Matt Bonner's Mule

Will Landschulz
Am Lit Per. 2
Mrs. LaMagdeleine

Poor Matt.  His mule just won't give him as much as a "howdy do."  And when it does, it raises hell and runs off.  As such, it is a matter of much hilarity among the settlers of Eatonville, much to Matt's chagrin.  The whole debacle with Matt's mule comes to a head when it (on one of its madcap escapes) happens to wander in front of the store, where the majority of the other villagers, as well as Janie and Joe, are watching.  The others start tackling the mule, first capturing it, then teasing it.  Janie is disgusted by the way they carry on about the mule and goes into the shop.  Joe thinks that it is great fun at first, but he, too gets tired of it and ends up buying the mule from Matt so he could free it.  But all this is setup for the "reveal" that comes when Janie makes an impromptu speech likening Joe, with his power and his freeing the donkey, to Abraham Lincoln, with his power and his choice to free the slaves.  As she puts it, (translated from dialect) "you have the power to free things so that makes you like a king."  This is beneficial to Starks' public image, but it flies in the face of another statement given by Starks in the previous chapter: "My wife doesn't make speeches."  Here, she shows that she can make speeches, if given the time and opportunity to speak her mind.  In fact, many of the constraints of Jody's on Janie have to do with censorship.  For example, Janie cannot talk to the "gum-grease" that frequent the porch of the shop, Janie must have her hair tied up in the shop at all times, Janie doesn't make speeches, Janie shouldn't go to the Donkey's funeral with all the muck.  This last edict is a matter of much resentment for Janie, as Jody's efforts to keep her higher than the rest only serve to isolate her.  It's quite lonely at the top, as she quickly discovers.  She argues with Jody a couple times, which degenerate into struggles over her autonomy and finally culminate when Jody slaps Janie for messing up a meal.  After he storms out, she realizes that he was nothing like her dreams made him, just something like a clothes-rack that she used only to get away from Logan Killicks.  She gave him all this power, and then she bowed down, and later she bowed down because he had that power from their marriage.  She only now realizes the thing she staked her hopes on didn't live up to its promise.