Dream on Monkey Mountain

Makak is the central protagonist of the play and the man whose dream gives the play its title. Now comfortably in his old age, Makak is an elderly man of African descent who lives on an unnamed island that still feels the echoes of a recent colonialist past. Poor and uneducated, Makak is a charcoal burner. He lives in a small house on the side of the titular Monkey Mountain.  

Throughout the play, Makak suffers from fits. Few characters know how to deal with them, so they simply watch as Makak seizes. Occasionally, these fits bring on visionary dreams. After his arrest, Makak has a fit in the jail cell and begins dreaming that he the ghostly apparition of a white woman has visited him. A deeply insecure and self-loathing man, Makak is disgusted by the sight of himself, but the apparition soothes his worries. She tells him that he is descended from African kings. In fact, he should travel back to Africa, where he will be able to retake his throne and follow in the footsteps of his royal ancestors.  

Makak becomes so obsessed with the message of this dream that he sets off the next day. Accompanied by his friend Moustique, he begins to believe that he has special powers. When Makak heals a sick man on the road and Moustique suggests exploiting this healing power for financial gain, but Makak is uninterested—he only wants to travel to Africa.  

Despite setbacks like imprisonment, Makak converts most of the play’s other characters to his cause and, eventually, becomes a king. Rather than destroying the oppressive racial system he is fleeing, he creates one that is just as oppressive. Disillusioned, he executes the apparition of the white woman who set him on his journey and reconnects with reality. Now going by his real name, Felix Hobain, he returns to his mountain with Moustique. He has seen the terrors he might potentially unleash in the world and finds a renewed happiness in his simple existence, armed with a better sense of himself.  

Moustique is Makak’s friend and business partner, an older black man who has a malformed foot, which damages his sense of self-worth and contributes to his dire economic straits. Makak found Moustique have tried out a number of business schemes; most recently, they bought a donkey and invested in their charcoal business. Moustique appreciates Makak because Makak is the only person who has even shown belief in him. The two friends have formed a strong friendship based on their shared marginalization and the support they provide to one another.  

In Makak’s dreams, Moustique takes on a cynical air. When he discovers that Makak might possess healing powers, he hopes to exploit this for financial gain. He never truly believes in making the trip to Africa but agrees to accompany Makak in the hope that they will at least be able to make some money along the way. Symbolically, the doubting Moustique represents Makak’s own misgivings: Makak wants to believe in the apparition and return to Africa to rediscover his sense of self-worth, but the idealism underpinning these hopes goes against his lived reality. 

Moustique dies on two occasions, once in each part of the play. Makak mourns Moustique’s first death as a tragedy and accepts his second death as an inevitable byproduct of his own actions. This ensures that the play’s Epilogue provides a moment of reconciliation when Moustique runs into the jail to save Makak. Delighted to find that his friend is not dead, Makak invites Moustique to accompany him back to Monkey Mountain, symbolically inviting him to share in the new sense of purpose that Makak has discovered in his dream.  

At the beginning of the play, Lestrade readily identifies with the white half of his biracial identity. He refers to black men in his custody as animals and envisions himself as an extension of the island’s white colonial authority. Lestrade is an instrument of the state’s power, and he conflates this authority with his white identity, assuming that one informs the other. His contemptuous attitude toward Makak, Tigre, and Souris is fueled by racial animosity and a desire to elevate himself over the black men.  

In the forest, however, when Basil confronts Lestrade with his many transgressions against fellow black people, Lestrade makes peace with the black half of his identity. The Corporal realizes that the white authoritarians he fetishizes will never see him as one of them, but will always view the Corporal exactly as he views the prisoners. Makak preaches a message of acceptance and racial solidarity, accepting the Corporal regardless of the complexities of his race.  

Lestrade accepts this newfound racial identity but cannot relinquish his grip on state power. He becomes an instrument of control and violence, this time under Makak’s rule, inflicting pain and sentencing people exactly as he did before. The only difference is that the target of his anger switches from black people to white people. As such, Lestrade becomes the embodiment of all racially motivated animosity, demonstrating that simply empowering marginalized people will not automatically create fair and just systems.  

Throughout the play, Lestrade functions as a violent, authoritarian reflection of Makak’s worst impulses. He represents what Makak must tame if he is to be happy.  

Basil is a strange and mysterious figure in the play. Though he claims to be a carpenter and a coffin maker, his presence is foreboding and ominous. At times, he is dressed explicitly as Baron Samedi, a figure often associated with death and resurrection in Haitian Vodou, wearing a hat, a long coat, with half of his face painted white. When Basil appears to Moustique, the two men have a long discussion about portents and signs. Moustique chooses to ignore Basil’s premonitions—a failure that dooms him.