Dream on Monkey Mountain

For the characters on the unnamed Caribbean island, identity is elusive to the point of crisis. Makak’s journey begins when he stares at his reflection in a water barrel and does not like what he sees. He rejects his existence as a poor, elderly black man, and, over the course of the play, he attempts to find a new identity. When a white apparition tells him that his ancestors were kings in Africa, Makak thrills to this new royal identity infused with power and agency.  

The play’s figure of authority imposes unfamiliar systems of control on the island, forcing its inhabitants to shed elements of their pre-colonial selves. By forcing language, cultural, idioms, and rituals upon a colonized people, the colonizers strip those people of their original identities. For instance, Corporal Lestrade demands that Makak speak English, whereas Makak prefers to speak French—the irony is that both are the languages of colonial power, so the choice is meaningless. Makak can swap one language for another, but all he is doing is swapping one colonizer for another.  

Post-colonial identity lies between two different selves: the colonized and the colonizer. Makak’s journey is an attempt to resolve this crisis. This is why returning to Africa seems so tantalizing—there, Makak assumes he will regain the unitary identity of his ancestors. This hope proves naïve, as the only thing he can do as an African king is recapitulate the same oppressive systems that victimized him on the island.