Next

Women are often treated as prizes or possessions.

The way Spunk and Joe treat Lena, and the way the town as a whole talks about her, both demonstrate how women are often treated as prizes or possessions, rather than as full people, especially in the context of romantic relationships. Throughout the story, the loungers who narrate the tale describe the conflict between Spunk and Joe over Lena as one of men struggling over a possession. They disapprove of Joe for letting Spunk court Lena, and they goad him into a confrontation with Spunk. Although Joe loves Lena, he presents the issue as Spunk taking away something that belongs to him. As Spunk tests Lena’s loyalty and love, he treats her more like a dog than a romantic partner he considers an equal. Rather than directly asking Lena to choose which man she wants to be with, he instructs Joe to “call her and see if she’ll come,” going on to describe the appropriate relationship of a woman to her partner in the terms of an employee to a boss. Even though Lena has stated a desire to remain in her own house, which her father has given her, Spunk ultimately moves her into the house he buys, indicating that he considers her movements subject to his will over hers. Furthermore, the loungers view this move as one Spunk takes to appease Joe’s ghost, suggesting that Joe has more control over Lena’s life than she does even after his death. 

Grudges last beyond death.

In the world of “Spunk,” death does not mean the end of a grudge match. Joe and Spunk’s competition to prove their masculinity outlasts first Joe’s death, and then Spunk’s. At first, Spunk’s act of murdering Joe seems to have definitively ended the issue of their conflict over Lena and its larger argument over who is the bigger man. Even though Lena weeps at Joe’s death, she shows no sign of leaving Spunk, and Spunk faces no social or legal consequences for the killing. However, the appearance of the black bobcat circling Spunk’s house and the invisible force Spunk insists pushed him at the sawmill begins the second phase of their fight, in which Joe has become a far more frightening opponent. Joe’s ghosts show no sign of intending to let Spunk carry on living the good life he has become accustomed to, courting Lena, ruling over the other sawmill workers, and walking the lanes and woods in contentment and confidence. 

Joe’s spirit carries his anger at Spunk beyond the grave, and soon he ensures Spunk will join him there. After death, Joe attains a macho power he lacked in life, capable of intimidating Spunk to his own destruction. Not content with harrying Spunk into a nervous existence on earth, Joe’s ghost pushes him again at the sawmill, this time leading to his death. However, Spunk does not die in a state of regret for his actions. Rather, he dies filled with fury at Joe, swearing with his dying breath to pursue him to hell and make him pay for his actions. His rage is so great that Elijah refuses to sit with his body overnight, fearful at what may come of that anger after death, just as the other men feared the living Spunk’s anger after the first time the ghost pushed him towards the blade. Spunk’s death has made no difference in Elijah’s sense that he should stay away from the man when he has been enraged so much. Indeed, Elijah notes as he walks to the wake that the two men will be fighting in the afterlife as they never managed to on earth. 

Large egos are fragile.

At the start of the story, Spunk is a giant of a man, proud, physically powerful, with an ego to match. He is afraid of nothing on earth. Men and women bow to his will. Lena leaves her marriage for him, willingly and apparently with desire. At the sawmill, Spunk is renowned for his nonchalant bravery, riding logs on their carriage toward the spinning blade even immediately after seeing another man killed by it. Elijah says with awe and admiration that Spunk “ain’t skeered of nothin’ on God’s green footstool.” Spunk sees what he wants and pursues it with a confident expectation that he will succeed in his goals. Nothing seems to affect him, and all of his actions project his enormous sense of self. Joe’s confrontations have no effect on Spunk’s behavior or confidence, and even though all the villagers believe he murdered Joe, Spunk walks out of the courthouse a free man. After the trial, he returns to the village to enjoy the pleasures of life there with the self-assurance of the powerful and lucky. 

However, Spunk’s luck turns rapidly in the second half of the story, and his large ego becomes fragile, crumbling at the slightest opposition, even from a ghost. Haunted by Joe, Spunk becomes a shadow of his former self. Within only a few days, he is preparing to marry Lena in order to satisfy the unspoken demands of Joe’s spectral bobcat form, afraid to shoot the animal despite having previously had no hesitation in shooting Joe in human form. Where he seemed a larger-than-life character in the first half of the story, soon he loses his nerve at the sawmill, too, behaving erratically in the face of the deadly saw. The men of the town begin to lose respect for him, with Walter arguing that in retrospect, Joe was the braver man. In short order, the bold and fearless Spunk lies dead, killed by the blade he never feared before killing Joe. His ego may have been as enormous as he was, but it was ultimately easily destroyed. 

Next section Themes

Take a Study Break