Mule KillersEssay by Ali Kemal Taspinar
The short story, Mule Killers, by Lydia Peele takes place in a little town, probably near Nashville. While plucking asparagus in a garden, overgrown with weeds, with his father, the narrator is retelling the story of how his father and mother met. The father tells the narrator about his unhappy youth, his relationship to his father and the unrequited love he felt for Eula Parker, and why he was forced to marry the narrator’s mother.
In an attempt to flatter and make Eula Parker jealous, he kisses the onion pale haired girl whom he had just invited over for a soda, because Parker had denied his request. Instead of seeming jealous and green she; smiles...: a smile with no jealousy hidden behind it at all (l. 38). The father and his date leaves the drugstore, where after the narrator is conceived; ... he skips the part of the story where I come in. It doesn’t matter; I can imagine it (l. 48).
The story centres on the transitions that the main character, the narrator’s father, makes from youth to adulthood. For example from innocence to responsibility, how mules are replaced by tractors and the transition from a bachelor/lad to becoming a husband, a father and a man. The three most important characters in the story are the grandfather, father, and the narrator, which all are of different generations and beliefs. Our point of view is narrowed down because it is the son who is retelling the story, and hereby you don’t necessarily get the whole perspective as you otherwise would. Even though, the narrator describes his eighteen-year-old father; He is trying hard to keep certain things stuffed deep inside his chest: things like fear, sadness, and uncertainty. He expects to outgrow all of these things very soon, and in the meantime, he works hard to keep them hidden (l. 7). His ability to describe his father’s feelings may have