The “Jook” and Zora Neale Hurston’s play Polk County

Abstract

The essay analyses the significance of the “the jook” (commonly spelt as the juke) in Zora Neale Hurston’s
works, especially in her most mature play, Polk County. It is argued that Hurston, deeply interested as she
was in the traditional black culture of the south, found the space of the jook rich in many vernacular,
cultural, and performative traditions of the black people. The jook was a “fun house” where poor black
men and women met after their hard day’s work at the railroad construction site or at a saw mill to play,
drink, dance, sing, fall in love, or fight. It was the place where along with music and dance the most lively
and dramatic verbal exchanges took place: the tall tales described by terms such as the “mule talk,”
“playing the dozens,” “lying sessions,” specifying, and woofing. The jook has been seen as the place where
blues music was born, but what is special in Hurston is that she sees it also as the birthplace of black
theatre. This essay is devoted to demonstrating the significance of the jook in Hurston’s vision of black
theatre and its centrality in her play The Polk County.