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Although the story’s framework is provided by a third-person omniscient narrator, the majority of the events are related through the voices of the loungers, led by Elijah Mosley and Walter Thomas. The loungers, men of the town who gather at Clarke’s store to watch the world go by and gossip about it, form a kind of Greek chorus, providing both events and commentary on them. Establishing the loungers as the point of view for the story allows Hurston to explore a story whose themes of power, courage, entitlement, and the afterlife are serious ones using a constantly shifting mix of gravity and humor, as the men exchange philosophical thoughts on Joe and Spunk with colorful descriptions, insults, and lines meant to raise a laugh among the loungers.

This point of view also allows Hurston to present the supernatural aspects of the story without the third-person narration making a statement about whether the ghosts are literally real in the story. Elijah, Walter, and the other men believe in them, and that is enough to carry the story. Whether the bobcat is a ghost or not and whether or not something pushed Spunk into the saw, Spunk believes in them and so they affect the events of the plot. Likewise, the loungers’ beliefs affect the main characters’ behaviors and their fates. Elijah’s goading of Joe leads him to his deadly confrontation with Spunk. Their speculations about the existence of Joe’s ghost feed Spunk’s fear and his fatal unraveling. In these details, Hurston shows the power of public perception and point of view to not only set the terms of the telling of the story but to also create the story itself. 

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