Monkeys! What do they mean? June 17, 2008
Posted by eng161 in Common Room.trackback
In “Interpreter of Maladies”, the monkeys are central to understanding important details in one of the main conflicts between Mr. Kapasi and the Das family. Read the footnote concerning what the locals call these monkeys and look at the ways in which the Das family react to this bit of information and the monkeys in general. What is symbolized by the final moment when the monkeys surround Bobby?
There is no specific right or wrong answer here. In fact, several different ideas are embedded in the moment.
When The conflict of the monkey’s arose, it was symbolic to many ideas. Such ideas are clash in culture, the moral standings of the people involved, and an end to the Kapasi/Das realationship. The central idea in it would be the differences of cultures. In the Indian culture the monkey is viewed as sacred, and the Das family being from America couldn’t grasp the idea of put such emphasis on an animal. So as they encountered the animal time and time again it was treated like a zoo without bars. The sought entertainment from the wild, holy creatures. This would be offensive to Mr. Kapasi beings it was an insult to his religion, his beliefs, and his moral standings.
That incident sparked attention to me for it showed just how disrespectful people can be when in other cultures. They where ready to kill the monkey if they could have without any regard to what real meaning that would bring.
I believe that Mr. Kapasi found humor in the monkey’s surrounding Bobby. It was almost as if he saw the “sinful secret” of Bobby that Mrs. Das kept as being punished. The holy creature taking vengeance on sin is how it appeared to me. I believe it was also symbolic on another level. Monkeys and the boy are merely labels to show that good is an underlying factor in life, and through sometimes strange ways it will have an upperhand on evil (sin).
We learn in the footnote that monkeys are venerated in Hindu culture. Venerate is defined as follows: regard with deep respect. In other words, we could say that the monkeys were considered holy. From the first mention of the monkeys we see the vast difference in the way that Mr. Kapasi perceives the moneys compared to the way Mr. Das perceives them. Shortly after Mr. Kapasi tells Mr. Das that the monkeys are called hanuman, which means venerated, Mr. Das compares the holy monkeys to those found caged in the zoo. Then again late in the story Mrs. Das proclaims that the monkeys give her the creeps. Directly preceding the monkeys attacking Bobby we learn that Mrs. Das conceived Bobby out of wedlock. This creates a situational irony. The monkeys which are considered holy are attacking the boy that could be considered unholy. More than this, the man who is responsible for saving him is the only character in the story with a full realization of the irony. In the last two sentences of the story as Mr. Kapasi watches the paper with his address float a way, we get a notion that monkeys understood what was going on. Hence, “…the monkeys now sat, solemnly observing the scene below. Mr Kapasi observed it too,…” (p159).
Monkies generally have a stigma of being devious and playful creatures. I think that Bobby being attacked is a symbol of the devious act that Mrs. Das commintted with the friend that she enjoyed so much. When the monkies attacked him he was a little ways down the path isolated from the rest of the family. Alone. Since Mrs. Das has not been punished for the act except internally, the punishment is taken out on Bobby externally.
Although I feel like there is great symbolism in the monkeys, I also feel the same with most of the story. I see Mr. Kapasi as an older man that holds fast to his traditional religious and worldly ways. It is intertwined not only in his daily life, but his dreams and goals as well. Mr. Kapasi sees these monkeys as an important, central part of his culture. He knows that they are sacred, not to be toyed with or harmed. When Bobby was introduced into the monkey scene, at first he was passing a stick back and forth. To me, this symbolized total disrespect and disregard for their higher standing. Like there was a great struggle between good and evil. The Das family held an air to them that was superior to others, not that they really were. But in essence, they may have felt like they were superior to the studpid monkeys, because after all, they were just monkeys. When Bobby began to be beaten by the monkeys, the Das family did not move. They made no attempt to help him: they only screamed for Mr. Kapasi to help them. This symbolized to me a greater power struggle; found not only in the sinful nature that Bobby was conceived in, but also the Mr. Kapasi vs. wife, and the Mrs. Das vs. the secret she had not shared, in which good prevails against evil. In a way, the Good will always have a higher hand at work. But I also feel that it was, in Mr. Kapasi’s eyes, a revelation that this struggle will always happen and that no matter how sinful one may be, eventually the good will rise above the bad. When the story told of the monkeys and Mr. Kapasi observing the Das family scene, it made me feel as though there was a specific order to all of the characters’ “being”. The monkeys, then Mr. Kapasi, then the Das family. To me it represented God, God’s followers, and then Hell.
Monkeys are known, much like many other animals, to behave in the theory of Darwinism. The theory is the survival of the fittest, if there is a weak link within the group, they find a means to exclude or destroy the weak member. In the “Interpretor of Maladies” I believe that the monkeys pick out Bobby not because he is necessarily the “weakest link” of the family, but the fact that he doesn’t really belong. Bobby is a product of a mistake made by Mrs. Das; therefore, Bobby is singled out in the family. Since he is different from the other two children, being that Mr. Das is not his real father, the monkeys could somehow sense that he did not belong so they began to beat him with sticks.