Chapter 6 of Their Eyes Were Watching God starts with another day in Janie Starks' life as the mayor's wife. It opens with the "thought pictures" of the neighbors as they gather around the store's porch and discuss "crayon enlargements of life." Oddly enough, for half the chapter, the author focuses her writing about a mule. At first, I wondered what the mule represented; A=B is the magic equation.
So I continued reading, and as I read, the neighbors don't seem to talk about the mule anymore, but rather Janie. Janie is the mule- overworked, unappreciated, gossiped about, and stifled. Throughout the chapter Janie sympathizes with the mule. She feels its pain because it is also her pain. Although she doesn't recognize her own pain, or rather, she becomes so numb with her forced silence, she sees the mule's and yearns for its pain to stop much like she wishes her own to end. Knowingly, Janie wants the mule to not suffer anymore and through her sympathy, she begins to recognize her discontent and finally turns her life around.
Also, the mule is an extension of Janie. The mule's life draws the path for Janie's life. Much like the mule, the beginning of Janie's life is nothing but hardship masked by a false glory, but towards the end, the mule basks in happiness roaming free and unowned as Janie also basks in peace roaming free and unowned with Tea Cake.
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