Dream on Monkey Mountain

“Now, if you apes will behave like gentlemen, who knows what could happen?”

Lestrade’s mock trial draws heavily on racist tropes. Though Lestrade is not white, he happily compares his prisoners to monkeys, apes, and animals. Lestrade does not consider himself to be of the same class or caste as the men in the cells.

“Let me go home, my Corporal.”

Makak’s motivations are evident from his first words. Though he has dreamed of God, though he claims to be descended from royalty, all he wants is to go home, his ambition systematically reduced and minimized. This demand for freedom has two meanings. Literally, Makak wants to get out of jail. Figuratively, Makak, who claims to be descended from African kings, petitions a representative of an oppressive state to abandon its colonialism.  

“Ignorance of one’s own ignorance is no excuse.”

Corporal Lestrade’s legal arguments, similar to the call-and-response of the chorus and the contour, are vapid and pretentious. Lestrade is actively engaging in oppressive rhetoric. He validates and repeats colonialist tropes and ideas, caricaturing them in the process by distorting and exaggerating them by accident. 

“Go mad tomorrow, today is market day.” 

The introduction of Moustique provides a pragmatic counterpoint to Makak’s ethereal dreams. When he discovers his friend feverish and speaking of strange women approaching him in dreams, Moustique remains focused on the practicalities of market day. He doesn’t want to contemplate complicated issues such as race and colonialism, and he does not have time for madness or ambition.

“She say I should not live so any more, here in the forest, frighten of people because I think I ugly. She say that I come from the family of lions and kings.”

The woman who appears to Makak in his dream drills into his self-criticism. Makak has an innate feeling that the colonial apparatus that surrounds him is unjust. In his dream space, a character who represents the world of this oppression validates Makak’s suspicions. The woman is telling Makak what he has always wanted to believe but if not for his internalized racism and self-loathing.

“If we dead, little one, is not better to die, fighting like men, than to hide in this forest?”

With Makak’s determination and confidence restored, he wants to lead an expedition to Africa. Even if he dies fighting, he says, it will be better than the life that he and his friend currently enjoy. Moustique, unsure over his friend’s strange behavior, nods along but has become convinced that Makak is mad.  

“He have this power and glory, and if you want, and it have no harm in that, I could fetch him for you.”

While Makak believes that supernatural forces have reshaped his reality around his new knowledge, Moustique also demonstrates reality-bending abilities. While Makak believes sincerely in his new truth, Moustique is far more flexible in his belief. His adeptness at lying is juxtaposed with Makak’s sincerity.  

“Faith, faith! what happen to you? You didn't hear the man? You ain't hear the master. Sing, sing.” 

Moustique is a talented actor. When he believes that Makak’s healing ceremony has failed, he immediately begins to blame the attendees for their lack of faith and devotion. In doubling down on his lie, Moustique reveals a creativity that is lacking in his friend. Rather than evil or malicious, Moustique is desperate and unlucky, but his capacity for creativity and charm adds to his sympathetic nature.  

“We go meet again, stranger.”

Basil’s words to Moustique are foreboding, and his appearance is filled with dread and doom. At times, he seems to be stalking the characters, functioning as an almost-supernatural figure of judgment.  

“This is our reward, we who have borne the high torch of justice through tortuous thickets of darkness to illuminate with vision the mind of primeval peoples, of backbiting tribes!” 

Corporal Lestrade’s justification for carrying a pistol in a marketplace features a strong colonialist subtext: He claims to bring law to “uncivilized” lands in exchange for extracting their resources. The Corporal sees himself as the representative of order, justifying his use of deadly force as he sees fit. He considers the locals to be “primeval peoples” (256) who are incapable of governing themselves—a classic colonialist sentiment.  

“But in the opinion of the pistol, and for the preservation of order, and to avoid any argument, we both was satisfied it was a pawpaw.”

Lestrade and the locals exist in a state of untruth. They both know the difference between a melon and a pawpaw, but with the implicit threat of violence backing him up, the Corporal can lie without repercussion. What is more, his lies become truth—the threat of violence has the power to change the nature of reality; even though everyone knows something to be false, they must repeat the lie out of fear. This lie that a melon is really a pawpaw reflects the wider myth of colonialism as a benevolent force.  

“Let me look in them, let me look, and I will keep the last picture of your eyes in mine, let me be brave and look in a dead man eye, Moustique…”

The death of Moustique is a tragic moment. Beaten to death for pretending to be Makak, he has failed to observe the ominous signs that warned him of his impending doom. Whether Makak will learn from his friend’s mistakes and whether he will differentiate between his visions and the ominous portents will dictate fate of his character. 

“I am an instrument of the law, Souris. I got the white man work to do.”

Corporal Lestrade is the representation of colonial rule, and he sees the enforcement of this rule as “white man work” (279). The irony of the Corporal’s existence is that he sees himself as part of the power structure, while, to the white colonizers, he has more in common with the locals than those who are actually in power.

“God dead, and his law there bleeding. Christian, cannibal, I will drink blood.” 

Suckered into violent action, his pride played upon, Makak is beginning to descend into true madness. He is horrified by his own actions, but violence has become an essential component of the struggle against the colonial forces that have falsely imprisoned him. Makak has not been able to win his freedom by other means, so he turns to violence or is tricked into doing so, compounding the madness forced upon colonial subjects by their colonizers.  

Attempting to escape from the prison of their lives. That's the most dangerous crime.” 

After a mock trial and a clear break down in the application of any legal standards, Corporal Lestrade still views dissent against the rule of law to be morally abhorrent. To him, attempting to escape from colonialist rule is the worst crime of all, an ideological rebuke to his entire existence. Furthermore, he notes that the efforts to escape are not purely literal: In fighting back against the system, Makak is attempting to escape from the prison of his existence as well as the actual jail cell.  

“The mind, the mind. Now, come with me, the mind can bring the dead to life, it can go back, back, back, deep into time. It can make a man a king, it can make him a beast.” 

Though he is slowly descending into madness, Makak has become more and more insightful. He sees internalized racism and colonialist attitudes as psychological in nature. By going “deep into time,” the subjugated can overcome the mindset imposed upon them. While this might not necessarily turn everyone into a king (it may make them into beasts, Makak notes), it is the only way to readdress the post-colonial order‘s power paradigm.

“Once I knew this jungle like the black of my hand.” 

Lestrade transitions from instrument of white power to a self-actualized character. Sitting in the jungle on his own, he laments the close bond he once had with the land. He sacrificed this personal relationship in his pursuit of power and authority.  

“They reject half of you. We accept all.” 

Corporal Lestrade’s biracial identity has been the foundation of his life. Up until this point, he has leaned more toward his white ancestry and tried to become a part of the colonial apparatus. His role as policeman gave him the authority to wield violence in the name of state control, likening him to the white colonizing forces. While Lestrade identified with his white ancestry, to whites, he was always black. While the colonizers will not ever truly accept him, Makak and black people can and will.  

“These are the conquests of Makak.” 

Having successfully led his followers through the forest, Makak is a conquering hero, carried on to the stage on a golden litter and forced to witness a parade of the people he has conquered. These figures await his judgment and, before a baying crowd, are summarily sentenced to execution. Makak’s conquests face the same violence he once wished to escape.  

“Some are dead and cannot speak for themselves, but a drop of milk is enough to condemn them, to banish them from the archives of the bo-leaf and the papyrus, from the waxen tablet and the tribal stone.”

The historical figures judged by the court are found guilty of being white, reversing the colonial power paradigm. Rather than being executed, these historical figures are sentenced to being expunged from history books. Rather than create a new, unifying canon, Makak and his court enact the same oppression, just in a different direction.  

“It is you who created her, so kill her!” 

Makak faces the woman from his dreams. She does not speak or answer questions, so he is compelled to kill her, trapped by his new role as king. 

“My name is Felix Hobain.” 

After spending the play disgusted by his own appearance and using the name Makak (a play on the macaque monkey), Makak announces his real name in a demonstration of newfound self-worth. It is not the name of an African prince and, for the most part, lacks any significant meaning or context. Instead, it is simply a name and an identity, one with which Makak has finally come to terms.  

“You like white woman, eh, old man? I can imagine your dreams…”

On seeing the white apparition’s mask, Tigre mocks Makak for being attracted to white women, acknowledging the trouble such a fascination could have caused in the colonial-past. The comment is also laden with irony: There is no way Tigre could really imagine what Makak’s dreams—the ones we have just seen on stage—are like.