Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is a noted literary scholar whose lasting impact will likely lie in a brilliant book called The Signifying Monkey. The Signifying Monkey is a Yoruban folk legend, popularized in America by toasting (toasting being a method of rhymed story-telling that predates rap) stand-up comics such as Rudy Ray Moore (Dolemite!) about a monkey being hunted by both an elephant and a lion. The monkey outsmarts them both by engaging in a verbal game tells signifying. He tricks them into fighting one another, and therefore is able to not only survive, but move up on the totem pole as his predators destroy each other, leaving room for him to move up.
The story is metaphoric. If the monkey represents the African-American, then through language and literacy, they are able to keep those above them busy and thus unobtrusively move up. Signifying is broader than that, though, encompassing a wide range of verbal strategies that allow someone lacking power to momentarily gain it, especially by twisting language which was originally that of the oppressor.
The signifying monkey becomes a motif that has moved throughout African-American history, either consciously or unconsciously, and is a strategy that can be seen at work in the writing of almost every major African-American literary figure, as well as many rap artists. Henry Louis Gates is responsible for pointing the way to a broader understanding of how it is used.
No comments:
Post a Comment