The Signifying Monkey - an Analysis

Traditionally, literary critics read a text with a particular angle. Whether the critic takes a psychoanalytic or feminist approach, he usually knows what angle he intends to use. In The Signifying Monkey, Henry Louis Gates sets out to "identify how the 'black tradition' had theorized about itself" (ix). Gates' theory is derived from reading the actual text of African American literature. His careful analyses of the varied texts combined with his knowledge of the black vernacular tradition are the basis for The Signifying Monkey.

In part I of The Signifying Monkey, Gates begins with a historical exploration of Esu-Elegbara, a mythincal African figure. Chapter One outlines the origins and myths behind the character and it's development in the African culture. The chapter is complex and complicated at times. Gates states that he cannot historically link Esu and the Signifying monkey, but he feels that there is a connection between the tradition of the Monkey and the religious and philosophical African beliefs.

Gates goes on to explain what the Signifying Monkey is and how it relates to the black English vernacular. The Signifying Monkey is a cunning character whose manipulation, through language, allows him to trick an elephant and a monkey into doing whatever her wants them to do. Gates explains that the story has been passed through the black community since the days of slavery. He goes on to relate this story of tradition to explain the term "Signifying. " Gates argues that the black vernacular tradition celebrates the use of figurative language verses literal interpretations.

The black vernacular tradition, Gates argues, is the source of common tropes and of interrelated rhetorical strategies, described as "Signifying," which are found throughout the texts of the African American literary tradition. "Signifying" is described in several different ways. It includes a variety of abstract practices such as lying and indirect speech. Gates also explains playing "The Dozens" which is a game os exchanging insults. He also states that "signifying" belongs to the common man, historically to the black community, and with each passage of the story, a different spin is put on the story. Gates suggests that signifying is a form of theory that blacks have participated in for years. In the third chapter, Gates applies his discussion of "Signifyin(g)" to the African American literary tradition. He states: "The blackness of black literature is not an absolute or a metaphysical condition...nor is it some transcending essence that exists outside of its manifestations in texts. The 'blackness' of black American literature can be discerned only through close readings. By 'blackness' here I mean specific uses of literary language that are shared, repeated, critiqued, and revised" (121).

Part II of The Signifying Monkey is dedicated to Gates' reading and interpretation of five different texts in African American literature and focuses on several different tropes in each work.
He begins with four slave narratives. In this chapter, Gates discusses the trope of the talking book. This dates back to claims that before blacks learned to read, they believed that books actually spoke to them. Gates argues that this trope in an example of intertextual revision. He goes on to state that: These narrators, linked by revision of a trope into the very first black chain of signifiers, implicitly Signify upon another chain...This chain of black signifiers, regardless of their intent or desire, made the first political gesture in the Anglo-African tradition 'simply' by the act of writing, a collective act that gave birth to the black literary tradition. (167). Gates accreditation to the early slave narratives gives homage to the literary tradition of African Americans.

Next Gates analyzes Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and her use of free indirect discourse. Gates also discusses Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo is the next text that Gates explores. He analyzes Reed's parody of African American texts. Gates acknowledges that his theory arose from his analysis of Mumbo Jumbo. In the text, Reed uses playful language to critique the Black Arts Movement and other African American texts. Gates uses the text to exemplify the self-reflective nature of African American literature. Lastly, Gates examines Alice Walker's The Color Purple and discusses her revisions of Hurston's strategies. In addition to the four primary texts, Gates discusses W.E.B. Du Bois, Jean Toomer's Cane, Richard Wright's Native Son, and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man throughout the work.

In The Signifying Monkey, Gates keeps his theory within the confines of African American literature. He does no relate of compare his findings to any mainstream literary traditions. By doing so, he is maintaining the tradition of "Signifying" as a cultural act, rooted in the black community. Although the book begins with very complex recounts of history, the second half is less difficult to discern. Despite the initial problems, The Signifying Monkey, provides a worthwhile argument.

Source:
The Signifying Monkey by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1988
290 pages