The Signifying Monkey Essay Example

a deconstructionist One may ask; Is it an accident that the black English word signifying is also a common term in the vocabulary of deconstruction?

Perhaps it is the subject of the signifier may be the same, but what is actually signified by it differs with each use. This can get confusing, because it seems the words are homonyms. Therefore, their likeness in definition negates Gates into offering a solid deconstructionist account. It seems that many critics like Gates following this ideology take ideas from deconstruction, post structuralism, and postmodernism, as well as Marxism. The preface states; “It is probably true that critics of African and Afro –American literature essentially as a set of Western texts.

The methods devised to read these texts are culture- specific and temporal-specific, and they are text-specific as well. We learn to read the text at hand, And texts have a curious habit of generating other texts that resemble themselves. Black writer, like critics of black literature, learn to write by reading literature, especially the canonical texts of the Western tradition. Consequently, black texts resemble other, Western texts ( Gates xxii). To accurately define the act of “signifying” Gates begins his book by taking the reader of a historical journey begins in the heart of African culture.

Preceding the Preface, Gates respectively sets the reading up with introductory concepts about African American history including the origins of traditional stories and worships. Through his explanation of the Yoruba mythology the reader can see the assimilation between cross cultural explanations of the Esu figure. The Esu figure is described in the following way; “ A partial list of these

qualities might include individuality, satire, parody, irony, magic, indeterminacy, open-endedness,... ”(Gates 6). Gates continue and states that the Esu figure contains a plethora of characteristics.

Esu contains characteristics that are both human and god-like so that he can serve as a messenger, with these characteristics you are able to signify the actual meaning of the words. His most relatable mythology figure to the western world is Hermes. “Esu is the indigenous black metaphor for the literary critic. Furthermore it believed that Esu has taught his friend Ifa how to read the signs that were formed from sixteen sacred palmnuts. (Gates 11). Esu serves as the main focus of Yoruba myths and the signifier.

It is sad and unjust to think that as Americans we are introduced to many Greek mythologies through our formal education then African American mythology; when will we re write the curriculum and change this ill to society? The first step to this would be having teachers introduce Gates work into a secondary classroom. Gates examines how, in oral culture, the trickster figure of the monkey outsmarts the stronger lion through signifying: using language to play tricks. In its general outlines, the monkey’s story goes like this.

Although the lion claims to be king of the jungle, everyone knows who the real king is: it is the elephant. The monkey, fed up with the lion’s roaring, decides to do something about it. He insults the lion publicly and at length and when the lion grows angry, the monkey shrugs that he is merely repeating what the elephant has been saying. Furious, the lion heads out to challenge the elephant,

who impassively trounces him. The monkey either gets away with his deception or does not (there are differing versions), but in any event he is a success at "signifying.

Of course Gates includes several versions of the signifying monkey poem, many containing almost shocking renditions all were contained the principle of a play on words or even being the bearer of language. If I were to introduce Gates concepts into my inner-city classroom I would use the example of battle rapping to address many of the concepts that Gates explains at length in his book. Battle rapping can be of signifying if an MC takes a concept from a previous MC and turns it around changing it meaning and being the trickster.

The idea of signifying is all over the music industry and can be relatable to the teenagers in my classroom. Another example in the music industry would be the artist “Weird Al” whereas he takes the primary concept of a song and make funny of the lyrics and re writes his own song with the same beat. Signifying is not a simple one and can be relevant in many different uncommon and common situations. A very simplified example of signifying that could be used in a classroom could be if you say, “My dog is sad and needs love” when in fact, it is you who is sad and maybe you don’t even have a dog as a pet.

Again many of the examples included in the book were simplistic in nature and inappropriate with language. Signyfying is hard to explain because It have several definitions from many scholars as

well as multiple meanings. Signifying purpose is to convey the primary meaning and to give a small hint toward the secondary meaning. Furthermore, Gates discusses the many myths that are present in Yoruba myth and Cuban culture as well. At times it was certain that his work had tone of Derrida present whereas the notion of the signifier was certainly objective.

Soon after reading several definitions of the “Signfying” and “signifier” I related this theory to differ and defer and the relationship the Derrida’s difference where he believe language is a system of symbols and how each symbol can mean something different to someone else like the word black has multiple meaning such as; black as night, black as coal, or the skin color black therefore it is left up to the person or the signifier to decide what “black” really is.

It is easy to struggle with the definition of signifying and signied as Gates states; “My intention, however has been to suggest the various ways in which Signifying is (mis)understood, primarily because few scholars have succeeded in defining it as a full concept”(Gates 71). After this line it was hard to continue that book loosing confidence that I would never completely understand the text and knowing that I would have to make several attempts to nderstand the versatile meaning. Gates does collect several definitions of the signified and the signifying form wryters and critic alike to offer a well rounded interpretation of the concept. Gates was not a black separatist, and felt that by returning to a notion of what black literature was, these authors and texts could begin a “conversation”

with white texts and further develop the notion of American literature.

Gates was influential because he argued that language can be coded to benefit a person’s situation. In addition unlike many critics his focus was on African American literature. It seems that much of Gates’ work focuses on the voice of the black character and the black text. This is shown throughout his book The Signifying Monkey when examining books such as Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Color Purple are examined at length through character interaction and character dialogue.