Spunk by Zora Neale Hurston

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Spunk is a short story written by Zora Neale Hurston. It tells of a supernatural story of African-American folk life. It is a story about a difference between two men over a woman. The woman in question was married to Joe Kanty but was adulterating with the town bully known as Spunk. Spink was feared by the people including Joe but he got the courage of confronting him despite his bully character. Spunk killed him in the confrontation but later on in the story, Joe comes back to haunt Spunk which resulted to his death. The story is about a conflict between Joe Kanty and Spunk Banks over Lena who was Joe’s wife. The story progresses into a revenge whereby Spunk is killed by an evil spirit which he belies to be Joe. However, superstition plays a very important role in Hurston’s tale as Spunk claim that he is haunted by Joe Kanty’s ghost.
Just like Hurston’s other stories, Spunk deals with the nature of marriage and the struggle between a strong man and a weak man. The setting of the story is in a rural all-black southern town whereby the people of the town speak in Southern African American dialect. Hurston wanted the reader to understand the kind of marriages blacks have and how adultery is apparent in the marriages. The themes in Spunk reflect the lives of the people in the South at the time the short story was written. Masculinity and power are common in the short story as Zora Hurston uses different literary devices for the reader to be able to analyze these themes in the story. Spunk and Lena are having an affair and they are not afraid to parade it for the town people to see them. In addition, Lena is ready to Marry Spunk even after he kills her husband Joe.
Hurston in her short story Spunk, she combines elements of the su...

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... his Adam’s apple twitching nervously up and down his throat. One could actually see the pain he was suffering, his eyes, his face, his hands, and even the dejected slump of his shoulders” (Hurston). This description of Joe Kanty while Spunk took away his wife tells the reader how painful it is for one to lose a wife. These things happen in the society and are unknown and Hurston used her writing skills to make them known to his readers.

Works Cited

Hurston, Zora Neale. Spunk: The Selected Stories of Zora Neale Hurston. Berkeley, CA: Turtle Island Foundation, 1985. Print. 106 pages
Hurston, Zora Neale and Wolfe, George C. Spunk: Three Tales by Zora Neale Hurston
New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1991. Print.
Bily, Cynthia. Overview of “Spunk,” for Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 1999. Short Stories for Students. Gale. Web. 21 Jan. 2010.

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