The Lacuna

The howler monkeys are a recurring motif in the novel that Barbara Kingsolver uses as an extended metaphor for the theme of The Role of the Media in Shaping Public Perception and Creating Panic. The novel opens with a description of how, on the island of Isla Pixol, every morning one howler monkey begins to scream, which awakens the others until “the whole jungle filled with roaring trees” (3). The sound frightens young Shepherd and his mother. Later, Lev describes the media as “the megaphones of the other people” in the way that they amplify false or misleading information to create fear (207). In this conversation, Shepherd compares the media’s howls to those of the howler monkeys. He uses “howler” as shorthand for the media throughout the rest of the novel. For instance, in a letter to Frida Kahlo on June 30, 1944, Shepherd writes skeptically about Frida’s report that the US government is putting Japanese people in internment camps, noting, “You know these howlers” (376). In a letter to her on March 10, 1946, Shepherd uses the term again when reflecting on the amplification of the Red Scare during the Cold War.