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Music was a major form of expression during the Harlem Renaissance. What did you think about the music in Spunk? How did the music/lyrics make you feel? Choose one of the three stories in the play. If you could make your own soundtrack for that story, what songs would you choose? Why? Write a short essay explaining your choices.

In small groups, analyze the relationship between Sykes and Delia. What is Sykes side of the story? What is Delia’s? How are they strong? Weak? Now on your own, choose the voice of one of the characters to write a poem. Write a poem in either Sykes’ voice expressing the way he feels about Delia, or in Delia’s voice in the same manner.

After seeing Spunk, write a theatrical critique of the production. Pretend you are writing for a local newspaper. Describe three elements that stood out to you (maybe an actor’s performance, the set, the costumes, etc.). Why should or shouldn’t someone see this production?

Need more help? Check out our Young Critics Workshops! Have an Actors Theatre teaching artist visit your classroom to give your students the inside scoop on how to write a theatrical critique.

Students who have written a critique on an Actors Theatre production may submit their work to be posted on our website! To submit online, please send all critiques as email attachments to jjung@actorstheatre.org with the subject heading ‘Young Critics Contest.’ Please be sure to include your name, school, teacher, grade, and contact information.

Actors Theatre of Louisville g 316 West Main Street g Louisville, Kentucky 40202–4218 g USA

Box Office 502–584–1205 g Group Sales 502–585–1210 g Business Office 502–584–1265

ActorsTheatre.org

ABOUT THEPLAY GUIDEThis play guide is a standards-based resource designed to enhance your theatre experience. Its goal is twofold: to nuture the teaching and learning of theatre arts and to encourage essential questions that lead to enduring understandings of the play’s meaning and relevance. Inside you will find history/contextual information, vocabulary, and worksheets that lay the groundwork of the story and build anticipation for the performance. Oral discussion and writing prompts encourage your students to reflect upon their impressions and to analyze and relate key ideas to their personal experiences and the world around them. These can easily be adapted to fit most writing objectives. The Bridgework connects theatre elements with ideas for drama activities in the classroom as well as integrated curriculum. We encourage you to adapt and extend the material in any way to best fit the needs of your community of learners. Please feel free to make copies of this guide, or you may download it from our website: www.actorstheatre.org. We hope this material, combined with our pre-show workshops, will give you the tools to make your time at Actors Theatre a valuable learning experience.

Table of ContentsThe Spunk Study Guide includes:g Page 2: Synopsis of Talesg Page 3: Zora Neale Hurstong Page 4: George C. Wolfe: His Life in Theatreg Page 5: Folklore and Townfolk: Where did Hurston’s stories come from?g Page 6: The Harlem Renaissanceg Page 7: The Bluesg Page 8: Say What? The Language of Spunkg Page 9: Discussion and Themesg Page 10-11: Bridgeworkg Page 12: Writing for Publication

The Spunk matinee and Study Guide address specific KY Core Contentg AH-1.3.1: Students will identify the elements of drama.g AH-2.3.1: Students will analyze how time, place and ideas are reflected in drama/theatre.g AH-3.3.1: Students will explain how drama/theatre fulfills a variety of purposes.g AH-HS-3.1.1: Students will explain how music fulfills a variety of purposes. g AH-1.3.1: Students will analyze the use of technical elements, literary elements and performance elements.g SS-HS-2.1.1: Students will explain how belief systems, knowledge, technology and behavior patterns define cultures and help to explain historical perspectives.g SS-HS-4.2.2: Students will explain how physical and human character-istics of regions create advantages and disadvantages for human activi-ties in a specific place.g RD-5.0.2: Students will analyze the author’s use of literary devices.g RD-1.0.4: Students will interpret the meaning of jargon, dialect, or specialized vocabulary.

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding our play guides, please feel free to contact Katie Blackerby Weible, Director of Education, at (502) 584-1265 or kblackerby@actorstheatre.org.

Study Guide compiled by Stephanie Ong, Ganelle Holman, Charles Haugland and Katie Blackerby Weible.

Actors Theatre Education Department

Katie Blackerby Weible, Education Director

Jess Jung, Associate Education Director

Lee Look, New Voices Coordinator

Ganelle Holman, Education Intern

Stephanie Ong, Education Intern

SPUNKPLAY GUIDE

The Hearst Foundation, Inc.

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Sponsored By

Synopsis of TalesSweatCharacter List DeliA: married to Sykes

SYKeS: Delia’s unfaithful snake of a husband

BeRTHA: Sykes’ new girlfriend

BlueS SPeAK WomAn: narrates tales in the tone of the blues

GuiTAR mAn: narrator; signals when the tales begin and end

mAn one: member of the ensemble; narrates and transitions between two to three characters

mAn TWo: another member of the ensemble; narrates and transitions between two to three characters

SynopsisSweat is the first tale in George C. Wolfe’s bluesy adaptation of three Zora Neale Hurston short stories. The show opens in the middle of an abusive argument between Delia, a hardworking “amen-corner Christian,” and her husband Sykes, a lazy do-nothing who “ain’t wuth de shot an’ powder it would tek tuh kill ‘em.” Delia makes all the money, providing food and shelter for her and Sykes. Meanwhile he keeps company with Bertha, a newcomer in town who “don’t look lak a thing but a hunk uh liver wid hair on it.” When Delia married Sykes she was young and beautiful, with her lovely little house and a head full of dreams. Now her “cup done runneth ova.” Fights are a common occurrence in their marriage. Even the neighbors know that Sykes “done beat huh ‘nough tuh kill three women,” but this time he’s gone too far. Fully aware that Delia is terrified of snakes, Sykes brings a vicious rattler into their home. He’ll do anything to make Delia run away and keep the house for himself…anything except work! Will Sykes slither his way to victory, taking all of Delia’s possessions with him? Orwill her sweat keep the house afloat?

The Gilded Six BitsCharacter List

miSSie mAY: a young housewife

Joe: Missie’s husband

oTiS T. SlemmonS: a big-city business man from Chicago

SynopsisMissie May and her husband Joe have the ideal life. She minds the home while Joe works, and in return he buys gifts that delight her. When Joe takes Missie to Otis Slemmons’ Ice Cream Parlor, however, Otis takes an interest in Missie and uses his slick influence to seduce her. Will Joe be able to forgive her?

Story in Harlem SlangCharacter ListSlAnG TAlK mAn: narrator

JellY: a pimp; male prostitute

SWeeT BACK: one of Jelly’s colleagues

GiRl: young lady

Synopsis: You Dig?Story in Harlem Slang begins with a debonair man named Slang Talk Man, who is the narrator of the second tale in Hurston’s Spunk. Along with Blues Speak Woman, the two add various scats and underscoring to the Harlem world of Lenox Avenue in which two smooth-talking, imaginative pimps live. The first and the younger of the two to appear is Jelly. Jelly’s approach to the streets is “sugar-curing the ladies’ feelings” in order to secure a free meal. Shortly after Jelly is introduced Sweet Back enters,threatening Jelly’s territory. Although they appear to be old pals, their conversations involve challenging one another’s egos. When a young Girl is spotted making her way towards them, the battle really begins. Who will get the Girl and who will be left with a broken heart and an empty stomach?

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Create a Community The following terms form the foundation of Hurston’s work. Discuss the concepts and definitions:

Culture: Anything that human beings do that isn’t motivated solely by natural instinct. It includes creative and artistic expression, language development and use, and formulation of beliefs and values.Tradition: Meaningful cultural behavior (or lore) that is passed down within the same group of people (or folk) from generation to generation.Narrative: A story of any kind which almost always involves plot (sequence of events) and character.

After discussing, identify your own membership in folk groups. Loosely defined, a folk group is two or more people who share at least one common factor. You will find that you belong to many folk groups when you consider gender, age, race, class and interests. Divide into small groups according to height, clothing worn, or type of shoe. (Make sure each group is no more than 4 or 5). Each group makes a list of shared commonalities. These can be physical (hairstyle or eye color, etc.) as well as cultural (geography, religion, musical taste, childhood beliefs, traditions and customs). The group with the most commonalities wins!

CROSS-CURRICULAR CONNECTIONS

Social Studies 1887: Eatonville was an all-black, self-governing community. Its residents were able to live without fear of racial uprising or even cultural differences.

2007: In America’s “melting pot”, our focus is on an integrated society. Yet some cultures feel their traditions and beliefs are threatened by young people’s exposure to many different cultures. In response, some cultures are forming special clubs, classes or even schools in order to preserve and honor their heritage. In your opinion, is this a separation or merely an act of honoring ancestry? Have a class discussion and then write down your thoughts to use as a springboard for a transactive essay.

Language Arts/Literature

HARLEM RENAISSANCE and HIP-HOP POETRY*

Imagery: The use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person, a thing, a place, or an experience.

The Harlem Renaissance writers of the 1920s and 1930s included Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson and Claude McKay, among others. Their writing greatly influenced African-American writing that would come later, even the music of today. Both Hip-Hop and Rap find their roots in the music and words of this era. The following is a well-known poem by Langston Hughes.

Harlem: A Dream DeferredBy Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sunOr fester like a sore- -

And then run?Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over- -Like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sagslike a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

1. Note how Hughes uses imagery for all five senses in his poem.

• Sight: Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun• Taste: Or crust and sugar over-Like a syrupy sweet?• Touch: Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.• Smell: Does it stink like rotten meat?• Sound: Or does it explode?

2. Each image represents something that was once useful or productive but, having been left alone for too long, (i.e., like a dream deferred), becomes useless, decayed and possibly even self-destructive. How does the imagery answer the question put forth by Hughes in line one, “What happens to a dream deferred?”

3. What is the unspoken message Hughes is telling the readers about going after their own dreams?

4. Pick your favorite hip-hop song (for example, Juicy by Notorious B.I.G.) and identify the imagery (sight, taste, touch, smell, and sound) the artist uses to put forth his or her message.(* Source - Hip Hop Poetry and the Classics in the Classroom, by Alan Sitomer)

YOUR STORYAllow Hurston’s ability to write about her childhood home inspire you to write about yours. What is a significant memory of a time or place in your past? Write a reflective piece, describing an event in detail. What was this event’s effect on you? How were you changed? Be sure to use imagery, metaphor, simile, and any other literary device you might choose. When your story is fin-ished, adapt it into a short scene, focusing on the literary elements of character, dialogue and monologue.

Anyway, the force from somewhere in space which commands you to write in the first place, gives you no choice.

You take up the pen when you are told, and write what is commanded. There is no agony like bearing an untold

story inside you.– Zora Neale Hurston

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BRIDGEWORK: Building Connections between Stage and Classroom

The following exercises combine creative drama, theatre concepts and core content to connect the theatre experience with drama activities in your classroom. By exploring drama as a mode of learning, students strengthen skills for creative problem solving, imagination and critical thinking.

Core Content Connection - The activities are designed using the Elements of Drama: Literary, Technical and Performance. (CoreContent 4.1)

AT YOUR DESK Activities

Where I’m From…Zora Neal Hurston based most of her writing on her own childhood environment. Think of where you come from. Brainstorm a list of sensory images that describe your environment. (ex. – long dirt roads, green beans cooked on the stove all day, children shrieking while running through the sprinkler on hot summer nights, etc). Next, make a list of phrases that you have heard or spoken yourself often. (ex. – “Not in this house”, “Remember who you are”, “Sit up straight”, “Pipe down”, “Give it your best”, etc.).After your lists are complete, arrange the images and phrases any way you wish. Begin your poem with “I Come From…” and fill in. You may repeat the phrase “I Come From” many times within the poem. (For more informa-tion, see George Ella Lyon’s Where I’m From.)

Create a Sound DesignThe technical element of sound creates mood and places us in a specific time and place. Assume the role of sound designer for your own contemporary production of Spunk. Think of the themes of each story in the play. What popular music would you choose to put in your production that reflects the main ideas and characters? What sound effects would be in a contemporary version of the play? Compile a list of both sound effects and music that you would use.

School BluesHave a brainstorming session to answer the question, “What do you dislike about school?” Write the answers on the board. Use the answers to write a short blues song in AAB structure.

I woke up too early, don’t want to spend time reading books. AI woke up too early, don’t want to spend time reading books. A

Better get it together, my teacher keeps giving me looks. B

Take turns singing/reading your song aloud, while the rest of the class echoes each line in the call-and-response model.

ON YOUR FEET Activities

Warm-upsProblems and Fix-Its• When playwrights develop scripts, they create obstacles for each character. The character’s goal is to find a way to overcome obstacles. Divide into four groups, each group in one corner of the room. Each group imagines one large object (possibly a car or piano) and pantomime moving that object to the other side of the room, avoiding the other groups along the way. After all four groups have made it to the opposite corner, reveal to the class your group’s object and what tactics the group used to successfully move it. • Divide into groups of the three or four students. Each group imagines one small object (a ring or watch, for example). Devise (in pantomime) three tools to fix the object. The first two tools fail, but the third one succeeds.

Atmosphere and GestureAtmosphere is intangible, but palpable. Create a large enough space that all students can walk freely around the classroom. Creating an atmosphere is kind of like walking through a dense fog. While you are walking, a leader will call out a theme word that creates an atmosphere: exhaustion, celebration, hunger, and friendship are all appropriate themes for Spunk. Each time a word is called, you are to embody each atmosphere, possibly changing your physicality each time. Now find a gesture that is appropriate for each atmosphere. Repeated gestures and text can be added to develop a scene, or you may read dialogue from Spunk.

Storytelling/Oral TraditionThe use of storytelling is a form of oral tradition, the verbal passing down of information from one generation to the next. Think of a story, game or song that has been passed around in your family. Maybe it came from a grandparent or distant relative. It may be real or fictitious. Try to remember the details (or make them up if you cannot). In small groups, sit in a circle and share with the rest of the members of your circle.

Improvisation/TableauxTake the stories that were shared in the above exercise. Each group chooses one story that was shared. Have the primary storyteller tell the story as the rest of the group dramatizes the story, creating tableaux (still images) that represent parts of the story.

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Zora Neale Hurston was born in the all-black rural town of Eatonville, Florida. Hurston was known to list her birthday as January 7, 1901 or even 1903. However, scholars have speculated her birth year was actually 1891. Hurston started her academic career at Morgan Academy in Baltimore before attending Howard University in 1918. There she was featured in the school’s literary magazine, Stylus. In the club’s second issue, two of her pieces were published: “John Reading Goes to Sea” and her poem “O Night”. Hurston’s popularity quickly grew when Charles S. Johnson, editor of Opportunity Magazine, wrote to congratulate Hurston on an impressive story and to request more material for his magazine. Hurston’s second story, “Drenched in Light”, was then published in another issue of Opportunity. Two other works, “Spunk” and “Color Stuck”, gained recognition winning second place in the magazine’s literary contest. “Spunk” was later published in the June issue of the magazine. During Zora Neale Hurston’s rise to the top of the literary world, she transferred out of Howard University to attend Barnard College on scholarship. There she received her B.A. in anthropology and worked with famed anthropologists Ruth Benedict, Franz Boaz and Margaret Mead. In 1925, while in New York, Hurston joined forces with Wallace Thurman and Langston Hughes to produce an avant-garde journal called Fire!! This collaboration secured Hurston’s name in the Harlem Renaissance movement of the 20’s and 30’s. Fire!!, however, ended up publishing only one issue. That November 1926 issue included Hurston’s “Sweat”. Hurston also worked with Hughes on Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life. Another collaboration which helped place Hurston on the map was her teamwork with anthropologist Franz Boaz. Boaz arranged for Hurston to travel throughout the South to gather folklore. Hurston’s travels resulted in the first folklore book by a black American: The Mules and Men contains seventy folktales that not only tell the stories of slaves and hardship, but of female empowerment, which is what Hurston most liked to highlight.

ZORA NEALE HURSTON

Among Hurston’s other acclaimed works were Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), which she wrote while spending seven weeks in Haiti, Man of the Mountain (1939), and her autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road which won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Race Relations in 1942. Zora spent the last ten years of her life as a freelance writer for newspapers and magazines. She managed to keep writing short stories, essays and even worked as a substitute teacher up until close to her death on January 28, 1960.

“Hurston’s travel resulted in the first folklore book by a black American. The Mule and Men contains seventy folktales that not only tell the stories of slaves and harship, but

of female empowerment, which is what Hurston most liked to highlight.”

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Born in 1954, he loved theatre from an early age. He has memories of the stage from the age of six, but he wasn’t always sure of his place in it. His desire to act stemmed from his impression that actors “made a lot of money,” but by instinct, he was more interested in telling stories. “I was always creating scenarios, creating plays with my friends,” Wolfe says, “I was obsessed with theatre.” When Wolfe was thirteen, he traveled to New York City with his mother, seeing a revival of West Side Story that crystallized everything for him. He realized for the first time the wealth of different careers in theatre. He remembers saying, “People can actually make a living doing this!” It’s a moment he marks as the turning point in knowing what his career would be. Following his instinct, he went to college for theatre both here in Kentucky and then in California. Writing was his first arena of success. His two most famous plays are The Colored Museum—a play that satirizes stereotypes of African Americans—and Spunk. In his directing career, he has headed up landmark productions such as Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, which chronicles a series of riots that took place in that year, and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America.

George C. Wolfe: His Life in TheatreWhen George C. Wolfe was growing up in Frankfort, Kentucky, he wanted to be an actor more than anything. Four decades later, he does everything else, renowned as a director, a producer and a playwright.

Following this series of successes on Broadway, Wolfe was invited to be the producer for the Public Theater, a New York theatre with a tremendous reputation. As producer, Wolfe would pick the plays for the season and assemble teams of artists he felt could best execute them. This position excited Wolfe because his work was important not only in terms of money—a problem he had encountered working on Broadway. About the Public, he has praised that “everybody was involved because they wanted to do it, and there wasn’t a $5 million budget hanging over their heads.” Because of this freedom, Wolfe used his position to make the careers of many younger playwrights and directors possible. Just recently, Wolfe stepped down as producer, and is now focused on directing for film and television. Developing a project with rapper Kanye West, he continues to be at the forefront of the arts in America. He hasn’t stopped writing, though, as he has been commissioned, or hired, to create a specific work by Actors Theatre of Louisville to write an original play. It will be produced at the 2009 Humana Festival of New American Plays!

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DISCUSSION AND THEMESBefore you enter the theatre, try to picture the world of Spunk. Think about the tales of Zora Neale Hurston. What kind of set do you expect to see? What style and colors? What do you think the costumes will look like? What elements of drama do you think will set the mood? How?

How is seeing a play different from seeing a movie? As an audience member, what types of things do you need to keep in mind when going to see a live performance?

PRE-SHOW QUESTIONS:

POST-SHOW QUESTIONS:

The dialects in Spunk differ in all three pieces, yet the show maintains unity. What are some commonalties in the way the characters speak? What are their differ-ences?

As with spirituals in the South, down-home humor and blues irony provided a strategy for survival and self-assertion for newly freed African-Americans. Consider Spunk as the author’s attempt to celebrate the musical culture of African-Americans. What role does the blues play in Spunk? Who do Blues Speak Woman and Guitar Man represent?

An easily recognizable stereotype of our time is the rapping “thug,” who lives off the earnings of women, is violent, and moves from job to job lacking commitment and loyalty. Compare this contemporary version of the struggling thug with men of times past, like Sykes, Jelly, Sweetback, and Slemmons. Do you know anyone who fits this description? Why are these men compelled to avoid work?

What are some modern day examples of the storefront porch like the one in Sweat, where gossip circulates and wisdom is passed?

How do Hurston’s stories demonstrate the complexity of the lives of common folks and the richness of their folk culture? If you could paint a similar portrait of where you come from, how would you hope it would be perceived by your reader?

Work takes precedent over education for the characters in Spunk. How might their lives have been different if they had been given the opportunity to attend school? How might yours be different if you weren’t?

Themes: work, marriage, violence, fidelity, religion, race, poverty

Symbols: snake, laundry, money, “the git,” storefront porch, gold, Blues Speak Woman, Guitar Man

Motifs:

dialect, narration, flirtation, the ensemble

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The language of African Americans was an element Zora Neale Hurston wanted to carry throughout her stories. The three stories each have very distinct language, but all three tales evolve from what is known as African American Vernacular English (AAVE). AAVE is comprised of a variety of dialects of English, particularly American English. AAVE can also be referred to as Black English, African American English, and Ebonics. The origins of AAVE are still questionable. There is, however, a strong relationship between Ebonics and Southern American English. AAVE is also connected to South African and Creole languages. It is said the AAVE started with various slave creoles. Due to the selling and trading of slaves during the trans-Atlantic slave trade (1450-1750), African languages were mixed with various other African languages and also with the traders’ speech as well. In the two tales “Sweat” and “The Gilded Six-Bits”, the language includes a number of distinct grammatical features: phonology, or the sound of a language; aspect marking, or the lack or use of the word “be” or “to be” in a phrase; the omission of the final consonant, often using an apostrophe in its place; and double negatives.

Examples:-Phonology: I=AH My=Mah

That=Dat

-Aspect Marking:

That’s how come Ah done it= That’s why I did it.

Well, Ah’m glad you does hate me= Well, I’m glad you do hate me

-Omission of the final consonant: missin’, lookin’, pas’ (past)

-Double negative:

There’s not nothin’ we can do.

Say What? THE LANgUAgE Of SpUNk“The three stories each have very distinct language, but all three tales evolve from what is known as African American Vernacular English (AAVE).”

SweatDeliA: Sykes! Sykes!, mah Gawd! You take day rattlesnake ‘way from heah! You gottuh. Oh Jesus, have mussy!SYKeS: Ah ain’t got tuh do nuthin’ uh de kin’- fact is Ah ain’t got tuh do nuthin’ but die.

The phonology of these phrases can be seen and heard in the substitution of the “o” in to and nothing. What else do you hear? Are there aspect markings in this line?What words leave out the final consonant?

The Gilded Six-BitsmiSSie: Do Jesus, AH ain’t knowed nothing’ ‘bout it. Who de man done it?

moTHeR: Who, dat gal? She strong as a ox. She gointer have planty mo’. We done fixed her wid sugar and lard to sweeten her for de nex’ one.

Where are the double negatives in the lines?Circle all the missing ending consonants.What else do you see or hear differently in the lines?

Story in Harlem SlangThe language in “Story in Harlem Slang” has a few of the same grammatical features of “Sweat” and “The Gilded Six-Bits”, such as the omission of ending consonants and phonology. However, the heavy use of slang sets this story apart from the other two. Some examples of slang used in the story are: jump salty= get afraid frail eel= pretty girl dig= understand Russian= a Southern Negro up North. “Rushed up here,” hence, a Russian.

GiRl: How much split you want back here? If your feets don’t hurry and carry you ‘way from here, you’ll ride away. I’ll spread my lungs all over New York and call the law. Go ahead. Touch me! Bedbug! I’ll holler like a pretty white woman!

Translation:How far up do you want me to rip you jacket? If you don’t hurry up and get away from me, you’ll ride away (in a cop car). I’ll yell so loud that it will attract the police. Go ahead. Touch me! Pest! I’ll yell like a pretty white women!

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Folklore and Townfolk: Where did Hurston’s stories come from?

Throughout her career, Zora Neale Hurston tried to balance her love of writing with her deep interest in anthropology, or the study of another culture’s human customs and social interactions. Using her college degree in this field, Hurston would travel both to her childhood home of Eatonville, Florida and around the South, collecting the folktales and songs of African Americans. Eatonville became a mythic backdrop for Hurston’s work, and in Spunk is the literal setting for both “Sweat” and “The Gilded Six-Bits.” Hurston felt a deep connection to the place she was born and raised, in part due to its cultural significance. Eatonville holds a unique place in American history as the first incorporated black-settled and black-governed town. Started in 1887, the town was still in its infancy when Hurston was born. The characters of the town show up throughout Hurston’s stories. Though it may seem like Joe Clarke is just another character, he was actually the real town marshal for Eatonville, and often is credited as its founder. He had a porch much like in the story that was infamous as a gossip spot. “Men sat around the store on boxes and benches,” Hurston wrote in her autobiography, “There were no discreet nuances of life on Joe Clarke’s porch. There was open kindnesses, anger, hate, love, envy, and its kinfolks. This was the spirit of that whole part of the state.” In “Sweat,” look for the men sitting and chewing sugar cane on Joe Clarke’s porch to compare.

However, Hurston isn’t always so literal in her sources. In the three stories chosen for Spunk, Hurston strikes a balance between her fictionalized past and folklore. Like the folk stories she collected, she uses many symbols and images throughout her work, often snakes. To Southerners, snakes were both despised as lowly, ground-dwelling creatures and respected for their serious, sometimes fatal bite. In “Sweat,” Sykes torments his wife, Delia, with a rattlesnake. Is this snake a devil that is a reflection of Sykes’ evil or an emancipator that can set Delia free? Readers and audiences have seen this unique blend of symbolism and folk mysticism elsewhere. At one point in the same story, Delia walks to a Chinaberry tree—a tree famous for its ability to survive droughts and known for its knotted appearance. Perhaps these qualities will remind you of a certain character. Look for these symbols, among others, like Otis Slemmons’ “gold” coins, as you watch. Hurston’s research into folk belief contributed to the range of images she drew on for her writing. Hurston called folklore the “boiled down juice of human living,” echoing how her work distills and purifies everyday life in the South. Rooted in her familial history and the stories she collected as an anthropologist, Hurston’s tales evoke the rhythms and texture of early twentieth-century life for African Americans.

“Hurston would travel both to her childhood home of Eatonville, Florida and around the South collecting the folktales and songs of African Americans.”

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The blues were born in the North Mississippi Delta at the intersection of Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Louisiana in the years following the Civil War. Influenced by field hollers, ballads, and church hymns, the blues evolved into music for a singer who would engage in call-and-response with his guitar. He would sing a line, and his guitar would answer. One legend went that if an aspiring bluesman waited by the side of a deserted country crossroads in the dark of a moonless night, then Satan himself might come and tune his guitar, sealing a pact for the bluesman’s soul and guaranteeing a lifetime of easy money, women, and fame. For many years the blues were recorded only by memory, and only relayed live and in person. With its 12-bar, bent-note melody, the blues became the anthem of the African- American race, much like Negro Spirituals had during slavery, bonding the race together with cries of victimization. Bad luck and trouble are always present in the blues, pressing upon unfortunate and downtrodden souls, both black and white, who yearn to be free from life’s troubles. From the crossroads of Highways 61 and 49, the blues headed north to Beale Street in Memphis, where its form was first popularized. Many of Memphis’ best blues artists left the city when mayor “Boss” Crump shut down Beale Street in an attempt to stop prostitution, gambling, and drug trades. The blues migrated to Chicago, where it became electrified. The year 1920 marked the beginning of the blues recording craze and the Jazz Age of flappers and speakeasies. Mamie Smith recorded the first vocal blues song, “Crazy Blues,” in that year.

The Blues

Classic blues singers like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey retained much of the Delta’s country blues in their 12-bar, 3-line structure, and in their rough-voiced moans, slurs, and blue notes. The blues have strongly influenced almost all popular music including country and rock and roll. BB King, a regular on Beale Street, invented the lead guitarist now standard in today’s rock bands. Blues-based bands like the Rolling Stones, Cream, and Fleetwood Mac expanded blues to young Caucasians, creating a marketable audience for guitarists such as Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix who used the blues as a foundation for offshoot styles. Spunk too, with its 3-story structure and call-and-response narration, is told in the tone of the blues.

Field Hollers: Similar to spirituals, field hollers fol-lowed the call-and-response model. One of the more respected field hands would lead the workers in a song, while others responded in sync with the rhythmic tone of the call, determined by the tempo of the work. This is a theme seen often in the lyrics of blues songs. Blues incorporated the rhythmic patterns of field hollers to form its unique sound.

Ballads: Ballads are narrative poems set to music, a story told in a song. Any story may be told as a ballad, such as personal memories or fairy tales in verse form. A ballad usually has simple repeating rhymes, often with a refrain.

Church Hymns: A church hymn is a song specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to God.

By the time World War I broke out in 1914, thousands of ex-slaves had migrated north to develop African American communities. Industry was booming, and America’s immigration laws were cracking down on the number of European immigrants allowed to enter the country. African Americans saw the opportunity for work at wages much higher than they were used to, packed up their belongings, and moved up North. From the Deep South they rode train lines to Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, and New York. Harlem, New York was full of impoverished African Americans searching for employment in an area that was quickly becoming overpopulated. This unlikely ‘hood served as the backdrop to a remarkable artistic explosion known as the Harlem Renaissance. Clubs were hopping as glistening, gilded Caucasian youth flocked uptown in search of music, drink, and hedonism that they viewed as distinctively African American. International artists like Picasso turned to African culture for inspiration in their work, and ignited public interests in the experiences of African Americans. Kitchen maids like Zora Neale Hurston, a graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C., were now of particular interest to wealthy patrons who took a strong and sudden liking to artists of such “primitive background.” Widows of prominent New York physicians and psychologists, for example, would spend their life’s work seeing to the survival of the history of African Americans.

Now a fairly well-funded and flourishing center for the arts, Harlem spawned Zora Neale Hurston’s writing career. She met other artists such as Langston Hughes, a former bus boy and college graduate who, like Hurston, scored a wealthy patron of the arts. Hurston was employed at $200 a month to gather folk tales and history of the African-American south.

This hunt for folklore led Zora back to her hometown in the swamps of Florida, where she collected characters for the majority of her most famous works, including the three short stories that make up Spunk. Some intellectual African Americans of the era criticized the stories Hurston wrote during the Harlem Renaissance because, as her homeboy Langston Hughes put it, “she did not write fiction in the protest tradition.” Instead, Hurston focused on what she knew of the southern black existence and tried to create characters and storylines that truly reflected black life. Hurston had “been in sorrow’s kitchen and licked out all the pots. [She had] stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and sword in [her] hands,” and she intended to portray life with as much irony and complexity as she had experienced it. The Harlem Renaissance, like most of 1920s culture, flickered and died with the 1929 stock market crash. Langston Hughes would later dismiss the Harlem Renaissance as lightweight and faddish, a hiccup of a trend that failed at lifting African-American artists to their full potential. There is no question, however, that the Harlem Renaissance laid the foundation for Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, and other impor-tant African American writers to come.

The Harlem Renaissance

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Black Dialects & Reading by Bernice C. Cullinan, 1974

Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to the Amen Corner by Geneva Smitherson, 1994

Dictionary of Afro-American Slang by Clarence Major, 1970

Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston, 1980

Harlem’s Glory: Black Women Writing, 1900-1950 by Lorraine Elena Roses, 1996

Hip: the History by John Leland, 2004

Juba to Jive: a Dictionary of African American Slang by Clarence Major, 1994

Major Black American Writers through the Harlem Renaissance by Harold Bloom, 1995

Speak, so you can speak again by Lucy Hurston, 2004

Women of the Harlem Renaissance by Cheryl A. Wall, 1995

Zora Neale Hurston: a literary biography by Robert Hemenway, 1995

SPUNK FURTHER READING

“Clubs were hopping as glistening, gilded Caucasian youth flocked uptown in search of music, drink and hedonism that they viewed as distinctively African American.”