The Monkey

“The monkey glimmered up at him from his older son’s hands, grinning its old familiar grin. The same grin that had haunted his nightmares as a kid, haunted them until he had—”

The description of the monkey “glimmering” seems innocuous, but the reference to its grin haunting Hal contrasts with its seeming innocence. The sentence fragment builds further suspense, inviting readers to question what Hal did and foreshadowing his “killing” (via the monkey) of his mother. The passage also begins to establish the close relationship between Hal and the monkey, which is key to the story’s exploration of The Nature of Evil.

“Hal felt simple love for the boy rush him…and he suddenly thought of the monkey again.”

The link that Hal makes between his youngest son, Petey, and the monkey is clear. This showcases how ingrained the monkey is in Hal’s mind, but it also speaks to the monkey’s association with broken familial relationships. Though Hal loves Petey, the monkey symbolizes Hal’s potential for abusive behavior.

“From the bottom of that wet, rock-lined throat a drowning face stared up at him, wide eyes, grimacing mouth.”

When Hal searches for the monkey down the well, he sees only his own face reflected back at him. However, the description of his “wide eyes” and “grimacing mouth” evokes the monkey’s appearance, suggesting that the toy symbolizes an aspect of himself. The fact that he can hardly recognize himself further blurs the line between the two and suggests Hal’s alienation from himself.

“Hal was across the room even before he knew he was going, the monkey in one hand, grinning as if in approbation. He hauled Dennis out of his chair by the shirt.”

This quote highlights the tumultuous relationship Hal has with his older son as well as the influence the monkey seems to have on him. Although worry drives Hal’s actions, the image of the toy “grinning in approval” underscores the abusiveness of Hal’s actions and hints that the monkey may be contributing to them. The idea that Hal is not conscious of what he’s doing recurs several times in the story and links him still more closely to the monkey (a wind-up toy).

“The cymbals clapped and clashed, and surely it would wake his brother, his mother, the world. It would wake the dead.”

The onomatopoeic “clapping” and “clashing” of the cymbals in the silent house contributes to the scene’s ominous atmosphere. The idiom “wake the dead” is ironic in context, as the toy kills rather than resurrects.

“Hal approached it slowly, not wanting to, but not able to stay away.”

This sums up Hal’s reluctant fascination with the toy; he is drawn to it and repulsed at the same time, suggesting its connection to his own unconscious impulses and desires. It also foreshadows Petey’s response to the toy.

“You still have trouble getting to sleep, little brother? Bill had asked him, and Hal supposed Bill thought all the thrashing and bad dreams had to do with their mother dying so suddenly, and that was right…but only partly right. There was the guilt; the certain, deadly knowledge that he had killed his mother by winding the monkey up on that sunny after-school afternoon.”

Hal’s nightmares highlight the mental stress not only of his mother’s death but also of his indirect responsibility for it. Practically speaking, Hal could not have known whom the monkey would kill. However, as a double for Hal, the monkey hints that Hal may have harbored subconscious anger at his mother, which now compounds his sense of guilt.

“I kept wanting to go over there and wind it up. It was so quiet, and I thought, I can’t, it’ll wake up Daddy, but I still wanted to, and I went over and I…I touched it and I hate the way it feels…but I liked it too…”

Petey’s disclosure to his father mirrors Hal’s inexorable connection to the toy. Hal’s sense that of his two sons, Petey more closely resembles him deepens the significance of this moment. To the extent that the toy symbolizes Hal’s abusive or violent tendencies, Hal’s desire to save Petey from it suggests a desire to prevent the cycle of abuse from repeating with his son.

“A car came around the corner of the motel, a car that was moving too fast, much too fast, and without thinking, reaching with the kind of reflex a good shortstop shows going to his right, the hand holding the brush flashed down, as if in a karate chop…and stopped.

The cymbals closed soundlessly on his intervening hand, and he felt something in the air. Something like rage.”

This is a turning point in the story. Hal reacts instinctively to save his son; by stopping the cymbals from clanging, he prevents the car from hitting Petey. In taking this small but powerful action, Hal elicits the toy’s “anger,” implying that it will resist further efforts to silence it and foreshadowing Hal’s brush with death in the lake.

“He withdrew the brush and looked at it. Some of the white bristles had blackened, as if singed.”

The burning of the brush that Hal used to stop the monkey’s cymbals appears to offer clear, physical proof of the monkey’s supernatural effects. This reinforces Hal’s determination to get rid of the toy.

“He began by telling Petey that his father had probably brought the monkey home with him from overseas, a gift for his sons. […] But somewhere along the way—perhaps even in the dark back closet of the house in Connecticut where the two boys had begun their growing up—something had happened to the monkey. Something bad.”

Hal’s suggestion that the toy was not evil initially but became so hints at abusive and neglectful dynamics that underpin the story. Although the story never states that Hal was abused, the monkey’s transformation implies that something was amiss in his childhood home. The warping of the monkey’s nature also suggests that Hal’s own violent impulses stem from “something bad” that happened to him; evil things are evil because of the evil they themselves experienced.

“It might be […] that some bad things—maybe even most bad things—weren’t even really awake and aware of what they were.”

Hal’s musings about the monkey apply equally to his own situation. He tries to be a good person, but he sometimes behaves in ways that are both unthinking and harmful—e.g., lashing out against Dennis. The monkey embodies the automatic, unconscious nature of these “bad” impulses.

“‘This won’t take long,’ Hal promised, but he looked at the flight bag and wondered.”

Hal reassures Petey that disposing of the monkey in the lake will be easy. However, his glance at the bag implies that he is unsure if he can ever get rid of it, underscoring the monkey’s uncanny ability to follow him from place to place.