folktale Hurston
had collected. They wanted to create
"thefirst real Negro folk comedy," a
play whose authenticitywould stand
in sharp contrastto the stereotypical
portrayalsof black charactersand culture in the era's popular dramas,both
black and white. Yet the composition
of Mule Bone cannot be rightly
appraisedif taken in isolation, for it
would emerge as the dramaticresult of
Hughes and Hurston's lifelong literary
declarationsof artisticindependence,
the tangibleproof that the credo of the
HarlemRenaissanceas expressed in
Locke's"TheNew Negro" (1925)had
borne fruit.
"TheNew Negro" provided a context for examining the creative writing
of the HarlemRenaissance.It describes
the historicaland culturalcontext
which makes it possible to appreciate
the radicalchanges Locke comments
on, and it is one of the main keys to
understandingthe self-conscious redefinition of black self that informs the
period. Lockearticulatesthe concept of
"theNew Negro":"Theyounger generationis vibrantwith a new psychology; the new spirit is awake in the masses" (3). But, for him, this concept of the
New Negro could only be realized if
artistswere free to develop their own
black aestheticsand not simply direct
their efforts toward achieving incorporationwithin dominant white culture.4
Locke'sdictum encouragedblack
artiststo searchfor the roots that made
their culturalinheritanceunique; thus,
HarlemRenaissancewriters turned to
the art and music of their African
ancestorsin an effort to prove that the
black Americanwas not a cultural
orphan.In 1925MontgomeryGregory
stated that, "however disagreeablethe
fact may be in some quarters,the only
avenue of genuine achievementin
Americandramafor the Negro lies in
the development of the rich veins of
folk-traditionof the past and in the
portrayalof the authenticlife of the
Negro masses of to-day."The twentieth-centuryAfro-American-"the
New Negro"- "placeshis faith in the
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potentialitiesof his own people," and
"thehope of Negro dramais the establishment of numerous small groups of
Negro players throughoutthe country
who shall simply and devotedly interpret the life that is familiarto them for
the sheerjoy of artisticexpression"
(159-60).
As a direct consequenceof these
calls to black authors,Hughes and
Hurston established themselves as
artistsand criticswho constructedtheir
works on the unique value of black
folk culture.In her study of American
culture in the twenties, Ann Douglas
argues that the situation at the time
was "one of complex and double
empowerment;at the moment that
America-at-largewas separatingitself
from Englandand Europe,black
America,in an inevitablecorollary
movement, was recoveringits own
heritagefrom the dominantwhite culture"(5). Hughes and Hurston incorporated this demand in their works.
They believed that the authenticityof
their own voices depended on their
deliberateuse of the hithertonon-literary language and idiom of blacks,and
argued that they could not exclude
from theirwritings the way AfroAmericanshad refashionedEnglish to
make it a more expressive language.
For them the elevation of things intellectual above the lives of ordinarypeople might result in a split between the
artistand the roots of experience.
Consequently,Hughes wrote poetry
that drew its inspirationfrom blues
and jazz rhythms.Meanwhile,Hurston
published stories, plays, and essays
based on anthropologicalresearch
around Afro-Americanvernacularlore
and myths to "takeback a language
obscuredby travesty and stereotype,
so negatively charged that educated
blackswere afraidto use it" (North
176).At the same time, they also wrote
essays-Hughes's "TheNegro Artist
and the RacialMountain"and
Hurston's "Characteristicsof Negro
Expression"-following Locke'scredo
that stand as theirblack manifestoes,
informingthe way they tackled theo-
reticalexpressive questions regarding
their own creativeproduction.
In 1926LangstonHughes captured
the essence of the spirit that animated
the Renaissancein an essay that could
aptly be describedas one of the movement's theoreticalunderpinnings"TheNegro Artist and the Racial
Mountain."In it he warned that "the
urge within the race towards
Whiteness"-to be as little Negro and
as much Americanas possible-was a
self-denying, suicidal aspiration.
Hughes wanted the advancementof
the Negro, yet at the same time
attemptedto resist an over-politicizing
of black artists'work which could lead
to the loss of personal recognitionfor
them as individual artists.In his article,
Hughes expresses the aims of these
Harlemwriters:
We younger Negro artists who create
now intend to express our individual
dark-skinned selves without fear or
shame. If white people are pleased we
are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And
ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the
tom-tom laughs. If colored people are
pleased we are glad. If they are not
their displeasure doesn't matter either.
We will build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we
stand on top of the mountain, free
within ourselves. (309)
AccordingJoAnneNeff, this manifesto
has three key aspects:(1) "the insistence that the depiction of the 'Negro
world' is appropriatefor literarytreatment";(2) "the intention of basing literary creationon the values of the Negro
folk community,not on those of the
middle-class ('mainstream')Negro";
and (3) "the intention of revising
Negro literatureso that it might serve
as an inspirationfor future generations, the 'temples for tomorrow'"
(182).
In 1930Zora Neale Hurston wrote
"Characteristicsof Negro Expression,"
which stands as her retrievalof black
oral culture.In this article-published
in Nancy Cunard'santhology Negro in
1934-she analyzes the complexity and
inventiveness of Negro expression and
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79
observes that they offer a direct counT he first Afro-Americancomterstatementto the belief that the Afroedy (not minstrel show) by
American'slanguage is evidence of
Afro-Americans,"as Lewis (260)calls
his/her inability to master a complex
Mule Bone,is based on an unpublished
Westernlanguage. Hurston'sessay
short story by Hurston entitled "The
explains how Afro-Americans,
Bone of Contention."5In the first of the
deprived of a written language, viviplay's three acts, Dave Carterand Jim
fied theirnouns by affixing to them an Weston are best friends, but one day
"action" word (as in
on the front porch of Joe
cookpot and sitting chair) Mule Bone is an Clarke'sstore they start
and created new verbal
quarrelingover Daisy
nouns such as jooking encomium of the Tayloruntil Jim strikes
and bookooing. She also linguistic powers Dave on the head with
notes African Americans'
the hock-bone of
of a certain sec- "Brazzle'sole yaller
facility for intensifying
descriptions by double
tor of the black mule" (53).Jimis arrestdescriptions such as killed and Dave is taken
collectivity
dead, high-tall, and littleaway so that his wound
tee-nichy;the vivid amal- which bursts out can be tended to, leaving
Daisy alone, wondering
gamations such as kneebent and body-bowed; class boundaries who will walk her home.
and the invention of new
to emphasize a Act Two consists of two
scenes. The first shows
wordslike bodacious and
sense of
the social background
schronchuns. Hurston
against which Dave and
describes the black intercommunity.
Jim'squarreltakes
pretation of English as a
pictorialone, making full use of simile place-the struggle between Joe
and metaphor,usually drawn from the Clarkeand ElderSimms for mayor and
the tension between the two opposite
naturalworld. Finally,she insists on
the fact that dramais inherentto Negro local factions,the Baptistsand the
Methodists.In the second scene, we see
life: "Everyperiod of Negro life is
highly dramatized.No matterhow joy- Joe Clarkepresiding at the trialin the
BaptistChurch,now transformedinto
ful or how sad the case there is suffia court-house.Jim is found guilty and
cient poise for drama.Everythingis
acted out. Unconsciously for the most banished from town for two years. Act
part of course. There is an impromptu Threedescribesthe reconciliation
ceremony always ready for every hour between Jimand Dave, their intention
of returninghappily to Eatonville,and
of life. No little moment passes
theirrejectionof Daisy.
unadorned"(225).
In Mule Bone Hurston and Hughes
As their manifestoesmake clear,
attempt,in the first place, to articulate
Hurston and Hughes-in contrastto
a
dramaticform far from the aesthetic
other Harlemwriters such as Jean
ambivalence
of the works on black
Toomerand Countee Cullen,who
experience
by
contemporarywhite
wanted to work with purely literary
authors
of
the
era. At the beginning of
patterns,whether traditionalor experimental-were intent on capturingthe the twentieth century the black experidominant oral and improvisatorytra- ence had been and was being exploited
ditions of black folk culturein written successfully by white playwrights as a
source of exoticism,naivete, lyricism,
form, for they found the essence of
Afro-Americannessin the vernacular. and melodrama.6Yet, for the black
writer things had not been and were
Mule Bone stands as evidence of how
not so triumphant.According to Cary
they desired to translatethis interest
Wintz,
into dramaticterms.
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During the first decade of the twentieth century the area around 53rd Street
became a center for black actors, prizefighters, and show people in New
York. For the first time black performers and acting companies were being
booked in first-class New York theatres. Most of this was in vaudeville,
where black casts replaced black-faced
ones and performed the minstrel show
songs and dances to delighted white
audiences. (65)
As a result of this state of things, as
Bigsby observes, "to be a black playwright was an ambiguous exercise.On
the one hand success on Broadway
made it less possible to dismiss black
culture;on the other hand that success
threatenedto reinforcea stereotype
which white criticstook for realism"
(240).
Among the undeniable accomplishments of the HarlemRenaissance
were the momentum it gave to black
culture and how it shaped the perennial Afro-Americanneed to rediscover
blackness,which for its leaders implied
the study of the black past and literature as sources of inspirationthat guaranteed expression for the black experience-"to write about life as they saw
it and look deeply into the black race's
existencein America"(Wintz231).
Mule Bone-written by two of the
most importantrepresentativesof the
HarlemRenaissance-is a play which
draws its inspirationfrom the cultural
prioritiesof Afro-Americans.Hughes
and Hurston'sinterestin furtheringthe
impulses of folk dramacan be considered part of what George Hutchinson
considers "anythingbut a decisive
attempton the part of black artiststo
make a clean breakfrom white
Americanmodernism."The writers
were "motivatedby a decisive reinterpretationand reevaluationof the inherent theatricalqualities of black vernacular speech and distinctivelyblack traditions"and "by a Herderianromanticization of the folk inspired chiefly by
the successes of the Abbey Theatreand
the Moscow Art Playersin the years
immediately preceding the 'negro
renaissance'" (197).In the "Preface"to
The Book of American Negro Poetry
(1931),JamesWeldon Johnsonhad
alreadyenvisioned the task as a reflection of what other marginalizednational cultures across the Atlantichad been
doing since the turn of the century:
"Thecolored poet in the United States
needs to do ... something like what
Synge did for the Irish;he needs to find
a form that will express the racialspirit
by symbols from within ratherthan by
symbols from without" (41).7Hence
Mule Bone offers no daguerreotype
trying to sensitize white audiences
molding black experienceinto limited,
familiarframes of referencesuch as
black poverty, black exploitation,and
blackvindication,but a vivid illustration of the process of "actingout" what
Hurston calls "Negro expression."
Hurstonhad been collecting black
folklorefor her doctoralresearchin
anthropology,and as an anthropologist, she intended to constructnew art
forms based on the Afro-Americanculturaltraditionshe was helping to
recover.Criticshave noted that,
regardingthe relationof literatureand
ethnographyin her work, "it is difficult
to say whether she fictionalizedher
ethnographicreportsor whether her
fiction had always been in part the
product of ethnographiccollecting"
(North 187).8Her trainingas a professional folkloristseems to have encouraged her to undertakenew forms of
dramaticexplorationwhich would
emerge from the genre she seems to
have cultivated throughouther entire
literaryproduction:the performance.
In April 1928she shared with Hughes
her idea of what an authenticAfricanAmericantheatre-that is, one built on
the foundation of a black vernacular
traditionof performance-might be:
"Did I tell you before I left about the
new, the real Negro theatre I plan?
Well, I shall, or rather we shall act out
the folk tales, however short, with the
abrupt angularity and naivete of the
primitive 'bama Nigger. Quote that
with native settings. What do you
think? ... Of course, you know I didn't
dream of that theatre as a one-man
stunt. I had you helping 50-50 from the
start. In fact, I am perfectly willing to
be 40 to your 60 since you are always
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81
so much more practical than I. But I
know it is going to be glorious! A really new departure in the drama." (qtd.
in Gates, "Tragedy" 9; my emphasis)
the decorative elements that a poetical
emotional temperament could wish.
(119)
Max Reinhardthad pointed the way in
Paul CarterHarrisonobserves that 1924when he had told Lockein an
"authentication . . . seems to come to
interview that the way to distill a disthe authorwho diligently details black tinctivelyNegro dramawas for Afrolife in a mannerreceptive to white
Americanartiststo work within their
curiosity,ratherthan to the authorwho capacitiesas explorersof folk drama:
attends the native ethos of the
"Onlyyou can do it, you yourselves....
African/Americancommunity."
You must not even try to link up to the
Whereasauthorsfrom the Caribbean dramaof the past, to the European
or Africaare allowed legitimacywhen drama.Thatis why there is no
exposing their own native cultures,for Americandramaas yet. And if there is
Harrison,"the Afro-Americanis disto be one, it will be yours" (145-46).
couraged from the landscape of his cul- Hughes and Hurston attempted to
ture. He is not rewarded for seizing
make a definition of this black experiupon its myths, its rhythms,and its
ence which implied an apprehensionof
cosmic sensibilitiesso as to designate a the attendantforces and rhythms of
mode of theatrewhich reflectsthe
black life inspired in theirhistorically
Africancontinuum, one that has peroriginal folk roots, which would
manency and provides cultural/educa- oppose the urbanbourgeois vision of
African-Americanculturebeing martional consequencesfor the future of
black life" (KuntuDrama5). Yet this is keted at the time by certainsectors of
the HarlemRenaissanceliterati.In this
exactly what Hurston and Hughes
tried to achieve with Mule Bone:to
sense, Mule Bone can be included, as
read the culture of nonliteraterural
JamesHatch points out, in the list of
blacks as a text, yet become ethnogra- plays Harrisonanthologizes as belonging to the Africancontinuum.
phers using performanceas both a
According to Hatch, Mule Bone
mode of investigation and representashares with other plays the African
tion so as to change "the gaze of the
distanced and detached observerto the Continuumof Sensibilitiesnot only in
intimate involvement and engagement content,but also in form and style. On
of 'coactivity'or co-performancewith the one hand, the plot "meandersin
circuitousassociation,returningat key
historicallysituated, named 'unique
individuals' " (Conquergood187-88). moments to center (alter)the action."
The story is "muchlike the courtshipof
In 1926,in "TheNegro and the
a male pigeon: he circles the female,
AmericanStage,"Lockeadded a new
doubles back,walks away, plumes
note declaringthe importanceof the
himself, pecks at the earth,struts back,
Africancontinuum to the arts of the
circlesher again, all the while burbling,
Afro-American:
clucking various songs in a
cooing,
One can scarcely think of a complete
dance, which for all
developed
slowly
development of Negro dramatic art
its apparentdiversion still has but one
without some significant artistic reexpression of African life and the tradipurpose to be fulfilled when the female
tions associated with it ....
If, as
is ready."On the other, "its style of
seems already apparent, the sophistiis quite differentfrom the
writing
cated race sense of the Negro should
line, build-to-a-crisisat the end
straight
lead back over the trail of the group
of the scene, Westernformula"(27).
tradition to an interest in things
African, the natural affinities of the
Even if the differencesbetween
material and the art will complete the
black and white dramas are far from
circuit and they will most electrically
being more thanjust an opposition
Here both the Negro
combine ....
between linear versus circular,for
actor and dramatist can move freely in
Harrrisonthe models for an Africana world of elemental beauty, with all
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Americantheatremust be searchedfor
in the traditionof Kuntu drama.
According to OliverJackson,Kuntu
dramais "a reflectionand an objectification of the concepts of the African
continuum.Those concepts and beliefs
common to Africanpeoples the world
over are the basis of the unbrokencontinuity of the Africancontinuum.
Foremostamong those concepts is the
belief in the fundamentalspiritual
nature of the universe, as well as the
attendantbelief that man is essentially
spirit, and as such basically irreducible."This Africancontinuum is
particularlyevident in "themusic of
Africans,and in the use of words,
images, and sounds" (Jacksonix).
Harrison'swork on the dramaof
Nommo also offers significantinsight
into two of the most effective modes of
depicting the socio-culturalexperience
of the African-American-the collective force of music and speech, both of
which are ubiquitously present in Mule
Bone.First,African-Americanmusic is
a manifestationof Nommo because it
communicatesthe ethos and pathos of
black people by speaking in "concrete
form"(61).And, second, Nommo as
expressed through a variety of speech
genres "is born out of an Africansensibility for concise imagery;while having
multiple cognitive choices, its meaning
is subordinateto the context in which it
is used and defies interpretationunless
one is familiarwith the mode" (55).
Mule Bone represents,then, not a
theatreof actionbut a theatreof the
word, or, better still, a dramabased on
a conception of performativelanguage.
The enactmentof the AfricanAmericanvernaculartraditionin the
play aims at reestablishingthe traditional folk rituals in a non-racisthistory and at celebratingthe culturalidentity of a ruralSoutherncommunity
which is understood as the foundation
and inspirationof a new art form
which escapes the notion thatblack
arts and folkways are inept imitations
of Europeanforms (North 185).The
two main charactersare thus described
accordingto theirverbal skills. Jimis
presented as "readywith his tongue,"
and, contrarily,Dave is "slightly dumb
and unable to talk rapidly and wittily"
(45).The comedy emerges as one of the
first extraordinarycelebrationsof a
dramaof the black word. Hence, to
understandHurston and Hughes's
unique dramaticexperiment,it
becomes necessary to realize, as Gates
explains, that "theblack vernacularhas
assumed the singular role of the black
person's ultimate sign of difference,a
blacknessof the tongue," since "it is in
the vernacularthat, since slavery, the
black person has encoded private yet
communalculturalrituals"(Signifying
xix).
Hurston and Hughes were determined to retrievethe lore and language
of Afro-Americansfrom out of "the
prison of white-createdblack dialect"
(North ii). Theiruse of black dialect for
the stage-largely manipulated and
deformedby the white traditionof the
minstrelshows and nineteenth-century
plantationliterature-offered a direct
challenge to the dominant view, and as
such it was directed to free the languag~efrom domination and damnation. Mule Bone acknowledges that
the source of creativityfor a new AfroAmericantheatrelay in the race's folk
heritage and in the explorationof the
culture of ruralblack community life.
For its authors,the retrievalof this
black culture emerged as an imposing
contrastnot only to the mystificationof
the black image by contemporary
white playwrights and to the barren
mindscape of white society at large,
but above all as a monument of black
self-glorification.
The play, set in the street and on
the porch of a general store in a tiny
black Southerntown, contains an arsenal of black folklorewhich displays
itself on stage in a wide variety of linguistic treasureswhich derive their
power from the original folk genre of
verbal performance.The characters
speak a language pregnantwith rich
vernacularimagery-proverbs, riddles,
stories, and children'sgames linked
togetherby the Afro-Americanrituals
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83
of the word, outstandinglysignifying.10Accordingto RobertE.
Hemenway,11Mule Bone transforms
"blackvernacularas an appropriate
vehicle for dramaticexpression,"and
the charactersnot only "unconsciously
order their existence and give it special
meaning with elaborateverbal rituals"
(176),but owe their very existence to
language. Eatonvilleis a world defined
and governed exclusively by the vernacular.This is a black community
kept to itself and built up on the only
foundationthat maintainsit isolated
from the white world-the way of verbal interaction.Thus, the play's effect
does not depend on the final denouement of the events presented at the
start,following a linear process of dramatic exhibition,but largely, as
Hemenway states, on "the devices
characteristicof black speech" (176).As
such, Mule Bone was designed
"aroundthe traditionalverbalbehavior
of black people. Its comedy came not
so much from the authors'wit as from
the skillful verbal communicationof
the folk" (Hemenway 186).
Relationshipsin Mule Bone tend to
develop throughritualizedblackvernacularcontests which not only establish an ethnic atmosphere,delineate
character,and advance the dramatic
plot, but in fact are the plot. These verbal rituals stand for a repertoireof survival strategieswhich, as RalphEllison
interpretsthem, embody a growing
sophisticationin overcoming oppressive social circumstancesand symbolically express "a complex double
vision" through the culturalresources
of language, music, and dissimulation
(136-37).Mule Bone is an encomium of
the linguistic powers of a certainsector
of the black collectivitywhich bursts
out class boundaries to emphasize a
sense of community.This acknowledgment of Afro-Americanaesthetictraditions and motifs lends itself to what
KariamuWelsh-Asantecalls "the consciousness of victory,"which becomes
"aworld-view that organizesperspective, minimizes defeat, and encourages
an Afrocentricaestheticimperative"(7).
84
In Mule Boneblack oral culture
stands as the supreme triumph over
white oppression, and thus it is not
coincidentalthat its Afro-American
aestheticsis encouragedby humor. In
1925JessieFausetin her article"The
Gift of Laughter"stated that "theblack
man bringing gifts, and particularlythe
gift of laughter,to the Americanstage
is easily the most anomalous, the most
inscrutablefigure of the century."But
Fausetwas well aware of the fact that
the popularmusical comedies of the
past and of the present with their
unfortunateminstrelinheritancewere
responsiblefor a fateful representation
of Negro life. Accordingly,she pointed
out that "themedium through which
this unique and intensely dramaticgift
might be offeredhas been so befogged
and misted by popular preconception
that the great gift, though divined, is as
yet not clearlyseen" (161).Hurston
and Hughes, however, made sure it
was seen. ThomasW. Talley, in his collection of Negro folk rhymes, also
stressed the positive aspects of Negro
humor and declaredthat what had
enabledblacks to come into contact
with white civilizationwithout being
destroyed and to survive slavery and
emerge from it was their "power to
muster wit and humor on all occasions,
and even to laugh in the face of adversity" (244-45).Mule Bone uses humor
not only to transcendthe black stereotypes exploited by white literaturein
minstrelshows and black-facedplays
but assertivelyto depict black experience in the first decades of the twentieth centuryin Americafrom a hilarious
stance and through language that sets
its roots in communal knowledge, wisdom, and the capacityof regeneration.
Blues rhythms,"lying,"playing the
dozens, signifying, among other AfroAmericanverbal manifestations,
appearin this comedy as elements
denoting a racialexpression of energy
and power. The charactersof Mule
Bone engage in Afro-Americanverbal
ritualsin three differentplaces that can
be taken as symbolic of the settings
where black life develops as a commu-
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chorus or responsive community,"and
those by "manycontemporaryAfrican
Americanministers [when they]
preach the word with accompanying
responses from their congregations."
Without the rhythm of the drums to
establish the mode, these Eatonville
friendshave " 'performed'their verbal
jousting and significationsso many
times that they have created their own
harmonizingrhythms."For CarolynL.
Holmes, the rhythm of dialogues like
the abovementioned,as well as its calland-responsepattern,reflect "the
Africanaestheticssynthesized and
transformedin the diaspora"(228).
Hurston and Hughes exploit what
LawrenceW. Levine calls "intragroup
humor"concerningthe ruralblack, the
uppity negro, and black religion. When
the hockbone of the mule appears,the
sitters on the porch start to show animosity toward each other on behalf of
their religious membership,and, thus,
the rivalrybetween the Methodists and
Baptistsis framedin linguistic terms,
too. This gives way to the second setting present in the play-the religious.
VOICE: (Whispering loudly) Don't see
The interiorof MacedoniaBaptist
how that great big ole powerful
woman could be sick. Look like she
Churchconverted into a courthouse
could go bear huntin' with her fist.
becomes not only the setting for the
ANOTHER VOICE: She look jus' as
trialbut the stage for a humorous
good as you-all's Baptist pastor's wife.
of the sacred world view.
depiction
Pshaw, you ain't seen no big woman,
The trialis ultimately solved by the
nohow, man. I seen one once so big she
went to whip her little boy and he run
cunning black manipulationof the
up under her belly and hid six months
white biblicalstory of Samson,but pre'fore she could find him.
viously the audience has seen how
ANOTHER VOICE: Well, I knowed a
humor has been used as a weapon for
woman so little that she had to get up
interdenominationalrivalry aimed at
on a soap box to look over a grain of
sand ....
tapping the characters'sense of identiLIGE: (Continuing the lying on porch)
fication.As Levine explains, the butt of
Well, you all done seen so much, but I
Negro humor on black preachersand
bet you ain't never seen a snake as big
the entire spectrumof black religion,
as the one I saw when I was a boy up
"by its very ubiquity, indicated that
in middle Georgia. He was so big
they remaineda force in Afrocouldn't hardly move his self. He laid
in one spot so long he growed moss on
Americanlife," and this humor
him and everybody thought he was a
"allowed the articulationof criticism
log, until one day I set down on him
characteristicsof the race
concerning
and
I
woke
when
and went to sleep,
that troubledand often shamed certain
up that snake done crawled to Florida
(Loud laughter). (74-75).
members"(329-30).
Act Threetakes places in what may
Verbalexchanges resemblethose performed by "the lead dancer,storyteller be called a naturalsetting-a high
or singer in traditionalAfricansocieties stretchof railroadtrackthrough a luxuriantFloridaforest. Here Jim and
... in harmony with an accompanying
nal experience.The social-settingis
representedby the porch of Joe Clark's
general store, where the sitters illustratetheirverbal talents, telling stories
long before the protagonistsappear.
These village charactersrejectthe stock
comic types of the minstrel tradition,
since they appear as real human beings
who express their enjoymentof life
through their language skills.
Moreover,the main conventions of
these ethnic forms of linguistic
exchange-rhyme, repetition,and
wit-are also learntby little boys and
girls in their games offstage,both to
assert theirmanhood and womanhood
among themselves and to show a sense
of securitywhen faced with the hostility of other social groups-grown-ups,
for example. Any excuse is good
enough to engage in verbal improvisation and signal the targetof black
humor. For example, when Methodist
ElderSimms informs the sitters at
Clarke'sporch that his wife is "feelin'
kinda po'ly today,"this sets motion a
lying contest:
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85
Dave rival again verbally for the attention of Daisy. But the plot of Mule
Bone has a circularstructure,following
the predicamentsof Kuntu drama,and
the road which might take them out of
the communitywill finally lead them
back home, back to the heart of blackness, thanks to anotherverbal gamethe courtingritual.Jim and Dave patch
up their quarrelthrough laughterand
therebygain some perspectiveon their
own anger and place in the world. The
temporaryloss of control and confusion that initiated the play disappears,
just as words do, because, as Dave
declares,"We'sjust friendly-fightin'like" (119).What transpiresin the play
is just a "play,"a game, in which to
manipulatewords is to embracethe
collective notion of realitycreatedby a
community founded on what Michael
North calls "sacramentalperformance"
(189).
she reminds him of, there is "general
laughter,but not obscene" (60);and in
Act Three,they explain that the dialogue/contest between Jim and Dave
obeys the ritual.Forexample, Dave is
directed to speak "very properly in a
falsettovoice" and, immediately after,
both he and Jim are told to "laugh"
(146).Hurston and Hughes show in
this way the sense of verbal play of the
black culturebeing recreated.On the
other hand, if we agree with the idea
that the rich oral traditionreflectedin
African-Americanfolk life is revealed
through the various townspeople who
congregateon the front porch of
Starks'general store, in the village
street, and in the church,then part of
this group is outstandingly made up of
women. Mule Bone does literally overflow with verbal exchanges between
men and women which not only reveal
the familiartensions in the community
but also demonstratethat men might
not always be the agents of control.For
H
enry L. Gateshighlights the fact example, the ritual of insult between
Deacon Lindsay and SisterTaylor
that with Hughes and
Hurston's turn to the vernacular,they before the trial shows how a man is
rhetoricallydestroyed:
"alsoseem at times to reinscribethe
explicit sexism of that tradition,
LINDSAY: (Angrily) What's de matter,
through discussions of physical abuse
y'all? Cat got yo' tongue?
and wife-beatings as agents of control,
MRS. TAYLOR: More matter than you
kin scatter all over Cincinnati.
which the male characterson Joe
LINDSAY: Go 'head on, Lucy Taylor.
Clarke'sstore-frontporch seem to take
Go 'head on. You know a very little of
for grantedas a 'natural'part of sexual
yo' sugar sweetens my coffee. Go
relations,"as well as "Daisy'srepresen'head on. Everytime you lift yo' arm
tation in a triangleof desire as the
you smell like a nest of yellow hamobjectof her lovers' verbal dueling
mers.
ratherthan as one who duels herself."
MRS. TAYLOR: Go 'head on yo'self.
Gates concludes by saying that ". .. the
depiction of female charactersand sexual relationsin Mule Bone almost
never escapes the limitationsof the
social realitiesthat the vernaculartradition reflects"("Tragedy"22). This is
so because Mule Bone struggles to
acknowledge the reality of sexual politics and thus offers no utopian description of ruralblack life. Yet, there are
certainelements in the play that might
undermine its alleged offensiveness.
In Act One, when Daisy disappears
and Clarketells about the fruit flavor
86
Yo' head look like it done wore out
Talkin' 'bout me
three bodies.
smellin'-you smell lak a nest of grand
daddies yo'self.
LINDSAY: Aw rock on down de road,
/oman. Ah don't wan-tuh change
words wid yoh. Youse too ugly.
MRS TAYLOR: You ain't nobody pretty baby, yo'self. You so ugly I betcha
yo' wife have to spread uh sheet over
yo' head tuh let sleep slip up on yuh.
LINDSAY: (Threatening) I done tole
you I don't wanter break a breath wid
you. It's uh whole heap better tuh
walk off on yo' own legs than it is to be
toted off. I'm tired of yo' achin' round
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here. You fool wid me now an' I'll
knock you into doll rags, Tony or no
Tony.
MRS TAYLOR: (Jumping up in his
face) Hit me! Hit me! I dare you tuh hit
me. If you take dat dare, you'll steal uh
hawg an' eat his hair.
LINDSAY: Lemme gunn down to dat
church befo' you make me stomp you.
(He exits, right) (105)
First,it offers a clear illustrationthat
black verbal rituals are not exclusively
limited to males; second, since one of
the images which SisterTayloruses
againsther rival had been employed
before against her by Deacon Lindsay
(see prior excerpt),this shows that the
black vernacularis communal property
and passed down from mouth to
mouth, without recognizing gender
Women in Eatonvilleare more
than ready and eager to engage men in boundaries,class distinctions,or age
verbal ritualswhich challenge their
differences;finally, when these two
authorityand dominance.And this is
women are interruptedin theirbattle
the other side of a comedy which mini- of wits by a man-Deacon Lindsaymizes black women's defenselessness, both take turns tearinghim to pieces
even surprisinglylittle girls', as in Act and annihilatinghim:
One, when Lum Boger-"young town
SISTER TAYLOR: Some folks is a
marshallabout twenty, tall, gangly
whole lot more keerful 'bout a louse in
with big flat fleet, liked to show off in
de church than dey is in dey house.
(Looking pointedly at Sister Lewis)
public" (46)- tries to order the chilSISTER LEWIS: (Bristling) Whut you
dren away:
LUM BOGER: Why'nt you go on away
from here, Matilda? Didn't you hear
me tell you-all to move?
LITTLE MATILDA: (Defiantly) I ain't
goin' nowhere. You ain't none of my
mama. (Jerking herself free from him
as LUM touches her.) My mama in the
store and she told me to wait out here.
So take that, ol' Lum.
LUM BOGER: You impudent little
huzzy, you! You must smell yourself ...
youse so fresh.
MATILDA: The wind musta changed
and you smell your own top lip.
LUM BOGER: Don't make me have to
grab you and take you down a button
hole lower.
MATILDA: (Switching her little head)
Go ahead on and grab me. You sho
can't kill me, and if you kill me, you
sho can't eat me. (She marches into the
store.) (66)
Littlechildrenin Mule Bone are not
only learning the centralimportanceof
verbal art but are presented as masters
of rhetoricalimprovisationin duels
with the representativeof authority.
Women also engage with other
women in playing dozens which take
as a source of inspirationtheir domestic life. Among the many hilarious
examples, the interchangebetween
SisterTaylor,Methodist,and Sister
Lewis, Baptist,in the courthousemerits
recordinghere for several reasons.
gazin' at me for? Wid your popeyes
lookin' like skirt ginny-nuts?
SISTER TAYLOR: I hate to tell you
whut yo' mouf looks like. I thinks you
an' soap an' wate musta had some
words. Evertime you lifts yo' arm you
smell like a nest of yellow hammers
[my emphasis].
SISTER LEWIS: Well, I ain't seen no
bath tubs in your house.
SISTERTAYLOR: Mought not have no
tub, but tain't no lice on me though.
SISTER LEWIS. Aw, you got just as
many bed-bugs and chinces as anybody else. I seen de bed-bugs marchin'
out of yo' house in de mornin' keepin'
step just like soldiers drillin ....
SISTER TAYLOR: (To LEWIS) Aw,
shut up, you big ole he-looking rascal
you! Nobody don't know whether
youse a man or a woman.
CLARKE: You wimmen, shut up!
Hush! Just hush! (He wipes his face
with a huge handkerchief.)
SISTER LEWIS: (To SISTER TAYLOR)
Air Lawd! Dat ain't your trouble. They
all knows whut you is eg-zackly!
LINDSAY Aw? Why don't you wimmen cut dat out in de church house?
Jus' jawin' an chewin' de rag!
SISTERTAYLOR:Joe Lindsay, if you'd
go home an' feed dat rawbony horse of
yourn, you wouldn't have so much
time to stick yo' bill in business that
ain't yourn.
SISTER LEWIS:Joe Lindsay, don't you
know no better than to strain wid folks
ain't got no sense enough to tote guts
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87
to a bear? If they ain't born wid no
sense, you can't learn 'em none. (11114)
For Harrison,when playing the
dozens, Nommo createspower
"beyond the naturalfrailtyof the
body" (Drama39). Men and women
charactersin the play reveal their flaws
as well as their assets, making a portraitof the community far from incomplete. These are individuals who quarrel, gossip, love, care for each other,
and, above all, laugh not at themselves
but together.As Levine writes, "Black
laughterprovided a sense of the total
black condition not only by putting
whites and their racialsystem in perspective but also by supplying an
importantdegree of self and group
knowledge" (320).Consequently,while
blackwomen may recognize their inferior status in the community, they
engage in a fierce struggle that erases
their passivity and enhances their commitment to gender retribution.As
SisterPitts states, "Chile,if you listen
at fokses talk, they'll have you in de
graveyardor in Chattahoochee-one.
You can't pay no 'tention to talk"(121).
Yet, it is precisely language that makes
the black community go round. As Jim
realizes and tells Dave before the trial,
"Lawd,Lawd!We done set de whole
town fightin'."And Dave agrees:"Boy,
we sho is!" (119).Jim and Dave's dispute has become a trainingground for
the choricexhibitionof Eatonville's
verbal facility across social classes,
ages, and genders, because for this
community oral culture plays a central
role and verbal ability is regardedas
the main asset. The town has come
alive and fought a catharticcleansing
game of words throughverbal rituals
native to Afro-Americanculture and
alien to the white world and, consequently, to the white audience, since as
Levine writes, black humor presupposes "a common experiencebetween the
joke-tellerand the audience"and it
functions "to foster a sense of particularity and group identificationby
widening the gap between those within and those outside of the circle of
88
laughter"(359).Jessie Fauset was convinced that "the remarkablething
about this gift of ours is that it has its
rise ... in the very woes which beset
us. Justas a person driven by great sorrow may finally go into an orgy of
laughter,just so an oppressed and too
hard driven people breaks over into
compensatinglaughter and merriment.
It is our emotional salvation"(166).But
in Mule Boneblack humor is not just a
lifesaver.It is a serious, committed ideological vehicle for a new AfricanAmericandramathat searches for both
racialdignity and aestheticmerit.
ccording to AmriqitSingh, a
good deal of black literaturein
the 1920swas shaped by and tried to
satisfy the white preconceptionsof
what the Negro was. A consideration
of literaryworks by black authors
highlights two dominant trends that
form a revealing pattern of near-obsessive concernwith the main white
stereotypes of Afro-Americanexistence. The first trend is defined by
black writing which, like much writing
on the subjectby white contemporaries,presents black life as exotic and
primitivistic.And the second trend
includes works which attempt to show
that black Americansare differentfrom
theirwhite counterpartsonly in the
A
shade of their skin (37). Mule Bone
does not fit either of these two trends.
ForBigsby, one of the crucialgoals of
black dramain Americahas been that
of "presentingthe Negro to himself, of
reflectingnot so much the public being,
forced to wear the abstractingmask
shaped by an implacablewhite hostility, but the private self whose resources
lie partly in an historicalexperience
and partly in a shared present" (240).
This is precisely what Hughes and
Hurston'scomedy achieves, since it situates itself outside these constrictive
boundaries,as one of the firstblack
dramasdepicting folk Afro-American
life from the inside. Departing from the
premises that the oral nature of black
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culturaltraditionswould have to be reworked into a written tradition,
Hurston and Hughes developed in
Mule Bone a new dramatictechnique
based on the use of the black vernacular to portrayan extraordinarilyrich
segment of the originalfolk genre of
verbal performance.These two
authors-as they had alreadydone in
their fiction and poetry-traced the
path for a new dramaticwriting that
would enable the black playwright to
carryout the same social function as
"thefolklore artist (creatorof community) who would provide inspiration
for futureNegro generations"(Neff
183).Mule Bonewas a temple for the
future, unfortunatelyunknown to worshippers,but still a founding stone for
later generations,as furtherdevelopments in the twentieth-centuryblack
dramademonstrate.
LangstonHughes in "Notes on
CommercialTheatre,"published in
The Crisisin March1940,gave voice to
the threatthat the appropriationof
black experienceby commercialtheatre
embodied for the Afro-Americanidentity:
You've taken my blues and goneYou sing 'em on Broadway
And you sing 'em in the Hollywood
Bowl,
And you mix 'em up with symphonies
And you fixed 'em
So they don't sound like meYep, you done taken my blues and
gone.
You also took my spirituals and gone.
You put me in Macbeth and Carmen
Jones
And all kinds of Swing Mikados
And in everything but what's about
meBut someday somebody'll
Stand up and talk about me,
And write about meBlack and beautiful-
Hurston and Hughes stood up and
wrote about "blackand beautiful"in a
play that is part of what LarryNeal
called "a truly originalBlackliterature."Theirportrayalof black folk language in Mule Bone was an attempt to
establishwhat Neal terms "some new
categoriesof perception;new ways of
seeing a culturewhich had been caricatured by the white minstrel tradition,
made hokey and sentimentalby the
nineteenth[-]centurylocal colorists,
debased by the dialect poets, and finally made a 'primitive'aphrodisiacby
the new sexualism of the twenties."12
Hughes and Hurston'sperspective
embodied the principles of what today
is called "BlackAesthetics."By rebuking those artistswho saw no beauty in
their life and who thereforeavoided
black themes and styles or deprecated
the blackheritage or apologized for it
in theirwritings, they led the way
toward an affirmationof the AfroAmericanheritage and embracedthe
black struggle. Theircall to AfroAmericanwriters to look to black life
for themes and to black folk culture for
techniqueswould be echoed and
amplifiedby later dramatists.Mule
Bone dramatizesa full display of the
vernacularvoice, which is at the core
essentially lyrical,uniting richness of
language with a determinedview of
facts which underscoresHughes and
Hurston'sstrategy of empowerment
throughart.Unfortunately,their
attemptto embody dramaticallythe
distinctivenessof the black folk experience in Americaand as such the root of
its poetry remained,until recently,a
dream deferred.
and Messenger crusades for blackdramathroughoutthe
1. Fora study of the Crisis,Opportunity,
a 'NationalNegroTheatre'"(158-66), "'IfThere Is to
twenties, see Hutchinson'schapters"Invoking
Be One, ItWillBe Yours':AmericanDrama"(189-97), and "TheophilusLewisand the BlackTheater"
(304-12).
2. Fora detailedaccountof the reasons fortheirdispute,see Gates' editionof the play. Forillustrationsfromthe 1991 stage productionof the play,see LyndaMarionHill.
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Notes
89
3. Fora detailedchronologyof the series of events thattrace the cause of the dispute and the ending of the authors'friendship,see Gates, "Tragedy"
11-13. Fora descriptionof Hughes's achievements in theater,see Turner,and for a surveyof blackwomen playwrightsof the Harlem
Renaissance, see NellieMcKay.WillHarris,surveyingWomen'splays fromAngelinaWeld Grimk6's
Rachel (1916) to AliceChildress'sFlorence(1950), describes what he sees as these dramatists'creationof an artisticprogramforsocial uplift,along the way mentioningHurstonas a writer"whowas
able and willingto writeexotic theater"(209). Fora study of lynchingplays writtenby Harlem
Renaissance women whichfollowedDu Bois's dicta regardingblackdrama,see JudithStephens's"
'AndYet They Paused' and 'A Billto be Passed': NewlyRecoveredLynchingDramasby Georgia
DouglasJohnson"as well as her manypathbreakingstudies on this importantdramaticgenre listed
in her Johnson essay.
4. Accordingto RalphEllisonin Shadow and Act, if blackcontributionsto Americanculturewere to
be recognized,blackartistsneeded to cherish,reclaim,and builduponthe oralculturewhichhad
preservedtheirsense of identityand self-esteem duringthe years of enslavement.
5. Accordingto Gates, the story is "particularly
fascinatingas a glimpse intoHurston'smannerof
revisingand transformingthe oraltradition(she had collectedthe story in her folkloreresearch)and
because of its representationof variouscharacters(such as Eatonville,an all-blacktownwhere
Hurstonwas born,Joe Clarkeand his store, the yellowmule and his mock burial)who wouldrecurin
subsequent works,such as MuleBone and TheirEyes WereWatchingGod' ('Tragedy"18). As far
as Hughes is concerned,the connectionbetween his interestin folkdramaand his actual participation in the writingof MuleBone mightrevolvearoundRowenaWoodhamJelliffeand her husband,
withwhom Hughes maintaineda lifelongfriendship.Rowenabelieved in a Negro dramathat recalled
Reinhardt'sobservationsand the dramaticqualitiesinherentin blackvernacularexpression.
Moreover,she staged Hughes's plays in the thirties.Fora moredetaileddescriptionof Jelliffe'sartistic agenda, see Hutchinson195-96.
6. Writerssuch as RidgelyTorrence,MarcConnelly,Paul Green, and Eugene O'Neill,among others, made use of Afro-American
materialsforwhatthey understoodas "theextraordinaryrichness of
his dailylife"(Bigsby237). This was the periodwhen the taste of the Westernworld,includingthatof
New Yorkbohemians,discoveredthe Negro,althoughcast in the stereotypicalmoldof the primitive.
This image was not new, but it became paramountin the Americanconsciousness duringthe socalled Jazz Age. The reasons thatthis was so are manifold.Fromthe historicalpointof view, "commercialismand standardizationthatfollowedindustrialism
led to increasingnostalgiaforthe simple,
forcefuland unmechanizedexistence thatthe Negrocame to represent"(Singh32). The AfroAmericanrepresented,accordingto RobertBone, "theunspoiledchildof nature,the noble savagecarefree,spontaneous and sexually uninhibited"
(59). Secondly, Europeanartistssuch as Pablo
Picasso, George Braque,and HenriMatissefoundinspirationto revolutionizeWesternartin African
artisticmanifestations-sculpturesand ritualmasks of the citystates and kingdomsof West Africa.
foundpromotionthroughthe misinterpretation
of Freudiantheory.
Finally,the appeal of primitivism
Consequently,"thisNegrofad of the twenties in the UnitedStates led to an unprecedentedartistic
activitythatfocused on the depictionof the Negro in fiction,drama,poetry,paintingand sculpture"
became "forwhitebohemianand avant-gardeartistsa symbolof free(Singh32), as Afro-Americans
dom fromrestraint,a source of energy and sensuality"(Cooley52).
In 1917 Torrence'sThreePlays fora Negro Theatrewas acclaimedby James WeldonJohnson,
one of the launchersof the HarlemRenaissance, forthe playwright's"intimateknowledge"of, "deep
for Negrolife. Butitwas Eugene O'Neillwho was widelyapplaudedfor
insight"into,and "sympathy"
on the Americanstage with The
havingmarkeda new step in the treatmentof the Afro-American
EmperorJones (1920). In 1925 MontgomeryGregory,the organizerof the HowardPlayers and their
directorfrom1919 to 1914, in "TheDramaof Negro Life"praisedO'Neillas the author"whomore
than any otherperson has dignifiedand popularizedNegrodrama"and given "testimonyof the possibilitiesof the futuredevelopment"of it (153). The EmperorJones, producedby the Provincetown
since it marked"thebreakwater
Players,wouldremainin historyas "abeacon-lightof inspiration,"
plungeof Negrodramain the mainstreamof Americandrama"(157). Yet, as John Cooley explains
in his analysis of the play,O'Neill'smost significantblackportraitis "anexample of the way in which
old racialclich6s and mythswere perpetuated,even in highlyregardedliterature"
(53). But,at least,
workslikeO'Neill'splay, Vachel Lindsay's'The Congo"(1917), WaldoFrank'sHoliday(1922), and
CarlVan Vechten's NiggerHeaven (1926) were instrumentalin pavingthe way for blackwriters.As
Bone suggests, 'They created a sympatheticaudience forthe serious treatmentof Negro subjects"
(60). Infact, when AlainLockeincludedin his volume TheNew Negro "ASelect Listof Plays of
Negro Life,"the vast majorityof those listedwere white playwrightsof the nineteenthand twentieth
centuries(432-33). Otherdramaswrittenby whiteauthorswhichwere acclaimedat the time were
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Abraham'sBosom by Paul Green,the opera Porgyand Bess by DuBose and DorothyHeyward,The
Green Pastures by MarcConnelly,as well as O'Neill'sAll God's ChillunGot Wings(1923). According
to George Hutchinson,"howeverideologicallyflawedwe may findthese white'Negroplays'today,
they were enablingculturalperformancesforblackartistsof the time, accordingto even the oftensuspicious Du Bois"(161). This is not to say that reviewersin blackjournalsfailed"toattackliterary
exploitationand whitethirstforthe primitiveand exotic,"butthe worksthey attackedwere not those
of authorswhose names have been handeddownfromliteraryhistoryto literaryhistory,but of those
ones "wenever even heardof today";in addition,blackreviewerslamented"inappropriate
and
'degrading'uses of the spiritualsby 'Negrorevues,'black-directedand -producedshows deriving
fromthe blackblackfaceminstrelshow tradition"
(Hutchinson195).
7. NathanI. Hugginsstates that"thesame ethnocentrismthat had engulfed Europein war made
self-determination
one of the majorwarobjectives.This principle,whichwas to justifynationhoodfor
[the]Irish,Magyars,and Czechs, wouldhave implicationsforAfricansas well"(6).
8. In Social Ritualsand the VerbalArtof ZoraNeale Hurston(1996), LyndaMarionHillargues that
Hurston'sartisticmasteryis based on her abilityto use language as performancetechniqueand proposes to "use performanceas a bridgebetween anthropologyand art."Hillsuggests "reading
Hurston'stexts as plays"and highlightsthe fact that TheirEyes Were WatchingGod is builton parts
fromMuleBone, whichin turnis based on the story'The Bone of Contention."
9. MichaelNorthdistinguishesbetween a whiteand a blackmodernism.On the one hand, "linguistic imitationand racialmasqueradeare so importantto transatlanticmodernismbecause they allow
on the other,forAfrican-American
the writerto playat self-fashioning";
poets of this generation,
"dialectis a 'chain,'"for"inthe versioncreated by the whiteminstreltradition,it is a constant
reminderof the literalunfreedomof slaveryand of the politicaland culturalrepressionthatfollowed
emancipation"(11).
10. On the differentdefinitionsof signifyin(g),see Gates, Signifyingand his detailedaccount (7478) of previousdefinitionalattemptsby Roger D. Abrahams.
11. The quotationsfromHemenwaybelong to the excerptfromhis ZoraNeale Hurston:A Literary
Biography(Urbana:U of IllinoisP, 1977) whichGates includesin his editionof MuleBone on pages
161-89.
12. LarryNeal, "AProfile:ZoraNeale Hurston,"SouthernExposure1 (Winter1974): 162; cited by
Hemenway184. Neal was extremelycriticaltowardthe HarlemRenaissance, yet MuleBone shows
thatduringthis period"trulyoriginalBlackliterature"
took place in the guise of writingthat, paraphrasing his definitionof the BlackArtsMovement,did not alienatewritersfromtheircommunity.
AmericanDrama.Vol. 1. New York:
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Bohemians."Kramer51-64.
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Giroux,1995.
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Locke,New 161-67.
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