The Mule-Bone

Zora Neale HurstonProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.0

Word count: 80K words
Chapters: 8

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Mule-Bone: by Langston Hughes and Zora Neale HurstonAuthor: Hurston, Zora Neale, 1891-1960,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Oct 2, 2006

Editor's review

The Mule-Bone is a three-act comedy co-written by Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, a play of the Harlem Renaissance; Project Gutenberg offers the public-domain English eBook edition. Set in a Black community in the American South, the script revolves around a dispute over the ownership of a mule, turning an everyday quarrel into a stage comedy full of dialect, folk songs, and folk wisdom. Its value lies in two things: first, it preserves a vivid sample of early twentieth-century Southern Black English and oral tradition; second, it documents the literary-historical fact of two major writers collaborating and then falling out. For Chinese readers, it works better as an entry point to the dramatic landscape and folk humor of the Harlem Renaissance than as a modern play with an intricate plot; the main difficulties in reading are dialect spelling and cultural background. It is best approached by "listening for the voice" rather than "puzzling over every word"; reading aloud or using audio helps convey the comic rhythm.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in the Harlem Renaissance and African American literature
Language enthusiasts studying Southern American folk speech and dialect writing
Student groups needing a public-domain English play script for classroom reading or staged performance
Literary-history readers wanting to understand the background of Hurston and Hughes's collaboration

Not a good fit for

English beginners who want a Chinese translation or sentence-by-sentence annotations
General play readers who prefer tight plotting and standard-English dialogue
Readers impatient with heavy dialect spelling who need to grasp the plot quickly

Reading tips

Read the character list and scene descriptions first, sort out the relationships, then go into the dialogue.
For dialect passages, read them aloud first and understand by sound rather than spelling.
Treat the three acts as units of comic rhythm; after each act, retell how the conflict develops.
Read alongside background material on the Harlem Renaissance to understand where the folk humor lies.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is the play written in standard English?

No. The play makes heavy use of Southern Black English dialect spelling and colloquial expression, which is an important feature of the work and also a reading difficulty. It is best understood by pronunciation rather than by matching each word to standard spelling.

What is the play mainly about?

It revolves around an interpersonal dispute triggered by the ownership of a mule, presenting in comic form the everyday relationships, face, and folk wisdom of a Southern Black community, with the conflict concentrated within three acts.

Why are there two authors?

The play was co-written by Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, a notable collaboration of the Harlem Renaissance; their collaboration and later falling-out are also a topic in literary history.

Is it suitable for dramatic reading?

Fairly suitable. The cast is limited, the dialogue lively, and the scenes uncomplicated, making it good for small-scale readings; but the dialect pronunciations need to be worked out in advance and the basic cultural background understood, or the humor will not land.

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About the author

Zora Neale Hurston Author · American · 1891–1960

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) was an American novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist, and one of the representative writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Born in Alabama and raised in Eatonville, Florida, she devoted herself to documenting the folk culture of Black communities in the American South, a concern that runs through her writing as well. Four of her works are included here—Three Plays, The Mule-Bone:, De Turkey and De Law, and Poker!—most of them plays, reflecting her attention to Black dialect, folktales, and everyday life. Her best-known works include Their Eyes Were Watching God and Mules and Men. Her writing, distinguished by vivid spoken language and folkloric color, has had a lasting influence on later African American literature.