Beginning with the last full paragraph on page 60 and concluding at the page break on page 62--"Out in the swamp they made great ceremony over the mule.... The yaller mule was gone from the town except for the porch talk, and for the children visiting his bleaching bones now and then in the spirit of adventure"--the narrator does something peculiar by personifying the buzzards. They engage in a kind of antiphonal response, the leader questioning those gathered, they in turn making reply.
What do you think is the purpose of this personification? What's being suggested here about the connection between people and buzzards? What might the mule represent first to the people gathered, secondly to the buzzards? Is this scene merely comical, or do you see something profound here about the novel's commentary on the collective character of the townspeople?
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I've read this novel three times now but have never given much serious thought to the buzzard scene before. I always have enjoyed the pomp and pageantry of the humans' reaction to the mule funeral, however. It is a bit telling that the scene makes Starks "more solid" in the eyes of the townsfolk. Despite telling catering he will only be catering to the ignorant masses, Jody clearly enjoys the scene and revels in the attention. Sam's mock eulogy and description of the wonders of mule heaven is hilarious, but also hints at the view of heaven held by many of the novel's characters. Rather than push for something more ethereal, they hold on to the tangible archetype of a heaven filled with harp-playing angels. There is nothing wrong with this, mind you; it is simply not a challenging or unconventional view.
The buzzard leader clearly stands in for Jody, waiting to be summoned to the scene out of "decorum." With that said, however, the buzzard scene is not merely a parody of the townsfolk. They dance like joyous pagans around a sacrifice, a chilling contrast to the mock-epic nature of the townsfolk's funeral. The buzzards ignore any notions of immortality and the afterlife and focus on the here and now; namely the consumption of the flesh. The feast even commences with the chief pecking out the mule's eyes, the traditional gateway to the soul. The buzzards, like the townspeople, form a homogenous mass awaiting the word of their leader. Their communal response to his query about the mule's death is a macabre cadence not unlike a church congregation. Like the people, the buzzards are willing to bend to the will and word of an indomitable leader.
Death has the habit of promoting camaraderie among those left living, and the case of the dead mule is no different. The difference, however, between the human ceremony and the buzzard ceremony is, although in many ways, minute, incredibly profound. The meetings are conducted in very different spirits of fellowship, and it is this disparity that helps illustrate two very different understandings of violence.
Joe Starks and the other members of the town are largely oblivious to their crimes against the dead mule. Their ceremony is filled with such a mockery of human traditions that, on the surface level, the entire affair appears comedic. Yet, in doing this, the townspeople are not only mocking the single event of the dead mule, but they are also mocking the ceremony of death itself. The image of Joe Starks ascending the dead mule’s carcass is especially powerful. It is not unintentional that while he is literally trampling upon the dead, his popularity among the townspeople grows tremendously. The people connect under the common bond of violence and scorn for the dead, for nature, and for ceremonies. There is an incredible difference between using the dead as a means to and end, such as the townspeople do in using the occasion as a literal mounting block to promote personal aspirations, and in using the mule as a means in itself, as is illustrated by the feasting buzzards that follow.
The buzzard ceremony has a degree of solemnity to it that the humans seem unable of comprehending. The sense of camaraderie that pervades this scene is quite different, despite the fact that it, too, rallies around a form of violence. However, this violence differs in many key areas. It is based off of survival and is completely impersonal. The humans desecrate the mule’s memory by making a mockery of everything it did on earth and on ridiculously speculating on everything that it will be doing in a next life. The buzzards take a much more technical approach to dealing with the dead. The conversation between the "Parson" and the other buzzards is remarkably similar in tone to that of a church service responsorial in that those involved are, to a certain degree, unattached to the scene, yet strangely connected by a communitarian bond of understanding.
The buzzard “Parson” presides over a much more real funeral than the townspeople, exposing Joe Starks as an imposter. The real violence here is, quite ironically, not necessarily performed the ones doing the actual desecration.
In this novel,the mule represents African Americans in the plight of their slavery; like the slaves,the mule is overworked by his master. Joe Starks "set his hat like John Pearson and imitated his preaching" as he spoke of the joys of mule-heaven, and the fact that "the dear departed brother would look down into hell and see the devil plowing Matt Bonner all day long in a hell-hot sun and laying the raw-hide to his back." Joe Starks offers comfort to the people as he indirectly assures them of the justice they can expect to be done in light of their own oppressors- white people. Hope flourished in that moment as he spoke that the white people who had enslaved the black people would someday be enslaved themselves. The mule also symbolized their freedom, since, like the mule, they would be able to die free rather than bound in their chains.
The mule, for the townspeople, became a sort of glorified mascot for them as he consumed many of their thoughts and conversations. The townspeople and the buzzards are connected by their lavish attention to and enjoyment of the animal's death. Contrary to my earlier interpretation, I believe the mule can also be interpreted as a representation of the white people to the black people that are present. Hurston specifies the mule's color as "yaller"-- the same term she uses to refer to white people. In a sense, the funeral was a mockery of the deceased animal as "they mocked everything human in death." Like the buzzards, the townspeople feasted on pleasure from its death. Perhaps the same pleasure a black man might gain by standing atop a white man in superiority and greatness.
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Blog: Jessie Walters-McCarthy
In the novel, the burial of mule is a moment of comic relief provided by the absurd eulogy, ridiculous posture, and animal personification. It becomes a social event for the town with the same gruesome entertainment as public hanging of the day with a touch of humor. However, this scene holds a more significant meaning than simple comical enjoyment and verges on satirical commentary.
After the town’s people have “laid the body to rest,” they go about their daily lives and leave the mule to rot and be picked apart by the happily waiting vultures. When the people leave, the real satire begins. The vultures come alive with human characteristics and social structure. When they are first introduced to the scene, they are hovering above the body having a “flying-meet way up over the heads.” When the mourners are finally gone, they must await their leader for the feasting to begin, and the leader must “sit oblivious until he was notified.” Decorum structures their picking apart of a corpse. This leader character is interesting, because he seems to be a commentary on three of the running themes of the novel: race, gender, and God. This buzzard leader is also used as a reflection of God. He is interestingly called “the Parson,” and as such not only represents the civil leader, but the religious leader as well. He, like God, places judgment on the dead and then in a ceremonial manner takes the mule apart. Furthermore, he is “white-headed” and male. He is the dominate white male in charge of the social hierarchy that his fellow buzzards and the mule must assimilate and be subordinate to. He , ironically, is what Joe Starks wants to be for the town. Even if Joe is black, he wants to incorporate the white sense of status into the town and wants to be the man who leads. If the Parson is a representation of Joe, then the mule is just as closely a depiction of Janie. In the early pages of the novel, the black woman is described as the mule of the world, and just as the black woman is subject to the will of men, this literal mule is subject to the will of the buzzard. Finally, the mule is described as “yaller,” which is the term used throughout the novel as a description of people of mixed race like Janie.
Although this could be an over-simplification or over-analyzation, this scene comments not only on Joe Starks absurd right of control over Janie, but also the townspeople’s willingness to accept these circumstances. They, like the other buzzards, work off the rule of their social standards and ancient ways.
In reading this section, it seemed to me that the narrator was attempting, through the personification of the buzzards, to further extend the comical, yet disturbing nature of the way the humans in Eatonville dealt with the funeral of the mule. The townspeople parody their own rituals of saying goodbye to the dead through Starks' mock eulogy and Sam's talk of how the mule had passed on to a "better place"--a mule heaven where mule-angels rode on people next to fields of green corn and pastures of pure bran. When it is the buzzards' turn to go through their own rituals, there are visible similarities between the two groups.
The Parson of the buzzard group is easily comparable to Joe Starks' character, as each display a penchant for decorum (even mock decorum) and appear to have total command over the actions of those who surround them. Additionally, the members of each group (both human and buzzard) seem to adopt something of a mob mentality in their mockery of the dead mule and the ostentation surrounding the occasion. In this way, perhaps the narrator is suggesting the townsfolk are to be considered a little too animalistic in their pseudo-human funeral rituals, as their reactions to the dead mule are uncomfortably similar to those of the buzzards.
Hurston personifies the buzzards after the funeral ceremony of the mule to connect the animalistic behavior of the town to the ceremonial feeding on the mule that the buzzards commence in. The buzzards all gather around the mule just like the town people and await their leader to stand atop the mule and preach to them, just like the town’s people gathered around Joe Starks. The difference between the buzzards and the town’s people is that, while the buzzards were feeding on the literal body of the mule, the town’s people are feeding on the body as a way of coalescing into a single communal body. Hurston corrects herself at the beginning of this passage, saying first “the town escorted the carcass off” and then “No, the carcass moved off with the town.” The ceremony isn’t about the mule at all, but rather the town’s desire to have this collective action. Hurston describes Starks’ eulogy as making him “more solid than building on the school house had done.” The entire ceremony, and indeed the entire story of the mule, is a metaphor for how the town comes to be led, like animals, by the leadership of Joe Starks. Given the positive assertion of independence illustrated by Janie through the rest of the novel, Hurston is clearly contrasting to the behavior of the town to Janie, as Janie is the only want left behind in the town’s collective journey to the funeral ceremony.
The death of Matt Bonner’s mule has provided occasion for two separate meetings. One is with the townspeople, getting “mock-happy” about the afterlife for the creature and “mocking everything human in death.” The other meeting is in the sky, as the vultures ravenously and yet orderly await their next meal. This is an interesting juxtaposition between the human and animal as both are treated nearly equal by the author in the description of their actions and desire to utilize the mule’s death for personal gratification. This seems in line with Hurston’s intentions elsewhere in the novel as she creates somewhat of a power struggle, a relationship requiring man’s submission to nature and the natures of this world. This is not the only point in the novel at which the reckless and inimitable hand of nature knocks on the door of human life. The hurricane with its course of wanton destruction and the mad dog that bites Tea Cake serve to illustrate this elsewhere. Even Janie’s interaction with the Pear tree, feeling herself come alive sexually into womanhood, involves her continual transformation by the nature she observes with her eyes and feels commanding her soul.
On page 62 we get to hear a dialogue between the buzzards as they approach their feast. The most interesting aspect of this conversation is how they refer to Bonner’s mule as “a man” three times. To the vultures, to nature, perhaps even to the god of the novel, there is no difference. It seems Hurston is proposing a sort of equality between the buzzards and the townspeople through employing this literary device. The flock is subject to a “white headed” vulture who ceremoniously leads the hungry, anxious and submissive flock into their feast. Joe Starks, similarly “white” in his tendency to exhibit control through power and prestige, is also the leader of the funeral, providing the eulogy and making his reputation “more solid than when he built the schoolhouse.” The townspeople, just like the vultures to the mule, feast off of Janie with their gossip. Throughout the novel, we see Janie struggle against mankind’s nature, the natural order of the world and eventually the sickly overturned nature of Tea Cake. This scene’s funeral procession and natural consumption of the mule serve not only as a comedic aside; they carry much more serious undertones that shed light on a lifelong struggle-based relationship for Janie and the black community within Their Eyes Were Watching God.
When I first examined this selection, I was reminded of the sheep in Animal Farm, always needing a leader to blindly follow. The buzzards, and the townspeople, are no different than those sheep.
Hurston used the buzzards as a symbol and a reflection of the townspeople. The buzzards “closed in circles” around the mule just as the townspeople were standing moments before. The buzzards exclaimed in overzealous excitement at the demise of the mule as the humans had done.
I find it appropriate that Hurston symbolized the townspeople as buzzards. Just as the buzzards pick apart and relish in the death of the mule, the townspeople seem to relish in each other’s misfortunes. When Joe dies, the townspeople cannot help but gossip about what Janie will do with her life and then when she meets Teacake, they further prey on her. Hurstan used the buzzards to illustrate how the townspeople feed on each other in the town.
I really liked the inclusion of the mule saga in the novel. I feel that the majority of it conveyed a sense of rural culture and folk lore and the funeral part stayed in that vein. The earthy nature of the mule funeral is perhaps why Jody didn't allow Janie to participate. She's supposed to be above everyone and thus above such a country event. It was certainly over-the-top and campy (standing on the mule's body). It may seem strange to eulogize a mule, but why do we even eulogize each other? I think the frequent anthropomorphizing emphasizes death in a way as a great force of unification. Plus, it was a rather charming mule. The buzzards end the pageantry of the funeral by feasting on the mule and Hurston cannot resist projecting the identity of the townspeople onto the buzzards. The buzzards wait for their leader to arrive before starting in on the carcass. For me, the buzzard stuff just didn't work too well. It was just a step too far and I really wish Hurston had just let the buzzards eat the damn mule.
The tie-in between the reaction of the humans and the reaction of the buzzards was significant for racial reasons and also because it mirrored the town’s structure. I found it slightly more than coincidental that, while anticipating their turn to see the fallen mule, the buzzards are anxiously awaiting the arrival of their leader for the signal that permits them to do so. “The Parson” as they call him, receives notification of the ongoings of his flock and refuses to make his appearance until he is summoned. At his approach, the others “danced in joy” because of the dominating hand that he holds above them, as if the ceremony cannot commence until “The Parson” gives his blessing.
Race, especially Janie’s paler skin, has come to play a major role throughout the novel and Hurston doesn’t miss an opportunity to further enunciate how all aspects of society at that time seem to be affected. In waiting for the arrival of their “white-headed leader,” I considered the color of his head to play a large part into his status over the others, even though the physical appearance of the others is not described. He, like Jody, has features which makes him whiter than the others, a natural born leader. The contrast to The Parson is the object that the draws them together. It is the “yaller” mule who has died because of his “bare fat,” a symbol which starkly contrasts Jody’s portly belly and signifies his lower level in the hierarchy of the natural world.
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