Super Short Summary

In The Signifying Monkey, Henry Louis Gates Jr. explores African-American literary theory, focusing on the cultural practice of “signifyin(g),” a form of wordplay tracing back to the Yoruba figure Esu-Elegbara. Gates links Esu's interpretive role to the Signifying Monkey, a figure in African-American folklore. This conceptual framework reveals how Black authors such as Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ralph Ellison adapt and transform literary traditions through “repetition with a signal difference.” The text addresses themes of enslavement and cultural survival.