The play has a rather complex structure, beginning
in the police station as Makak begs to be released, then moving in Scene
One into an apparent flashback to the events that brought Makak there;
or is this his recounting of the dream? Then Part Two begins
back in the jail, with the murder of Cpl. Lestrade and the flight - this
seems to be a return to the present, with the re-establishment of the initial
situation, but may not be; the epilogue again returns to the site of imprisonment,
with Tigre and Moustique both restored to life, and Moustique's more prosaic
interpretation of Makak's situation. This complexity may lead us
to wonder, what is real? What is fantasy?
The dream works with various symbolic elements,
as a political allegory of the state of blacks in the Caribbean
and generally in the postcolonial world. They are cut off from their
roots; hence Makak's determination to go back to Africa as part of his
vision, a movement reminiscent of Marcus Garvey's activities in the 1920s
and 30s. But what is the source of the vision? It is suggested
at one point that it is the whites - certainly Makak himself describes
its origin from a woman in white face, who also appears as the white mask
produced by Lestrade and also by Moustique. When Makak has a vision
of the white woman in the prison, Lestrade says "is this rage for whiteness
that does drive niggers mad." Consider what it means if the source
of "back-to-Africa" movement is white, as in the U.S. during the 19th century
(founding of Liberia).
Cpl. Lestrade, who is of mixed race (mulatto), represents
the complicity of certain elements of the black community with the colonizers,
although he should be the ally of the other blacks. Hence his verbal
attack on the prisoners as "animals, beasts, savages, cannibals, niggers"
and his account of the "nigger" as a tribe of apes that "lingered behind"
when others began to walk upright, with straight backbones.
Lestrade has become alienated from his black self by his service to the
whites but is cured of that alienation when the others make him strip naked;
as Makak tells him, "They reject half of you. We accept all."
But is he cured? His complicity with the whites turns into a killing
rage, and he finally even urges Makak to destroy the source of the vision,
because she is white, lest Makak become like Lestrade was, i.e., "neither
one thing nor the other." Lestrade's query after his stabbing, "Did
you feel pity for me or horror of them?" puts the audience on the spot,
forced to recognize the violence. And it is clear that "native" violence
becomes an excuse for further violence on the part of the oppressors, as
he takes out his rifle to go "hunting the lion."
The law: Lestrade furiously defends English
law, but the law is used to abuse justice when he goes through a perfunctory
justification of Makak's readiness to stand trial. Again, in the
marketplace, Lestrade talks about the importance of the pistol in preserving
order - because he is armed, the vendor does not dispute that a melon is
a pawpaw; Lestrade longs for someone to challenge the law, to dispute him.
Later, in the jail, Lestrade seems to reject the law:
Once I loved the law. I thought the law was just, universal,
a substitute for God, but the law is a whore, she will adjust
her price. In some places the law does not allow you to be
black,
not even black, but tinged with black.
At the same time, though, the law remains the potential salvation of
them all, as he says when Makak offers money to let him go home.
Lestrade's difficulties with the law, as Tigre tells him, is that it has
deracinated him without fulfilling its promise; however, he remains the
figure who can use the law against others. Later, though, following
his conversion, he proposes that the blacks use the law for themselves,
and enters into the killing rage that causes revolutionaries to reject
all of the good in white culture along with the bad: "a drop of milk is
enough to condemn them" - an inversion of racial laws in many places that
categorized individuals as black with any black blood at all.
Makak's journey involves echoes of Gandhi, Haile
Selasse, and, of course, Jesus Christ. Makak claims to be answerable
only to God. Echoes of Haile Selasse: Makak is compared to the Lion
of Abyssinia; the "trial" is surrounded by Rastafarian imagery, and on
the journey into the mountain, Makak urges Souris and Tigre to smoke ganja.
Echoes of Christ: he urges Moustique to leave everything behind and follow
him; he heals the sick Josephus by urging him simply to believe and even
Moustique tells the peasants that Makak "breathe[s] resurrection"; the
wonder stories that people tell of him, and the doubts they encounter,
are reminiscent of Gospel accounts; in the prison, and in the escape to
Monkey Mountain, he is accompanied by two thieves, as Christ on the cross.
Souris becomes a convert to Makak's faith, while Tigre remains outside,
with his vision of souls tormented in hell. Makak tells Tigre "you
cannot reach that rainbow weighted like scales with your bags of fool's
gold." Echoes of Gandhi: Makak is "on a long walk, going through
every village, on his way to the sea, looking across to Africa, and. .
. when he get there, God will tell him what to do." His vision
also echoes Plato when he sees the blacks as "shadows in the firelight
of the white man's mind."
Makak's vision leads to an attempt to regain
his heritage, as the white woman tells him that he is descended "from the
family of lions and kings." Moustique is more practical, more concerned
with making a living than in following visions, and compares Makak to Don
Quijote. Moustique collects money for both of their nourishment,
and does not fully comprehend Makak's revolution; or does he? He
tells Makak that some day he will have to sell the dream just for food
and shelter, that love is not enough. Lestrade's view of Makak's
dream is political: he denies the possibility of freedom, saying "It's
the slaves who believe in freedom.".
Moustique is the first of several characters who
appropriate the vision to their own ends - a frequent event in any revolution.
Moustique impersonates Makak and uses the language of Afrocentrism to get
money from the people in the marketplace. But his betrayal of the
vision is itself betrayed, by Basil's recognition that he is not Makak,
which in turn leads the people to reject the false prophet. He is
killed, leading to Makak's vision of blackness, which Lestrade in the jailhouse
trial calls heresy. When Moustique reappears on Monkey Mountain,
it
is to confront Makak with the perversion of his revolution into violence.
Souris and Tigre also seek to exploit Makak's dream
for their own purposes, when Tigre urges the "madness" on Makak to bring
him to kill Lestrade and free them all. By causing Makak to shed
blood, they do succeed in transforming the nature of his vision and leading
to its probable failure. Their betrayal of the revolution, too, is
bound to material needs.
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