Spunk

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1925

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Assessing Bravery and Masculinity

Throughout the text, the characters present bravery as an admirable and typically masculine quality, though they offer differing conceptions of it. Elijah evaluates or identifies bravery primarily in terms of demeanor. To him, Spunk is brave because he takes what he wants without showing any signs of fear or weakness; Joe, on the other hand, is not brave because he hesitates and displays his anxiety openly. The narrative exposes the limitation of Elijah’s understanding when he underestimates Joe’s bravery, based on his assumption that Joe will not attack Spunk, and overestimates Spunk’s bravery, which is exposed as empty bravado. Since Elijah bases his conception of bravery primarily on appearances, it leaves him susceptible to deception.

Spunk offers a second interpretation. To him, bravery consists of following an unwritten, even chivalric, code, including a rule that opponents should fight each other face to face and in the open. Though Spunk never defines the full terms of the code, he does accuse Joe of violating it, exhibiting his cowardice, when Joe sneaks up on Spunk in the woods. Moments before his death, Spunk reiterates his accusation, saying, “It was Joe, ‘Lige—the dirty sneak shoved me…he didn’t dare to come to mah face” (61). From Joe’s perspective, however, sneaking up on Spunk is an attempt to compensate for other inadequacies between them, including size, strength, and weaponry. By using all the resources available to him, including the element of surprise, Joe shows that he will “go after anything he wanted” with zeal (57), a trait Elijah initially admires in Spunk, and a kind of bravery itself. Spunk’s conception of courage is undercut by Spunk’s pitiful demise: As Spunk sputters angrily in the moments before his death, his spiteful language reveals that his code was not based on dignity or honor; rather, it was a selfish means to maximize his chances of winning against smaller, weaker opponents like Joe.

Walter offers a third way of assessing bravery. In his view, the bravest person is not the one who shows the least fear but who acts despite great fear. By this measure, frightened, nervous Joe clearly outperforms Spunk. Walter’s interpretation reveals its superiority both in its predictive power (he identifies Joe as braver than Spunk even before Spunk’s suspicious death) and in its usefulness, since it allows an everyman like Joe to become a hero, instead of looking for a ready-made hero like Spunk. By offering readers a new understanding of bravery, Hurston invites them to re-evaluate not just that quality but all the superficial judgments they make either in worshipping someone as a hero or dismissing someone as insignificant, especially when it comes to performing social roles such as, in this case, that of a man.

The Status of Women in a Patriarchal Society

Spunk and Joe compete for Lena’s affections and for the right to possess or dominate her in accordance with the social norms of a patriarchal society. When Joe announces his intentions in the store, he refers to Lena as a passive piece of property to be reclaimed: “Ah’m goin’ an’ fetch her back,” he tells Elijah (56). Elijah recalls that Spunk uses similar language when Joe confronts him and Lena: After saying that Lena “was his,” Spunk invites Joe to test her loyalty by calling to her. “A woman knows her boss and she answers when he calls,” he explains (57). Joe then calls to Lena, weaponizing their marriage to pressure her into leaving Spunk, asking, “Lena, ain’t I yo’ husband?” (57). Following Lena’s dismissal of Joe, Spunk takes her arm and lays out the terms of their relationship without any input from Lena. Only once does she contradict Spunk, when she reminds him that she owns her house, which is a gift from her father (who, incidentally, is another participant in the patriarchal system). Her comment earns her a patronizing response from Spunk: “Well,” he responds, “doan give up whut’s yours, but when youse inside don’t forgit youse mine” (58). The implication is clear: a woman’s ownership of things is secondary and subject to a man’s ownership of her.

While Lena apparently happily complies with Spunk’s demands, it’s important to note that other characters present and interpret her actions, leaving readers to wonder at her true feelings. It’s Elijah who tells readers the tears in her eyes are a sign of love for Spunk, but they could easily be tears of fear or even sadness. The narration itself follows this trend by focusing on Spunk’s view of Lena, rather than her thoughts directly, when he leaves the store to go “where he knew his love wept in fear for him” (59). Though we have no reason to believe Lena’s crying at Spunk’s funeral represents anything but authentic grief, Lena never fully reveals the nuances of her thoughts and behavior. This stifling of Lena’s voice becomes a symbol of the way that women are consigned to second-class status in societies like the one depicted here.

Belief, Perception, and Storytelling

“Spunk” can be read in two ways: at face value as a revenge story featuring a ghost or as a demonstration of the way that superstition interacts with perception and moral beliefs. The latter reading assumes that no actual supernatural phenomena take place; rather, the characters project their fears and beliefs onto the world around them.

The first mention of supernatural activity comes with the appearance of what Spunk takes to be a black bobcat. In telling the story, Elijah stresses the bobcat’s coloration as proof that it is a manifestation of Joe’s spirit, and Walter accepts the explanation. However, the bobcat appears at night, which means Spunk may not have seen it clearly and therefore either mistaken its color or else confused it with a different animal. Furthermore, darkly colored melanistic bobcats, while extremely rare, do exist. The story’s subsequent spiritual phenomena are equally inconclusive. Spunk grows alarmed at work when he sees the saw wobbling and claims that someone pushed him toward it. Later, he sustains fatal injuries after falling onto the saw, and he tells Elijah that Joe is responsible. However, it’s possible that Spunk simply fell or leaned too close to the saw and died without any outside interference, as did Tes’ Miller, his predecessor in the job.

The choice to interpret the story’s spiritual phenomena as literal or imagined has thematic implications. If Spunk only imagines the bobcat to be a manifestation of Joe’s vengeful spirit, then his unbalanced state of mind most likely arises from a guilty conscience. His guilt then feeds into anxiety, which saps his focus at work and leads to his death. Walter then converts the story of his death into a kind of moralistic tale. This interpretation reveals the power of a shared belief system to reinforce itself and to wear down those who, like Spunk, strain against it. Conversely, interpreting the supernatural events in the story at face value implies the existence of a different kind of world, one where poetic or even cosmic justice and karma eventually claim those who commit crimes, even if the law does not. Of course, the two interpretations are not mutually exclusive. Spunk could feel guilty even if the bobcat is Joe’s spirit. By leaving the story open ended, Hurston turns a mirror on readers, whose interpretive decisions likely reveal more about themselves than they do about the text. “Spunk” thus becomes an unlikely meditation on the ways that events morph into stories, and stories reinforce or challenge values and beliefs.