Chapter Summaries

Prologue-Act I Summary (983 words)

Prologue Summary

A singer and Chorus lament to a mother that her son is in jail. The singer emphasizes that there is no one to help her son get a bail bond, so she should accept his imprisonment. Two men – Tigre and Souris – are in a jail cell, and the Corporal comes in with another man, Makak, whom he refers to mockingly as “de King of Africa.” The Corporal reads Makak his rights, and Souris asks what he did to get arrested. Makak is accused of drunkenly “mash[ing] up Alcindor cafe.”

When the other men want Makak’s alcohol, the Corporal rants about how Black men like them are akin to “Animals.” The Corporal tries to get identifying information from Makak, who doesn’t give a straight answer about his name or race but reveals he is Catholic and lives on Monkey Mountain.

The Corporal play-acts the opening of a trial and orders Makak to walk around his cell, while the Chorus sings, “I don’t know what to say this monkey won’t do.” The Corporal recounts that Makak’s charges, noting that he was arguing with Dolcis and Pamphilion, describing his “obscene dream.” Makak defiled the British flag and incited others to rebellion.

Makak claims to become “possessed” occasionally. He describes his self-loathing, brought on by what he considers his hideous appearance. He claims God sent him a vision, an image of a white woman, whom he asks for help in defeating his “enemies.”

Scene I Summary

Makak’s account begins as he is awoken by Moustique, a younger man whom Makak has been assisting. Makak confides that a woman appeared to him in a “white mist,” and she knew all about him. She encouraged him to “not live so any more, here in the forest.” Instead, she relates his lineage “of lions and kings.”

Moustique considers Makak’s vision a bad dream and repeats that he will take their donkey to the market; however, Makak insists it wasn’t a dream. As Moustique starts to prepare the coal to take to the village, he touches a spider and is horrified. The men agree this “is a bad sign.” Next, Moustique finds a mask that apparently matches the face of the woman who appeared to Makak.

Makak scares Moustique when he says he is going to “ride to the edge of the world,” as the vision suggested. Moustique thinks Makak is mad.

Scene II Summary

Several women wearing white robes are accompanied by bearers carrying an ill man on a stretcher. Moustique crosses their path, and they ask him to join in their prayers. While engaged in prayer, he also begs a peasant for food. Moustique learns that the man on the litter was bitten by a snake, but his fever will not break.

Moustique asks after a man in a black hat, Basil, who he is told is going to the hospital in case the prayers don’t work. Moustique tells them he knows an old man, a healer, and promises to get him if they can spare some food. They give Moustique some bread, and he returns with Makak.

Makak orders everyone to kneel, as he grips a hot coal. The moon emerges, and Makak speaks of how God has called him, and implores Josephus, the sick man, to sweat out his fever. Makak instructs them to believe in him and in their own intentions. Though it seems to fail at first, they thank Makak and try the medicine again. Soon, however, the man starts to sweat, and the people praise Makak and make offerings of food and money. Moustique becomes a vocal supporter of Makak’s work and collects the donations.

Moustique wants Basil’s black hat, but Basil speaks an ominous prophecy to Moustique that reminds him of the spider he touched. Makak realizes how much power he now wields, but he tells Moustique he isn’t doing his work “for profit.” They compromise when Makak agrees to let Moustique collect payments but not excessive ones. They proceed toward the market.

Scene III Summary

The Corporal presides over some kind of hearing and demands to hear the facts of what happened in the market. The reader joins the scene, where a husband and wife are talking about Makak healing Josephus on the road. The woman claims that Makak has also healed an abscess in a young boy and turned a stone to fire in his hands. The villagers continue to gossip about Makak, with one saying he heard Makak had a dream that led him to begin healing. They also report that he is traveling toward the sea to continue on to Africa.

The Inspector (Pamphilion) and Corporal about the latter’s possession of a pistol in the marketplace, which he claims is for the people’s protection,“to prevent more strikes.” The Corporal claims citizens should “challenge the law,” disappointed that they seem to go along with whatever the government decrees. He references Makak and the uproar in the market, insisting that their “belief” and “hope” eventually led the villagers to violence.

The singers and dancers celebrate Makak, and then a young boy claims he has seen a man in a black hat; the villagers believe Makak is on his way, but it turns out to be Moustique in disguise. He is able to keep up his charade until he feels a spider on his hand. This reveals to Basil, who is nearby, that it is not Makak, and Basil exposes the poser. Basil speaks in strange prophetic language that scares Moustique.

When the villagers realize Moustique has been trying to make money off them by pretending to be Makak, they beat him severely. Makak arrives and sees his friend, beaten and bloody. Moustique urges him to go back to the mountain. As Moustique dies, Makak urges him to say what he sees: “A black wind.” The Chorus sings about the “joy” they will feel at their own deaths.

Act II - Epilogue Summary (966 words)

Scene I Summary

The Corporal delivers a meal to the prisoners. Souris is concerned about Makak and thinks the Corporal should let him go, while Tigre complains of hunger. They argue, and the Corporal comments that the law is not “universal” but can be influenced by money. Makak tries to offer the Corporal money and accuses him of killing Moustique. The Corporal doesn’t know what he means and asks the other men how long Makak has been making these wild accusations, which means that what happened in the previous scene was a dream.

Tigre and Souris scheme to help Makak escape; they want to go to Monkey Mountain with him. First, Tigre suggests they kill the Corporal, and Souris is concerned with the way Tigre is talking, not only about the plot but also about Makak’s vision. Tigre continues to goad Makak, telling him he has to prove he is a “lion,” as the woman in his vision claimed.

Makak circles the cell, growling, before he pulls out a knife. When the Corporal next approaches to give Makak some water, the prisoner stabs him. The other men encourage Makak to unlock their cell, while Makak rails against racially motivated injustice. The three prisoners escape. The corporal rises and expresses his delight that he can now pursue them and have an excuse to shoot them down.

Scene II Summary

The three escaped prisoners make it to the forest, and Makak claims he can commune with nature. Tigre chides him and continues to complain about his hunger. Souris has doubts about following Makak, but Tigre assures him it’s better for them to stick with the man because he knows the environment better than they do.

Makak tries to paint a vivid image of Africa for the other men, while the Chorus chimes in with a lyric about “going home.” Souris says he sees the image, but Tigre tries to bring them back to reality by talking about all the materials and supplies they’d need to sail to Africa. Makak says he’ll make Tigre his general.

The men talk about God, with Souris confessing he could never believe in a distant, white God, of whom he was frightened. Then he makes a crown out of vine to place on Makak’s head, effectively vowing to follow him. Makak imagines he is speaking to an army fighting for his cause, encouraging them to go to war.

The Corporal arrives, praises the colonizer (England), and insults the men once again, referring to them as “Animals! Savages!” Basil then appears, speaking in riddles, and tells the Corporal he has one more opportunity to “repent.” After his initial confusion, the Corporal admits that he cut himself off from his half-African identity; he says he once loved Africa and reclaims his connection with the earth. Finally, the Corporal pledges his allegiance to Makak, and Makak accepts him as “one of us.”

When Souris and Tigre continue to tease the Corporal, Makak rebukes them for infighting. He vows revenge on those who have “rejected” him and his dream. Tigre picks up a rifle and threatens to start shooting, not buying into Makak’s mysticism, but finds Souris is now on Makak’s side. Souris claims that Makak has taught him more than Tigre ever did.

Makak begins to doubt that he can be successful, calling himself “a king among shadows.” He believes in the morning, his dream will fade like the mist that brought it in, but Souris tries to encourage him by saying that his dream has impacted others. He foresees that “the tribes” will fight among themselves and laments the “burden” of trying to lead his people. The Corporal kills Tigre with a spear. Though Makak himself seems to have lost his spiritual direction, the Corporal and Souris will follow him.

Scene III Summary

The Chorus sings of Makak’s victories, while warriors join in the chants. The Corporal and others worship Makak, but he claims he is “A hollow God.” Basil reads a list of once-powerful but now-dead white men, and asks the tribes what they will do with these “shapers of history.” The tribes reply that they want the men executed.

Moustique is brought in to face Makak, and the Corporal accuses him of “betraying our dream.” He tells Makak that he, too, has been corrupted, no longer led by his heart and beliefs; Makak disagrees, and Moustique is removed.

The vision of the woman that Makak claims to have seen at the beginning of the play arrives next. He remembers his childhood and his old self-loathing, as well as how the vision transformed his idea of himself and who he could be. The Corporal tells Makak he must kill the “woman,” and though he resists at first, Makak eventually agrees to slay her. Once the Corporal and others leave, Makak beheads the woman in the vision.

Epilogue Summary

Makak, Tigre, and Souris are in their jail cell again, and Makak remembers that his real name is Felix Hobain. The conversation seems to return to where it left off in the Prologue, with the Corporal questioning Makak, who is confused about why he’s in jail. The Corporal repeats that he was drunk in public and caused a riot on Market Day. However, since it was Makak’s first offense, the Corporal will let him go.

When Makak exits the jail, he reunites with Moustique, who is not dead after all. He addresses Makak by his name, Felix, and says he went to find him on Market Day, but Makak wasn’t home. Before he and Moustique depart to walk to Monkey Mountain, Makak gives one last speech indicating that he wants to be remembered as having lived on that mountain and existing in his dream. The Chorus closes the play by repeating the phrase, “I going home.”

Themes (989 words)

Colonization and Dehumanization

Derek Walcott purposely gives the Afro-Caribbean characters, including the main character Makak, names that reference animals in French/Creole to highlight the ways in which colonization dehumanizes the colonial subject. Makak and the others are citizens of an unspecified “West Indian island” under British rule. In addition to the title of the play referencing “Monkey Mountain,” Makak’s name is a Creole term for “monkey” (from the French “macacque”). Three other characters, also Black men who are natives of the island, are named for animals: Souris translates to mouse, Tigre means tiger, and Moustique refers to a mosquito or gnat.

In the Prologue, the Corporal explicitly insults the three prisoners – Souris, Tigre, and Makak – by calling them “Animals, beasts, [and] savages,” and accusing them of “turning [the jail] into a stinking zoo.” Initially, the Corporal is a loyal subject of “Her Majesty’s Government,” as seen when he quells anti-colonial sentiment, and an instrument of justice who projects his own shame at his racially-mixed background onto the other men.

Early in the play, Makak is seen obeying the Corporal’s orders in the jail cell. The Chorus sings, “I don’t know what to say this monkey won’t do,” indicating that Makak’s behavior is upholding colonial rule as he conforms to what the official asks of him. He does not rebel or assert himself in any way; he is the monkey who sees something and copies it without thinking. In the Corporal’s account of how Black men evolved from primates, he sees the “tribe” to which Makak and the other prisoners belong as “linger[ing] behind” even “some of the apes” that began to “walk upright.”

In Makak’s dream, the woman’s suggestion that he is descended from lions is a way for him to harness animalistic comparison for his benefit. Instead of being associated with a macaque, often known as mischievous or playful, Makak can envision himself as the powerful lion, a predator at the top of the food chain. Significantly, in the vision, the woman encourages him to “Put on … the rage of the lion” to “scatter his enemies.” The lion here connotes aggression and rebellion against colonial authority, revenge for the abuses and oppressions visited upon Caribbean natives by Europeans.

Another significant part of Makak’s vision is that he infers that the woman wants him to return to Africa. As he tells Moustique, “Makak will walk like he used to in Africa, when his name was lion!” The return to an imagined homeland is central to Makak’s dream, and this goal suggests that he seeks to reclaim a sense of cultural identity that predates European colonization, the movement of slaves from Africa to work plantations on the islands, and the subsequent oppression of “free” Afro-Caribbean natives by colonial governments.

After his dream, Makak remembers that his real name is Felix Hobain, the name of a man rather than a vague reference to an animal. This is significant in the play because it illustrates that Felix has become humanized as a result of his experiences, his visions, and his insights. He recognizes and embraces his true self, ending the play on a more hopeful note.

Race and Self-Image

It is clear by his use of racial slurs the Corporal thinks of the prisoners as animals because they are Black men. Ironically, though, the cast list mentions that he is a “mulatto,” so he is also part-Black himself. In one of the dreamlike scenes, the Corporal finally admits that it is his own self-loathing that has made him embrace colonial rule (the White European monarchy) and deride the Afro-Caribbean men he jails.

When Basil, the symbol of death, approaches the Corporal and implores him to “confess [his] sins,” the official finally claims to love “Mother Africa.” He admits to Makak, Tigre, and Souris that he “jeered thee because I hated half of myself, my eclipse.” The Corporal’s metaphor suggests that he disowned the part of him that is Black and that his own shame at his mixed race led him to insult the other men.

This dream-version of the Corporal vows loyalty to Makak, and the latter accepts him while acknowledging, “They reject half of [the Corporal].” Makak refers to “They,” which seem to be society at large, due to its racial hierarchy. Though a society that sees Whiteness as superior will cast out someone like the Corporal because of his Blackness, Makak’s community embraces him.

A more subtle example of self-loathing can be found in Moustique’s reaction to the spider in Part One. Because his name translates to another type of insect, it’s possible that Walcott has the character recoil at what he recognizes of himself in the spider, from which he “withdraws [his hand] in horror.” Figuratively, Moustique could be recognizing his inferior status in his society and wants nothing more than to distance himself from that, to “kill it,” meaning the part of his identity that makes him vulnerable under colonial rule.

Finally, Walcott begins both Part One and Part Two of his play with quotes from Jean Paul Sartre’s preface to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, an anti-colonial philosophical text that analyzes the psychological effects of imperialism on colonial subjects, specifically subjects of color. Sartre writes, “The status of ‘native’ is a nervous condition.”

This seems to link to Felix’s character, who is widely seen as “mad” by the other men in the play. His apparent madness is the result of an identity crisis brought on by his complex position as both an Afro-Caribbean man and a colonial subject of a White European country. When he fully embraces his African heritage, Felix is viewed as certifiably insane even by other Afro-Caribbean men, who have become accustomed to living under the corrupt and oppressive regime, essentially giving it “their consent,” as Sartre puts it. In a society that privileges Whiteness, Black characters in the play internalize concepts of racial inferiority voiced by the colonizer.