Dream on Monkey Mountain

“Mooma, mooma,/Your son in de jail a’ready,/Your son in de jail a’ready,/Take a towel and/band your belly.”

The lament sung by the chorus and the conteur functions as a motif, appearing repeatedly throughout the Prologue and the play as a whole. The Creole-tinged song cautions resignation rather than revolt. There is a pessimistic acceptance of the way things are; the woman in the song is told that, though her son is in jail, there is little more she can do for him than banding her belly.  

“Now, if you apes will behave like gentlemen, who knows what could happen?”

Lestrade’s mock trial draws heavily on racist tropes. Though Lestrade is not white, he happily compares his prisoners to monkeys, apes, and animals. Lestrade does not consider himself to be of the same class or caste as the men in the cells.

“Let me go home, my Corporal.”

Makak’s motivations are evident from his first words. Though he has dreamed of God, though he claims to be descended from royalty, all he wants is to go home, his ambition systematically reduced and minimized. This demand for freedom has two meanings. Literally, Makak wants to get out of jail. Figuratively, Makak, who claims to be descended from African kings, petitions a representative of an oppressive state to abandon its colonialism.