21 Merle Hodge: Crick Crack, Monkey
Dr. Alice Samson
Introduction to the Author
Author of the classic West-Indian bildungsroman Crick Crack Monkey, Merle Hodge is a celebrated Trinidadian writer and critic. She was born in 1944 in Cruepe, Trinidad and completed high-school there before moving to London on a scholarship to study French.
In England, Hodge received a Master of Philosophy from the University College of London for her work on the poetry of French Guyanese writer Leon Damas.
Hodge travelled widely in Europe before returning to Trinidad in the 1970’s. She began working at the University of West Indies soon after. She was invited to become the director of the development of curriculum under the Maurice Bishop regime in Grenada in 1979 and oversaw the setting up of a socialist educational system. She returned to Trinidad after Bishop’s execution and the U.S invasion in 1983.
Other BooksFiction: For the Life of Laetitia (1993); and some short stories. Textbook: The Knots in English: A Manual for Caribbean Users (1997)
Module Two: Introduction to the Novel Crick Crack Monkey
Crick Crack Monkey published in 1970, is considered a major text within the body of Anglophone Caribbean Fiction. Critics attribute the term “crick, crack “in the title to the oral storytelling tradition in the Caribbean which includes a call and response between storyteller and audience. At the beginning or end of a story or folktale the storyteller would call out “Crick” and the audience would respond “Crack” indicating that both parties realise that the story is separate from reality.
Crick Crack Monkey is a coming of age novel about a young girl Tee( Cynthia) under the care of her two aunts Tantie and Aunt Beatrice. It is set in Trinidad and follows the development of the young female protagonist as she negotiates the different facets of Trinidadian life: class divisions, U.S influence and impact of British on education in Trinidad.
The novel was published at a time when Trinidad was a young nation which had just received independence in 1962 under the guidance of Dr Eric Williams. As a new postcolonial nation, Trinidad had to struggle with several aspects of identity of its people and life in the island nation.
Through the tensions between Aunt Beatrice and Tantie’s household, references to Mikey who worked on a U.S base in Trinidad before moving to work in the U.S and Tee’s struggles with the oppressive British educational system, Hodge is able to use the novel to highlight the major themes in Trinidadian life of the 1970’s.
Module Three: Summary of the Novel Crick Crack Monkey
The first chapter opens with the children Tee and Toddan sitting by the window awaiting the arrival of their parents with their new sibling. As various neighbours pass by the children yell out “we’re getting a new baby”. However apart from the drunk Mr Christopher yelling out profanities and other people on their way home the children don’t see anyone else and fall asleep at the window. When they awaken there is a great commotion in the house and a whole lot of people are mourning, drinking rum and coffee and talking. Tee sees a frightening shiny thing in the corner with flowers stuck all over it. Tantie, the children’s aunt is seen swearing, trying to take care of the children and going about the house. Another lady in stockings and heels appears to be trying to “get them” and calls Tantie “unfit”. Tee is very confused about everything and when her father goes to sea she assumes it is to look for “mammy and the baby”.
Chapter Two opens in the loud and hilarious Tantie’s household. Tee compares the atmosphere to one of a chicken coop. Various members of Tantie Rosa’s household Uncle Gordon, Mikey, visitors like Uncle Nero and Herman are introduced. The creole language of the class Tantie belongs to is given adequate space in her interactions with Mikey and others. Mikey is seen as a young man who whiles away his time at the bridge with the cream of “Santa Clara’s unambitious”, makes the children toys and is under the care of Tantie because his mother can’t afford to take care of him. Tee compares Tantie with all her running about, laughing swearing, throwing things, to hen on a fowl-run. The in-elegance associated with rustic Trinidad is personified by Tantie Rosa. The chapter describes Trinidad through a child’s eyes: the fish, the roads, the games, the music etc. The references to activities on the bridge: young-men talking about America, the Western films, comic books and teasing women passing by on the bridge provides a vivid depiction of the youth-culture of Trinidad.
Chapter Three opens with mention of the threat of the “bitch” which Tee said loomed over them every day. Aunt Beatrice, Tee’s other aunt, was trying to take the children and Tantie had lobbied to make half her neighbourhood part of her brigade against Aunt Beatrice. However inspite of Tantie painting Aunt Beatrice into a picture of “ female terrifyingness”, the children Tee and Toddan find her quite amenable when she turns up smelling of dull perfume and showers them with kisses, sweets, ice-cream and roast corn. They are taken for a drive in Uncle Norman’s car and Aunt Beatrice schools them on how to pester Tantie into sending them to spend vacations with their cousins Carol and Jessica. But the children return to a furious Tantie who rages and rampages all evening about what could have happened to them and gives Tee and sound thrashing with her dish-cloth before setting the table for dinner.
Chapter Four describes Tee’s vacation at grandma Josephine’s house in Pointe d’Espoire. Tee describes the “enchanting country” of her garndma’s house. The valleys, trees, fruits and wonderful sights thrill the reader. Tee describes the valleys and rivers to be as old as Brar Leopard and Brar Anancy thus referencing folktales and their connection to the Trinidadian imagination. Ma cooked and sold various types of delicacies in the market and spoke to the children against the “vagaries of childhood” in maxims meant for their edification often in wise saying the children barely understood. In the midst of all the play “mini gang-warfare” ensued between “bush-monkeys” who stayed with Ma year long and tee and others who visited for holidays. The chapter describes also in detail the rains and rituals associated with it like Ma going to see the river after the rain, which “called out to them”, and exclaiming in wonder everytime, the breadfruit tree and zaboca tree in Ma’s courtyard, and the special treatment Ma gave to Tee when no one was looking. Ma also compares Tee to her own grandmother, “Euphemia” and wants to see her grow up into a strong woman like her.
Chapter Five begins with a Tantie’s efforts to get Tee into ABC school in the new year. After many unsuccessful attempts at the ABC and RC schools and cursing the government for not building enough, schools, Tee is admitted into Mrs Hind’s school. Her aunt warns her to not allow any of the Anglican religious stuff get into her head and to only learn from the books. Mr Hinds is described as an ardent believer in the British way of life and attempts to make the boys revere Churchill. The English education system is described as routine, boring and incoherent. Rhymes refer to ‘haystacks’ and ‘children eating curls’ or the Alphabet is taught through exotic references like the Apple, indicating that the education Tee receives is distant from her own life. Mr Hinds beats patriotism for the “mother country” and King into the children. Calypso, drinking and other activities of the locals were looked down upon by the Hinds. Tantie sent Tee and Toddan to the Pentecost Sunday school but never went herself indicating that people aspired to give their children a more English upbringing than themselves. The incident of Duncey Joseph getting whacked for calling grapes by the creole word for them “chennete” and Mr Hind’s tirade against the black nincompoofs he was trying to educate along with Tee’s experience at Sunday school where they see yellow haired children standing around Jesus and sing hymns about their “black sin” being washed till they became pure and white, drive home the privileging of whiteness in the discourse of colonialism and the struggle with this among the natives loyal to the crown and others.
Chapter Six sees Aunt Beatrice win custody of the children. Tee and Toddan are thrust once again into a new environment of toys, new clothes unfamiliar to them and new ways far way from Tantie and Mike whom they miss. The ladies dressed in a different way from Tantie and spoke with clipped off accents. The neighbouring boy spoke of marbles and bats and cars he had and his mother wore a bathing suit and sat in the sun. Tee found it strange because they used to shelter from the sun not go and sit in it. Tee got into fights with her cousins hoping to be sent back to Tantie and Toddan couldn’t get used to wearing pants and a jersey all day. Eventually Mikey and Tantie regain custody of the children and they are overjoyed to be back.
Chapter seven describes six year old Tee preparing to go to the “The Big School” where she would write on paper and read books without pictures. Her Tantie would send her to the shop. The paucity of good supplies for the locals is brought out in the exchanges between Ling and Tantie who is forced to buy adultrated food stuff from Ling.
Chapter Eight recounts Tee’s experiences at the big school. They were treated differently because they came from Mrs Hinds school and felt like the “down-on-the-ground” children sitting below the platform for the bigger children. Tee finds Teacher Gloria’s dynamic with Sir whom she feared with childlike reverence to be annoying. Sir whipped the boys and beat the girls but Teacher Gloria never protested so Tee calls her a “traitoress”.
Chapter Nine describes Mr Oliver the school watchman and Mrs Dorothea’s constant fights outside the schoolgate where Mrs Dorothea sat selling channa cones. Mr Oliver is described as an unkept and troubled man whom the children both made fun of and were afraid of. The chapter ends with Carlyle Joseph’s pranks on Mr Oliver going too far when a stone thrown by him hits Mr Oliver on the head. Joseph is expelled from the school and Mr Oliver returns to the school a few days later with his head bandaged.
Chapter Ten describes the contests between the RC school and EC school where Tee studied. The Savannah which was the common ground where each schools children played at recess was the bone of contention. The RC school children made fun of the Khaki coloured uniforms Tee and others wore and bullied boys who entered their part of the play ground by stripping them of their khaki trousers.
Chapter Eleven relays Tee’s life at Sir’s school. Sir liberally used a whip called ‘fire and brimstone’ or “The wrath of God” except when Mr Thomas visited the school. Tee and others are roared at by sir for not being able to rise from their seats noiselessly and mad e to sit and stand up the whole day. The look forward to Sir having to smile through Mr Thomas’s visit and getting caught yelling at them when Mr Thomas returned to say something he had forgotten.
Chapter Tweleve recounts Tee’s raids on Mr Brathwite’s farm whom they all think is a ghost. When Mr Brathwhite catches Tee she begins cursing to drive the spirit away resulting in Mr Brathwite complaining about it to Mr Thomas. Mr Thomas chuckles about how Tee’s Tantie used to swear and how everyone was afraid of her. Instead of scolding her Mr Thomas reminisces about how he used to pluck fruits in Mr Brathwhite’s house too and lets her off. However she gets a whipping from Sir.
Chapter Thirteen describes Tee’s encounter with Helen whom she sees as a “proper me”. Helen is a thorough bred English girl and Tee’s family makes fun of her for trying to emulate Helen. Helen wore shoes and socks all the time and sat by the fireside in winter. Helen was fashioned from the books and was the other of the natives and Red-Indians. She was the product of embracing alternatives to the native way of life in every aspect “from macaroni to the Kingdom of Heaven”.
Chapter Fourteen shows Mikey preparing to go to work on the American base. Tantie is reluctant to sign the permission form as she fears she is losing everyone one by one. Eventually she agrees and everyone goes to the port to bid him goodbye.
Chapter Fifteen opens with descriptions of the gifts Mikey sends home to a tearful Tantie. Tee is learning about new things in school and even dreams about these at night. Mr Thomas is understanding when they mistakes but Sir is enraged when the whole class is unable to spell or define “sleet” something that is alien to the warm weathered Trinidad. Tee wins a scholarship and there is big celebration at Tantie’s house. Tantie allows tee to go to Aunt Beatrice’s house so she can study at St Ann’s.
Chapter Sixteen describes the inferior status Tee feels in Aunt Beatrice’s house where her cousins make fun of her and her clothes. Where during her first encounter with them, Tee had been defiant she now is compliant and confused. At school she faces humiliation for her lack of skill in dancing and sports. She is practically an outcast at school none so more than cousin Carol leading the pack of those looking down on her. Tee is christened at a catholic church and Aunt Beatrice says she can’t go for Moonie’s wedding because she must stay away from the coolie affairs. As tee lays in bed thinking about the fun surrounding Moonie’s wedding she was going to miss, the reader is given a panoramic view of the food, customs, and celebrations in the Indian households. Aunt Beatrice blamed Tee’s father for corrupting the family race through marriage to Tee’s mother, Elizabeth Helen Carter, and Tee felt as if she represented the lowest part of the family due to her lineage.
Chapter Eighteen marks a shift is Tee’s ideas about her life with Tantie. As Aunt Beatrice continues to ridicule anything black including her daughter Jessica’s complexion, Tee too develops a suspicion about the ‘niggeryness’. She doesn’t participate in carnival at Tantie’s house and even chooses to spend Easter vacation at Canope with Aunt Beatrice.
Chapter Nineteen shows the time Tee spent on vacation. Uncle Norman slept most of the time while the three cousins spent time with the Da Silva family. Aunt Beatrice hopes to entertain the Da Silva family for dinner but they do not turn up. As Tee hung about Aunt Beatrice she lost more and more of her self-respect and wanted to drown in the sea. Aunt Beatrice and Tee go for a walk and Tee snatches her hand away from Aunt Beatrice making her Aunt very distraught.
Chapter Twenty sees Aunt Beatrice try to extract Tee from her “ordinariness” and niggeryness” like eating out of a bowl and spoon. She blames this on tee’s stay at Tantie’s house. Bernadette’s attitude of superiority towards Tee is revealed and Aunt Beatrice is seen as being interested in Bernadette’s friend roger only because he was “white-skinned”.
Chapter Twenty One indicates that all the disfavouring of her “ordinaryness” by Aunt Beatrice is having an impact on Tee who feels like “shriveling up” and “emerging in a new body”. Mrs Wattman, Tee’s schoolteacher, disdains her for her darkness and says she will never get far in life.
Chapter Twenty Two Tee is seen wishing she had been with Aunt Beatrice from the beginning. Mr Harper who worked for Aunt Beatrice defied her by talking to the coloured people who lived next door.
Chapter Twenty Three describes Tantie and her family’s visit. Tee is appalled at their mannerisms. But as they leave she has an urge to call them back which she suppresses.
Chapter Twenty Four Tee contemplates running away to Tantie’s house when she gets news that her father had sent for Toddan and herself to join him in England. Her cousins attitude towards her changes and everyone is nice to her. Even Mrs Wattman is good to her. Tantie Rosa throws a party for them but Tee shrinks from the ordinariness of the drunken people. She feels like she is being pushed out and everything has changed. As the novel ends Tee longs for a plane to lift her off the ground.
Characters CHARACTERS
Tee or Cynthia Davis or Cy Cy: The narrator and the main character in the novel. Through Tee’s experiences we follow her to schools that teach British culture but also the songs, stories, fruits and rivers of Trinidad. Tee leaves school without any pride in her identity, or heritage. She is thoroughly confused as to who she is and where she fits in.
Tantie or Tantie Rosa: Tee’s paternal aunt who cares for Tee and Toddam and Mikey . Tantie is a poor black lower class woman. Her big loving generous heart accepts the care of children in need. She takes Tee and Toddam into her home that is filled with family, friends and neighbors. Indians like Moonie, Chinese like Ling and Africans like Tantie all mix amicably. The community helps and supports each other and this generous spirit carries a natural exuberance for life. Poverty, unemployment, and dealt with stoically with their enjoyment of the food, music, and companionship as is seen in Tantie’s household.
Aunt Beatrice: Tee’s maternal aunt who lives in the city. Aunt Beatrice represents the Black that has been thoroughly indoctrinated under the British colonial educational system. She believes that by being “white” in every way she will be able to climb the social and economic ladder. She pretends to not understand the local language, favours only her children’s white friends and lives like a white person. She is bigoted, racist, and prejudiced, and looks on Tee as too black and niggery. She tries to school her into more English ways of behaving.
Uncle Norman: Husband of Aunt Beatrice. He chauffeurs Aunt Beatrice, says little, and fades into the background. He is rather a shadowy character as he spends most of his time being absent from the scene.
Bernadette, Jessica and Carol: Tee’s cousins, the daughters of Aunt Beatrice. The girls have been raised to spurn their black kin. They are contemptuous of Tee’s color, clothes, speech, and manners. Carol, who is light is color, is the favorite of her mother and teachers. Jessica, who is dark like her father, is a burden to Beatrice who fears Jessica will never be a success in her society.
Ma: Tee’s paternal grandmother lives deep in the countryside. She is like so many of the lower class women of Trinidad who care for themselves and members of their families. She collects herbs, fruits, nuts and plants to prepare and take to the weekly market. She is the keeper of the oral heritage and through her stories Tee learns about her heritage. Ma is a proud hard working person who accepts who she is and is proud of her own grandmother.
Toddan or Codrington: Tee’s young brother who remains with Tantie after Tee leaves to live with Aunt Beatrice. Toddan unwittingly reveals Tantie’s male friends to Aunt Beatrice as he recites how all the various uncles fit into their life.
Mikey: a young male boarder living at Tantie Rosa’s. In Trinidad, the female relations take care of children when their own mothers’ cannot. There is no stigma to this and children are often raised in many households. Tantie brought Mikey home as a baby and he is considered to be a family member. The young lower class males of Trinidad lacked education and skills and were often either unemployed or underemployed. Consequently, they find support in their age groups, and there are many gangs both juvenile and gangster. Mikey and his pals are Tee’s good friends.
Mr. And Mrs Hinds: Black schoolteachers in a local missionary school. Both are Anglophile. Thier need to be white informs their cultural bias against their own people. They sees Tee and the other children as piccaninnies and nincompoofs.
Helen: She was the alter ego Tee developed in her psyche. Helen was fair, proper, had tea at four, wore shoes and socks and did all the things that were normal: Normal as taught in the school system meant anything British.
Module Five: Themes in Crick Crack Monkey
Role of the Colonial Educational System in Crick Crack Monkey
Hodge’s book treats the impact of the colonial educational system in colonies of the British empire as a central theme of the book. As the young protagonists is exposed to various anglophile people and institutions while growing up she is left with a confused identity and sense of belonging. From the schools run by Mr Higgs and Sir to the instruction she receives in proper manners from Aunt Beatrice, it is through the blacks around her that Tee first begins to despise her own blackness. The rhymes, oaths, history and literature taught is school has no connect with Tee’s experience at Tantie’s house or on vacation with Ma. The “nancy” stories she hears from Ma, the maxims of edification told to her, the bits of history about her people and the experience of the flora and fauna, customs and climate of her own land make a kaliadoscope of images in Tee’s life with no effort at any coherent whole. As a result in school she ends up being ridiculed for her lack of skills in dance or sports or ability to understand alien cultural objects like sleet while at home she is unable to process the experiences she has into any self-fashioning narrative. Tee thus represents the quintessentially fragmented and dissociated post-colonial subject who longs to be “lifted off the ground” away from the confusion, shame and discontent with their own heritage and education.
Class in Crick Crack Monkey
Through the contrasting characters of Aunt Beatrice and Tantie, Hodge is able to bring out the sharp divisions of class amongst blacks in the Carribbean. Separating the notion of class from only a relation to means of production, Hodge’s treatment includes behaviour, basic assumptions of self, schooling on proper manners, expectation from self and others, and the future, the ways we think, act and feel, into the idea of class. Aunt Beatrice is “white skinned” in thought. She pretends to not understand the creole language of local markets, or buy ingredients abundantly available there and seeks novelties like Worchester sauce in her cooking. She disapproves of the blackness of her daughter Jessica’s skin, urging her to work harder to overcome her shortcomings in complexion, and disparages black neighbours, coolies and other non-whites. The Queen’s English is spoken at Aunt Beatrice’s house where ladies in hats and frocks gather for tea and cakes. Others like school teachers at Tee’s school, and blacks who long for the “Mother Country” reinforce the divisions amongst the blacks.
Tantie on the other hand lives a loud and free life, working, living and loving her land. Drinking, singing and welcoming of foreign cultures like Indian and Chinese into their community enables these Afro- Carribeans to adapt and survive. They value the relationships and intimacy of their lives over wealth and social acceptance. This is evident when Tantie is reluctant to let Mikey go for work in the U.S base. However in Tantie’s deep longing for education for her children and desire to expose them to the Christian religion there seems to be a tacit acceptance of the inferior position attributed to her by the Anglophile blacks as well as the imperial British powers. While Aunt Beatrice is completely proselytised regarding the superiority of the white, Tantie too is not a fierce defender of indigenous ways of living being the way for the next generation. Mrs Harper, Mikey and Indian neighbours like Moonie and Ramlal represent this section of the blacks.
Representation of Britain and America in Crick Crack Monkey
The novel references the view that Britain and America are golden lands of opportunity, superior culture and escape from the “ordinariness” of life on the islands. While reverence for Churchill and patriotism for the Mother country are inculcated amongst school children, at home blacks like Aunt Beatrice preferred the Queen’s English over the Creole language native to the region. Through constant exposure to British history, culture and the church Tee and others develop a discontent with their identities and long for the move away from their blackness. In addition, the lack of indigenous industries and gainful employment reinforce the sense of inadequacy of youth like Mikey. Both Tee’s father Selwyn and Mikey have to migrate to find meaningful work, thus making Britain and America seem economically more productive than St Clare. Among the gang that Mikey hangs out with the boy called ‘fresh- water’ regales them with stories of his visit to America. The wealth associated with white descendants of the island in contrast to the poor natives like Ma or Tantie further reinforces the superiority of the colonial powers. As Tee discovers, life is much better if you are headed for London or America. Mrs Wattman, Bernadette, Carol, Jessica all begin to treat her with awe when she is about to leave for London.
| you can view video on Merle Hodge: Crick Crack, Monkey | |
Reference
- Hodge, Merle. Crick Crack, Monkey. (1970). London: Heinemann, 1981.
- Katrak, Ketu H. “‘This Englishness Will Kill You’: Colonial[ist] Education and Female Socialization in Merle Hodge’s Crick Crack, Monkey and Bessie Head’s Maru.” College Literature 22.1 (1995): 62-77. EBSCOhost. 28 Nov. 2000.
- Kemp, Yakini. “Woman and Womanchild: Bonding and Selfhood in Three West Indian Novels.” SAGE 2.1 (1985): 24-27.
- Lehmann, Sophia. “In Search of a Mother Tongue: Locating Home in Diaspora.” MELUS 23.4 (1998): 101-115. Infotrac. 28 Nov. 2000.
- Narinesingh, Roy. “Introduction.” Crick Crack, Monkey. Merle Hodge. London: Heinemann, 1981: vii-xiv.