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The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism
The Signifying Monkey is the first book of literary criticism to trace the roots of contemporary Black literature to Afro-American folklore and to the traditions of African languages. As the author examines the ancient poetry of the Ifa Oracle (found in Nigeria, Benin, Brazil, Cuba, and
Haiti), he uncovers the origins of a sacred system of divination, brought to America by black slaves who felt it to be the very "heart-beat" of their souls. Gates demonstrates how a heroic and popular character called the Signifying Monkey emerged from this divination and came to pervade
Afro-American culture. In providing masterful readings of literary works by Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Jean Toomer, Richard Wright, and Ishmael Reed--and in defining how the works of these authors "signify upon" each other--the author delivers a powerful and ground-breaking
work of critical theory. Many previously unpublished tales about the Monkey, as well as those already published, are collected in a detailed appendix.
Haiti), he uncovers the origins of a sacred system of divination, brought to America by black slaves who felt it to be the very "heart-beat" of their souls. Gates demonstrates how a heroic and popular character called the Signifying Monkey emerged from this divination and came to pervade
Afro-American culture. In providing masterful readings of literary works by Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Jean Toomer, Richard Wright, and Ishmael Reed--and in defining how the works of these authors "signify upon" each other--the author delivers a powerful and ground-breaking
work of critical theory. Many previously unpublished tales about the Monkey, as well as those already published, are collected in a detailed appendix.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1988
About the author
Henry Louis Gates Jr.
341 books900 followersHenry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. is a Professor of African and African-American Studies at Harvard University and Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. He is well-known as a literary critic, an editor of literature, and a proponent of black literature and black cultural studies.
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August 31, 2014
B. The Black English vernacular is not disappearing. In fact it is going its own way. This separate development reflects the larger social picture of segregated speech communities. Within this black vernacular the black person has encoded private, yet communal cultural rituals. This book explores the relationship between the black vernacular tradition and the African-American literary tradition. He wants to be a critic that uses black theory to understand black literature. Thus, he tries to define a theory of African-American criticism.
C. To explore the black tradition, Gates relies on two signal tricksters, Esu-Elegbara (African) and the Signifying Monkey (African-American). The central place of both figures in their traditions is determined by their tendency to reflect on the uses of formal language.
D. Structure: Three theoretical chapters, followed by 4 chapters of close readings or case studies.
E. The black tradition is double-voiced. Black writers learn to write by reading white Western texts. So there written voice is Western. But they also come from a black vernacular tradition which gives them a second voice. This black tradition is based on Signifyin(g) or a repetition and revision with a signal difference. There are 4 types of double-voices textual relations that are examined in this book
1. Tropological revision.
a) This is the way in which a trope is repeated, with differences, between two or more texts. There are many recurring tropes in the African-American literary tradition. The descent underground, the vertical ascent from the South to the North, and the double consciousness (Bigger’s double consciousness). This is the first mode of Signifyin(g) as repetition and difference in the Anglo-African narrative tradition.
b) The “trope of the Talking Book” in several slave narratives. This is the ur-trope (the first trope) of the African-American tradition. It is here that the double-voiced discourse comes most clearly through. The Talking Book is the attempt to make the white written text speak with a black voice. The trope is used as a way to argue for the importance of black thought in a white world and other authors all deal with this idea of freedom. This trope began in James Gronniosaw’s slave narrative and was the first example of Signifyin(g) as repetition and difference as other authors used this trope.
2. The speakerly text. The novels black speech and the standard English of the narrator come together to form a third term, a double-voiced narrative mode. The Russian Formalists call this ‘skaz’ when a text aspires to the status of oral narration. An example is Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes were Watching God. She proves that a text can be written in a black dialect.
3. Talking texts. Black texts ‘talk’ to other texts or intertextuality. These are texts like Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo which responds to, challenges, and amplifies upon multiple precursor texts. Ellison employs this in Invisible Man. He draws on Wright, Du Bois, Douglass, Washington, while also drawing on Melville and Whitman.
A. Rewriting the speakerly. These are texts that directly engage and revamp the styles and narrative strategies of an earlier text. An example is Alice Walker’s The Color Purple ‘rewriting’ the Hurston book. This is like jazz musicians getting together to play each others songs. Walker rewrites Hurston’s text to criticize but to pay homage.
C. To explore the black tradition, Gates relies on two signal tricksters, Esu-Elegbara (African) and the Signifying Monkey (African-American). The central place of both figures in their traditions is determined by their tendency to reflect on the uses of formal language.
D. Structure: Three theoretical chapters, followed by 4 chapters of close readings or case studies.
E. The black tradition is double-voiced. Black writers learn to write by reading white Western texts. So there written voice is Western. But they also come from a black vernacular tradition which gives them a second voice. This black tradition is based on Signifyin(g) or a repetition and revision with a signal difference. There are 4 types of double-voices textual relations that are examined in this book
1. Tropological revision.
a) This is the way in which a trope is repeated, with differences, between two or more texts. There are many recurring tropes in the African-American literary tradition. The descent underground, the vertical ascent from the South to the North, and the double consciousness (Bigger’s double consciousness). This is the first mode of Signifyin(g) as repetition and difference in the Anglo-African narrative tradition.
b) The “trope of the Talking Book” in several slave narratives. This is the ur-trope (the first trope) of the African-American tradition. It is here that the double-voiced discourse comes most clearly through. The Talking Book is the attempt to make the white written text speak with a black voice. The trope is used as a way to argue for the importance of black thought in a white world and other authors all deal with this idea of freedom. This trope began in James Gronniosaw’s slave narrative and was the first example of Signifyin(g) as repetition and difference as other authors used this trope.
2. The speakerly text. The novels black speech and the standard English of the narrator come together to form a third term, a double-voiced narrative mode. The Russian Formalists call this ‘skaz’ when a text aspires to the status of oral narration. An example is Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes were Watching God. She proves that a text can be written in a black dialect.
3. Talking texts. Black texts ‘talk’ to other texts or intertextuality. These are texts like Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo which responds to, challenges, and amplifies upon multiple precursor texts. Ellison employs this in Invisible Man. He draws on Wright, Du Bois, Douglass, Washington, while also drawing on Melville and Whitman.
A. Rewriting the speakerly. These are texts that directly engage and revamp the styles and narrative strategies of an earlier text. An example is Alice Walker’s The Color Purple ‘rewriting’ the Hurston book. This is like jazz musicians getting together to play each others songs. Walker rewrites Hurston’s text to criticize but to pay homage.
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September 19, 2010It's impossible to understate the influence of Skip Gates on the American humanities. He kind of established what the African-American canon was, and then had enough clout to get it taught in schools. You can't make it through a freshman lit seminar without reading Olaudah Equiano, Phyllis Wheatley, and Zora Neale Hurston, and we can thank Mr. Gates for that. But a whole lot more people namecheck him than actually read him... I'm pretty sure the vast majority of pundits, scholars, and commentators who expressed strong opinions about his bullshit arrest back in Spring '09 have never so much as run their index fingers over a volume of Gates' dense, Barthes-influenced scholarship.
To be sure, this isn't cozy bedside reading, but he makes a solid case. West African folklore, and more especially its monkey archetype, has, via diaspora, made its way into all Black literatures. What I brought from it is how this archetype has gone even further than Gates explicated, reverberating through all American literature, culture, and music, be it Black or White. See attached documents: The Velvet Underground, Shaft, Jack Kerouac, Ludacris.
To be sure, this isn't cozy bedside reading, but he makes a solid case. West African folklore, and more especially its monkey archetype, has, via diaspora, made its way into all Black literatures. What I brought from it is how this archetype has gone even further than Gates explicated, reverberating through all American literature, culture, and music, be it Black or White. See attached documents: The Velvet Underground, Shaft, Jack Kerouac, Ludacris.
March 16, 2008
invaluable literary criticism.
February 8, 2023
no this is pretty good actually
August 7, 2007
The central idea that Henry Louis Gates, Jr., provides in this text is to be found in his analysis of black literature's emphasis on and use of Signification. Signifyin(g) is a technique that essentially amounts to repetition with a crucial difference, a way of commenting on other writers and their ideas through various sorts of parody and pastiche. This idea sheds new light on the seeming repetition in some black artists' work and on the literary evolution of black writers. Frequently accused of being merely imitative and not original, Gates echoes Zora Neale Hurston's idea that "what we really mean by originality is in fact masterful revision," that "imitation is the Afro-American's central art form." Furthermore, he continues, "For Hurston, the distinction between originality and imitation is a false distinction, and for the black writer to suffer under the burden of avoiding repetition, revision, or reinterpretation is to succumb to a political argument that reflects a racist subtext" (118).
Gates' idea of Signifyin(g) on literary precursors is not entirely unlike Harold Bloom's idea of the "anxiety of influence"; however, where Bloom sees primarily pressure and anxiety in the relation between a poet and his/her precursors, born from the need to distinguish him/herself and do something new and original, Gates sees creativity and possibilities for connections in the relation between a writer and his/her precursors. Whether the writer wishes to counter or affirm the ideas and style of a writer who has had an influence on him/her, in Gates' world of literary Signifyin(g), the countering or affirming will be a creative process in itself. Achieving striking originality and separating oneself from the pack is less important than is finding one's place--through Signification's playful, shifting processes--in the world of literary ancestors and relatives. These literary ancestors and relatives may or may not be other black writers. Gates is careful to avoid essentialism here, instead arguing that "shared experience of black people vis-a-vis white racism is not sufficient evidence upon which to argue that black writers have shared patterns of representation of their common subject for two centuries--unless one wishes to argue for a genetic theory of literature, which the biological sciences do not support. Rather, shared modes of figuration result only when writers read each other's texts and seize upon topoi and tropes to revise in their own texts" (128). Signification thus is a part of the creation of literary traditions, as Signifyin(g) revision "alters fundamentally the way we read the tradition, by defining the relation of the text at hand to the tradition" (124). Traditions are not static, neither are they handed down in a neat package to the next generation of writers; instead, each writer creates his/her own traditions and his/her own place in those traditions by reading and then by Signifyin(g) upon meaningful texts.
Gates' idea of Signifyin(g) on literary precursors is not entirely unlike Harold Bloom's idea of the "anxiety of influence"; however, where Bloom sees primarily pressure and anxiety in the relation between a poet and his/her precursors, born from the need to distinguish him/herself and do something new and original, Gates sees creativity and possibilities for connections in the relation between a writer and his/her precursors. Whether the writer wishes to counter or affirm the ideas and style of a writer who has had an influence on him/her, in Gates' world of literary Signifyin(g), the countering or affirming will be a creative process in itself. Achieving striking originality and separating oneself from the pack is less important than is finding one's place--through Signification's playful, shifting processes--in the world of literary ancestors and relatives. These literary ancestors and relatives may or may not be other black writers. Gates is careful to avoid essentialism here, instead arguing that "shared experience of black people vis-a-vis white racism is not sufficient evidence upon which to argue that black writers have shared patterns of representation of their common subject for two centuries--unless one wishes to argue for a genetic theory of literature, which the biological sciences do not support. Rather, shared modes of figuration result only when writers read each other's texts and seize upon topoi and tropes to revise in their own texts" (128). Signification thus is a part of the creation of literary traditions, as Signifyin(g) revision "alters fundamentally the way we read the tradition, by defining the relation of the text at hand to the tradition" (124). Traditions are not static, neither are they handed down in a neat package to the next generation of writers; instead, each writer creates his/her own traditions and his/her own place in those traditions by reading and then by Signifyin(g) upon meaningful texts.
September 7, 2020
Very strange. I was confused when we started off talking about African mythology, but then it made more sense when we got to the connection between Esu and the Signifyin(g) Monkey, but then it stopped making sense again when we got to all the rhetorical tropes. Part of my confusion may result from 1) only partial familiarity with the literary texts under consideration and 2) only partial familiarity with the rhetorical tropes, but, with that caveat, I really felt by the end that the argument became anything that references something else is an example of Signification. It just seems like such a stretch to go from these Signifying Monkey tropes to The Color Purple as if it's all part of one chain. The only connection seems to be that all the texts use rhetorical tropes and contain references to previous works, but pretty much everything that's ever been written or said contains some sort of rhetorical trope, which means the only real glue is the references.
For my money, the presence/absence thing was the most interesting, but only for the implications for expansion.
I kind of sort of see why this text is considered foundational, but I'm really not sure what to do with it.
For my money, the presence/absence thing was the most interesting, but only for the implications for expansion.
I kind of sort of see why this text is considered foundational, but I'm really not sure what to do with it.
October 7, 2019
This book, the theory behind the Signifyin' Monkey, and the way that it pushes against traditional film theory, and theorists like de Saussere was essential for the completion of my masters thesis on subversive narrative. Gates is a master at explaining the difficult, the trying, and the intentions of language, myth, and thought across race.
October 1, 2012
I read a select few essays from this book junior year in college, but recently felt the urge to finish it in its entirety. Wow, stunning clarity, compelling arguments, and a vast array of knowledgeable texts. HLG definitely reshaped a few lenses here.
March 14, 2025
I loved the beginning bits the most, about the Yoruba threshold guardian trickster orisha's continuity in African American life. I've been a fan of toasts like 'signifying monkey,' 'titanic,' etc ever since hip hop led me to discover them in the original Dolemite movie and on the Iceberg Slim record, so I loved that chapter as well, with all the references to H. Rap Brown and the dozens. Sooooo tasty. Things get more and more literary though and I had to go slower and slower, looking words up, and bringing up old memories of books I've read from decades past. "The Talking Book" trope in the slave narratives was interesting but the real stars of the lit-crit section are Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God" and Ishmael Reed "Mumbo Jumbo."
September 29, 2008
So, as difficult as this highly technical piece of literary criticism was to get through, I found it extremely fascinating. Now, as I sit in grad class and we discuss aspects of African-American writings, I feel that much more educated and "clued in" to various tropes and contexts! Plus, this has proved to be an awesome resource for further research I have been doing. Three cheers for the Signifying Monkey!
August 21, 2019
I read this in grad school and it literally propelled me through a number of papers. I will always always remind my students that Signifyin[g] is "repetition with a signal difference": James Brown crying "Please, Please"; Amiri Baraka repeating "Oh wow!" with each iteration implying something new; etc. It's a simple but powerful concept.
December 14, 2013
Fascinating. An alternative canon, and an introduction to the historical and sociological complexities in the emergence of a new type of literature. If you're a student and you're looking at any African-American literature or any trickster stories, this is a Must Read.
January 26, 2016
i remember my teacher introducing us to this book..."Skip" she called him ... i remember when I said to my uncles to "stop signifyin" and the look on their faces that I knew what it meant :)
June 5, 2009
i have found the signifyin' concept to come up a lot, since reading this book.
April 14, 2011
Fascinating literary critique that is decidedly not easy to read.
February 6, 2021
I picked this book up for its Trickster info. That part was really, really, good. But then he went into a deep reading of a few books and lost me. Here are my notes:
(8) “In Yoruba Mythology, Esu is said to limp as he walks, precisely because of his mediating function, his legs are different lengths because he keeps one anchored in the realm of the gods while the other rests in this, our human world.”
(23) "the architect of interpretation" Can you use that as a kenning.
(23) "the primal god of the Fon is a Janus figure; one side of its body is female and is called Mawu, well the other side is male and just called Lisa. Mawu's eyes form the Moon Lisa's eyes form the sun accordingly Lisa rules the day in Mawu rules the night. the seventh son of Mawu-Lisa is Legba"
Seventh Son is blues song by Willie Dixon.
(26) The oral tradition of the Yoruba means each time a story is told it varies slightly.
(26) Yoruba and Fon tricksters love to play with language.
Legba is the Fon trickster
Fa is the Fon writing system (I think)
(29) Esu “is at once both male and female”
This, “despite his remarkable penis feats” which makes them the first non-exclusively trickster figure I’ve come across.
(66) High schoolers in WInston-Salem, nc wanted revenge on McGraw-Hill and their Iowa Test of Basic Skills. So they created the In Your Face Test of No Uncertain Skills. The McGraw Folks scored but Cs and Ds. One question: Who is buried in Grant’s Tomb. A: Your mama. This is very trickstery. It subverts expectations but having the answer be a non-sequitur to the question.
(71) One, possible, origin of The Dozens is the 18th century verb “dozen” which meant “to stun, stupefy, daze.”
(72) H. Rap Brown made poetry on the streets with rap (hence his name) and The dozens, yet white people don’t think that’s poetry because poetry equals Western Tradition.
(73) The majority of Brown’s rap is in the Bo Diddly version of “Who Do You Love”
(73) Signifying can build someone up, too.
(97) Mules and Men by Hurston is the first appearance of the word “Signifying”.
(97) The Dozens could have been so named because it’s rumored to refer to 12 sex acts each said with a word that rhymed with the numbers 1-12.
(113) David Hume said that poet Francis Williams (a Cambridge educated, Latin writing poet) didn’t prove abolitionists’ point that black people are equal because he was like a parrot, only able to say a small amount of stuff well. This led to the Mockingbird School of poetry, where any black poets accomplishments were chalked up to being able to write a little but not with the breadth of whiteys.
(114) Some poets like Paul Laurence Dunbar, basically admit defeat because they have no literary black giants on whose shoulders they may stand.
(117) Even the unofficial first novel by a black man is signifying. Charles Chestutt wrote The “Passing of Grandison” in 1899 but it seems to be a response to William Wells Brown’s My Southern Home (1880), specifically chapter 13. Chestnutt didn’t see Brown’s work as a novel and thus he saw himself as the first black novelist.
(132) The Talking Book Trope is awesomely meta. It’s 1st appearance was (perhaps) in James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw’s “A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, and African Prince As Related by Himself”. On a ship he heard a book talking to the captain but when he tried to have it talk to him, it was silent. So the book didn’t speak to him. Is that pun or a metaphor or both? It’s a great trope no matter what.
(171) “If slavery had been an immoral institution, it had also been a large, fixed target; once abolished, the target of racism splintered into hundreds of fragments, all of which seemed to be moving in as many directions. Just as the ex-slaves wrote to end slavery, so too did free black authors write to redres the myriad forms that the fluid mask of racism assumed between the end of the Civil War and the end of the Jazz Age.”
And I’d contend they continue to do today.
The book then went into a deep literary criticism of first, “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston, then “Mumbo Jumbo” by Ishmeal Reed, then something else but by then I was done. I picked it up for the trickster signifying monkey but there wasn’t much of that. “Mumbo Jumbo” was so packed with layers that it reminds me of Mody Dick. Perhaps I’m too far removed from my English degree (almost 20 years now) or perhaps Mr. Gates writing just didn’t connect with me but I couldn’t read any more.
(8) “In Yoruba Mythology, Esu is said to limp as he walks, precisely because of his mediating function, his legs are different lengths because he keeps one anchored in the realm of the gods while the other rests in this, our human world.”
(23) "the architect of interpretation" Can you use that as a kenning.
(23) "the primal god of the Fon is a Janus figure; one side of its body is female and is called Mawu, well the other side is male and just called Lisa. Mawu's eyes form the Moon Lisa's eyes form the sun accordingly Lisa rules the day in Mawu rules the night. the seventh son of Mawu-Lisa is Legba"
Seventh Son is blues song by Willie Dixon.
(26) The oral tradition of the Yoruba means each time a story is told it varies slightly.
(26) Yoruba and Fon tricksters love to play with language.
Legba is the Fon trickster
Fa is the Fon writing system (I think)
(29) Esu “is at once both male and female”
This, “despite his remarkable penis feats” which makes them the first non-exclusively trickster figure I’ve come across.
(66) High schoolers in WInston-Salem, nc wanted revenge on McGraw-Hill and their Iowa Test of Basic Skills. So they created the In Your Face Test of No Uncertain Skills. The McGraw Folks scored but Cs and Ds. One question: Who is buried in Grant’s Tomb. A: Your mama. This is very trickstery. It subverts expectations but having the answer be a non-sequitur to the question.
(71) One, possible, origin of The Dozens is the 18th century verb “dozen” which meant “to stun, stupefy, daze.”
(72) H. Rap Brown made poetry on the streets with rap (hence his name) and The dozens, yet white people don’t think that’s poetry because poetry equals Western Tradition.
(73) The majority of Brown’s rap is in the Bo Diddly version of “Who Do You Love”
(73) Signifying can build someone up, too.
(97) Mules and Men by Hurston is the first appearance of the word “Signifying”.
(97) The Dozens could have been so named because it’s rumored to refer to 12 sex acts each said with a word that rhymed with the numbers 1-12.
(113) David Hume said that poet Francis Williams (a Cambridge educated, Latin writing poet) didn’t prove abolitionists’ point that black people are equal because he was like a parrot, only able to say a small amount of stuff well. This led to the Mockingbird School of poetry, where any black poets accomplishments were chalked up to being able to write a little but not with the breadth of whiteys.
(114) Some poets like Paul Laurence Dunbar, basically admit defeat because they have no literary black giants on whose shoulders they may stand.
(117) Even the unofficial first novel by a black man is signifying. Charles Chestutt wrote The “Passing of Grandison” in 1899 but it seems to be a response to William Wells Brown’s My Southern Home (1880), specifically chapter 13. Chestnutt didn’t see Brown’s work as a novel and thus he saw himself as the first black novelist.
(132) The Talking Book Trope is awesomely meta. It’s 1st appearance was (perhaps) in James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw’s “A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, and African Prince As Related by Himself”. On a ship he heard a book talking to the captain but when he tried to have it talk to him, it was silent. So the book didn’t speak to him. Is that pun or a metaphor or both? It’s a great trope no matter what.
(171) “If slavery had been an immoral institution, it had also been a large, fixed target; once abolished, the target of racism splintered into hundreds of fragments, all of which seemed to be moving in as many directions. Just as the ex-slaves wrote to end slavery, so too did free black authors write to redres the myriad forms that the fluid mask of racism assumed between the end of the Civil War and the end of the Jazz Age.”
And I’d contend they continue to do today.
The book then went into a deep literary criticism of first, “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston, then “Mumbo Jumbo” by Ishmeal Reed, then something else but by then I was done. I picked it up for the trickster signifying monkey but there wasn’t much of that. “Mumbo Jumbo” was so packed with layers that it reminds me of Mody Dick. Perhaps I’m too far removed from my English degree (almost 20 years now) or perhaps Mr. Gates writing just didn’t connect with me but I couldn’t read any more.
September 13, 2022
Skip Gates writes an impressively lucid (though at times repetitive) history of the Black literary tradition, focusing mostly on African American literature. His idea of a literature characterized by “Signifyin(g),” a form of linguistic play deeply entrenched in Black culture, is very compelling and well-articulated. His argument looks ahead to Sundquist’s discussion of a biracial American literature, but also affords due attention to the ways in which Black literature developed through repetition and difference—a tradition of revision, both of white Western forms and of Black language, texts, and ideas.
I particularly enjoyed his discussion of Hurston’s innovative rhetorical techniques (the development of a “speakerly” text) and her influence on Walker’s creation of one of the only Black epistolary novels (a vernacular style that is emphatically textual). The discourse Gates draws out with these texts sheds light on the ways that Black writing constantly molds and recreates Western forms of expression in ways that allow for the representation of Black life THROUGH Black authors and Black narrators. If Signifyin(g) concerns itself with suspended and displaced meaning, it is also a metaphor for a literary tradition that developed in spite of negations of Black subjecthood.
I particularly enjoyed his discussion of Hurston’s innovative rhetorical techniques (the development of a “speakerly” text) and her influence on Walker’s creation of one of the only Black epistolary novels (a vernacular style that is emphatically textual). The discourse Gates draws out with these texts sheds light on the ways that Black writing constantly molds and recreates Western forms of expression in ways that allow for the representation of Black life THROUGH Black authors and Black narrators. If Signifyin(g) concerns itself with suspended and displaced meaning, it is also a metaphor for a literary tradition that developed in spite of negations of Black subjecthood.
September 26, 2017
After having read excerpts from this book multiple times over the course of the past year, I finally had the opportunity to read Signifying Monkey cover to cover. A blend of myth, semiotic analysis, and literary criticism, Gates provides an interrogation of African and African American oral culture and its parallels in African American literature. His exploration unveils a tradition in African American culture that runs parallel to Western tradition and demonstrates the richness this tradition has to offer. His interrogation of the Talking Book trope in relation to Signifyin(g) and the evolution of the Speakerly Text across Hurston, Reed, and Walker are exceptionally interesting for any Americanist.
September 2, 2024
Gates’ The Signifying Monkey (1988) is a foundational text for literary and race theories/theorists. He spends the course of the book attempting to determine how meaning is constructed in language and how those meanings can change. He believes the conflict between structured politics of meaning depend on the differences of white and Black Americans and the functions of their use of language.
The book hinges on Gates’ breakdown of African American authors like Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurson, and Ismael Reed to deterimine the role of “signifyin(g)” in each text. Gates’ defines signifyin(g) as the relationship between the “signifier” (the word we hear to which we prescribe meaning) and the “signified” (the concept related to the word). Signifyin(g) involves twisting language and storytelling tradition into something new and definitive of the time in which the new text is written. Gates argues that all words are “representations” of something real. If I write the word “cat,” our brains conjure an image of the animal that we associate with the word “cat.” When signifyin(g) occurs, the author of the original representation, “cat,” changes the automatic association from the animal to “a guy” (such as “cool cat” or “crazy cat”). It is this phenomenon that Gates is attempting to dissect and apply to literature. While everyone uses this kind of colloquial language, Gates contends that it’s due to the African American literary/storytelling tradition that this is the case.
Gates believes that signifyin(g) is the reinvention of White representations of language, thereby they are reinventing language itself. While some examples are like the one above, transforming common words to have a secondary colloquial meaning, he also argues that “rhetorical games” qualify as signifyin(g). Examples of rhetorical games would be wordplay in rap music, “Yo Mama” jokes, or insults (which he refers to as “street talk”). His primary concern with all representations of signifyin(g) is the way in which this form of language has been marked as “unsophisticated” by white Americans, resulting in its cultural marginalization. Gates believes this is inherently incorrect considering the complexity of what signifyin(g) does on linguistic and “representational” levels. Through this book, Gates is trying to “recover” the scholarly value of what we now consider African American Vernacular English (AAVE).
The primary ways signifyin(g) occurs is through “scheming” (the organization of language/sentences) and “troping” (playing on the meaning/sound of words). To Gates, signifyin(g) is the larger catch-all category for all forms of AAVE and associated language games.
The symbol of the “signifyin(g) monkey” is in reference to Black myth wherein the Monkey of the tale is in conflict with the Lion. Though Lion is physically superior, Monkey is linguistically superior, allowing for a Tom-and-Jerry-esque back-and-forth where the Lion attempts to attack the Monkey, only for the Monkey to continue punishing the Lion again and again through his verbal trickery. Gates uses this as a metaphor for language where the dominant white language/culture of the United States represents the Lion and the marginalized signifyin(g) language/culture represents the Monkey. There is a third character in this myth, the Elephant. If going back to the Tom and Jerry reference, the role of the Elephant is akin to the role of the dog: the sole physical threat to the “antagonist.” In this instance, the Elephant represents the real-world, material effect of rhetorical play. The Monkey is able to use his language to get the Elephant on his side, causing the Elephant to physically beat the Lion.
To summarize, Gates is pointing out that language has been a primary tool for resistance in the Black community in the United States. Speech is not a disembodied abstract concept, it is instead our embodied praxis technique deployed by the speaker. The Monkey is trying to confuse the Lion through methods of rhetorical play (jokes, double meanings of words/phrases). The Lion (dominant culture) is supposed to be frustrated, melancholic about its inability to best the signifier (Monkey). However, the Monkey revels in this delight of causing confusion and anxiety within the Lion, motivating him to continue evolving new rhetorical games.
Linguistically, Gates states this is the difference between “connotative” (what a word “suggests”) and “denotative” (what a word “means”) language. Where white (Lion) language is concerned with denotation, AAVE (Monkey) is connotative. In other words, the Lion’s language is bound to a set of predetermined references and rules, where the Monkey is concerned with style over substance, form over content, sound over meaning (which can be seen currently to occur often in rap music with slant rhymes or word doubling). To further his argument of the complexity of signifyin(g) language, Gates recounts how this connotative approach developed over centuries through navigating the perils of slavery, Jim Crow, and other systemic white supremacist power dynamics. During times where the dangers of being Black were higher than even now, doubling language was a way to code to one another information that could not be understood through denotative language techniques. An example of this could be spirituals, where the tone and denotative value of the song implied a happiness to work, whereas the slaves singing understood it to be music of despair, mourning, and solidarity with one another. This doubling of language is what kept them alive, just as it kept the Monkey alive in the face of the Lion.
The book hinges on Gates’ breakdown of African American authors like Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurson, and Ismael Reed to deterimine the role of “signifyin(g)” in each text. Gates’ defines signifyin(g) as the relationship between the “signifier” (the word we hear to which we prescribe meaning) and the “signified” (the concept related to the word). Signifyin(g) involves twisting language and storytelling tradition into something new and definitive of the time in which the new text is written. Gates argues that all words are “representations” of something real. If I write the word “cat,” our brains conjure an image of the animal that we associate with the word “cat.” When signifyin(g) occurs, the author of the original representation, “cat,” changes the automatic association from the animal to “a guy” (such as “cool cat” or “crazy cat”). It is this phenomenon that Gates is attempting to dissect and apply to literature. While everyone uses this kind of colloquial language, Gates contends that it’s due to the African American literary/storytelling tradition that this is the case.
Gates believes that signifyin(g) is the reinvention of White representations of language, thereby they are reinventing language itself. While some examples are like the one above, transforming common words to have a secondary colloquial meaning, he also argues that “rhetorical games” qualify as signifyin(g). Examples of rhetorical games would be wordplay in rap music, “Yo Mama” jokes, or insults (which he refers to as “street talk”). His primary concern with all representations of signifyin(g) is the way in which this form of language has been marked as “unsophisticated” by white Americans, resulting in its cultural marginalization. Gates believes this is inherently incorrect considering the complexity of what signifyin(g) does on linguistic and “representational” levels. Through this book, Gates is trying to “recover” the scholarly value of what we now consider African American Vernacular English (AAVE).
The primary ways signifyin(g) occurs is through “scheming” (the organization of language/sentences) and “troping” (playing on the meaning/sound of words). To Gates, signifyin(g) is the larger catch-all category for all forms of AAVE and associated language games.
The symbol of the “signifyin(g) monkey” is in reference to Black myth wherein the Monkey of the tale is in conflict with the Lion. Though Lion is physically superior, Monkey is linguistically superior, allowing for a Tom-and-Jerry-esque back-and-forth where the Lion attempts to attack the Monkey, only for the Monkey to continue punishing the Lion again and again through his verbal trickery. Gates uses this as a metaphor for language where the dominant white language/culture of the United States represents the Lion and the marginalized signifyin(g) language/culture represents the Monkey. There is a third character in this myth, the Elephant. If going back to the Tom and Jerry reference, the role of the Elephant is akin to the role of the dog: the sole physical threat to the “antagonist.” In this instance, the Elephant represents the real-world, material effect of rhetorical play. The Monkey is able to use his language to get the Elephant on his side, causing the Elephant to physically beat the Lion.
To summarize, Gates is pointing out that language has been a primary tool for resistance in the Black community in the United States. Speech is not a disembodied abstract concept, it is instead our embodied praxis technique deployed by the speaker. The Monkey is trying to confuse the Lion through methods of rhetorical play (jokes, double meanings of words/phrases). The Lion (dominant culture) is supposed to be frustrated, melancholic about its inability to best the signifier (Monkey). However, the Monkey revels in this delight of causing confusion and anxiety within the Lion, motivating him to continue evolving new rhetorical games.
Linguistically, Gates states this is the difference between “connotative” (what a word “suggests”) and “denotative” (what a word “means”) language. Where white (Lion) language is concerned with denotation, AAVE (Monkey) is connotative. In other words, the Lion’s language is bound to a set of predetermined references and rules, where the Monkey is concerned with style over substance, form over content, sound over meaning (which can be seen currently to occur often in rap music with slant rhymes or word doubling). To further his argument of the complexity of signifyin(g) language, Gates recounts how this connotative approach developed over centuries through navigating the perils of slavery, Jim Crow, and other systemic white supremacist power dynamics. During times where the dangers of being Black were higher than even now, doubling language was a way to code to one another information that could not be understood through denotative language techniques. An example of this could be spirituals, where the tone and denotative value of the song implied a happiness to work, whereas the slaves singing understood it to be music of despair, mourning, and solidarity with one another. This doubling of language is what kept them alive, just as it kept the Monkey alive in the face of the Lion.
July 16, 2019
Found parts of myself in these pages! This text was a great resource in drawing connections between cultural traditions across the African Diaspora and my own critical & creative contributions to the fields of African-American/Transnational Literature.
November 30, 2022
Some readers may be curious to have a look at my essay "The Signifying Monkey Talks Literature" which preceded Prof. Gates book by several years. It is posted on my blog at http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/201...
March 3, 2023
In the one hand this book is about a very narrow, academical topic but considered more broadly, it sheds light on so much of American rhetoric and discourse (and not only discourse “about race”) that it’s really an amazing journey to take.
February 18, 2018
Not my favorite literary manifesto, but a solid read by one of contemporary America's foremost authorities on African and African American culture, particularly where literature is concerned.
July 23, 2025
finally read part 2 of this book. the tradition indeed has been read.
February 25, 2026
The Signifying Monkey still remains an important corner stone for African American literature. Gates’ book transformed African American literature from a sociological concept to being viewed as art. The book is unavoidable when speaking about the ‘double-voiced’ aspect in African American literature.
Whilst the book is great there is issues due to what I’d call it ‘being a product of its time’ there are aspects where Gates’ dense theory works to mystify the reader. Some aspects of examples of Morrison, Wright and Ellison also ignored the heavy political influence that inspired their work and why certain tropes are repeated due to that. Gates also gives only mere justification for the book he chose in the latter part of the book which raises question on the strength of his argument if ‘any book could have done.’
Nonetheless this book is so important when discussing African American criticism because it is truly foundational. Which is why the criticism of it being a product of its time isn’t terrible it just means that we can now build upon it with knowledge that reflects the political, sociological and economic contexts that have inspired African American literature.
Whilst the book is great there is issues due to what I’d call it ‘being a product of its time’ there are aspects where Gates’ dense theory works to mystify the reader. Some aspects of examples of Morrison, Wright and Ellison also ignored the heavy political influence that inspired their work and why certain tropes are repeated due to that. Gates also gives only mere justification for the book he chose in the latter part of the book which raises question on the strength of his argument if ‘any book could have done.’
Nonetheless this book is so important when discussing African American criticism because it is truly foundational. Which is why the criticism of it being a product of its time isn’t terrible it just means that we can now build upon it with knowledge that reflects the political, sociological and economic contexts that have inspired African American literature.
June 7, 2014
Very informative. Fills in historical and literary gaps regarding African American culture.
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