19 pages • 38 minutes read
Thomas LuxTo Help the Monkey Cross the River
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2004A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Form and Meter
The poem does not follow formal conventions of form and meter. It is unrhymed, unbroken into stanzas, and has irregular line lengths. The shortest lines contain only three words (Lines 3, 5), while the longest (Line 26) stretches to 12 words. The lines are often enjambed, or continue without end stop punctuation from one line to the next as in “which he must / cross, by swimming, for fruits and nuts, / to help him” (Lines 1-3). The first line is a continuation of the title; alternatively, the title can be regarded as the first line of the poem.
The effect created by the enjambed lines and the lack of stanzas is an urgent interior monologue. What the speaker has to say is urgent and precise; therefore, the lack of formal structure is the best form for the poem. Although the poem lacks rhyme, its spare structure and tightly controlled lines give it an internal rhythm and musicality, enhanced by occasional uses of auditory devices such as alliteration and repetition. Alliteration occurs in Line 13, with the phrase “algebra, angles,” and with “snake-speed” in Line 14. Phrases are also repeated to add to the rhythm, such as “if, if” (Line 14) and “the monkey, the monkey” (Line 24). There is a hint of an end rhyme in the final couplet—“has little hands like a child’s, / and the smart ones, in a cage, can be taught to smile” (Lines 25-26)—with the assonant sounds in the end words of the couplet rounding the poem to an end.
The irregular pauses give the lines a jagged, syncopated feel, which suits the poem’s devices of irony and surprise. It can be argued that the poem is structured as a series of surprises and twists, upending the reader’s expectations. The odd line lengths and unexpected pauses contribute to the element of surprise: “I raise my rifle and fire / one, two, three, even four times into the river / just behind the monkey / to hurry him up a little.” (Lines 19-22). When the speaker raises the rifle, the expectation is they will shoot at something or someone: The most likely target is the crocodile or the anaconda. But each line cancels an expectation. The target is not a predator nor the monkey: It is the water behind the monkey, and the shots are fired not to terrorize but to speed it along. If these lines were not enjambed, the poem would lose its series of surprises. Thus, form, structure, and the poet’s intent are inextricably intertwined here.
Metaphor, Symbols, and Allegory
The poem can be considered an allegory: a narrative where each character represents or symbolizes an idea of a deeper significance. Because the poem is deliberately vague and open-ended, it lets the reader choose different allegorical meanings. The speaker fixes the relative positions of the monkey and himself and even the angles at which the predators may approach the monkey, but does not provide any information about who they are and what they are doing in the jungle. There are no specific geographic markers to identify this particular river or species of monkey. These selective details show that while the relationship between the characters in the poem is very specific and tightly detailed, it is also universal. Thus, the poem is more about the relationship between its characters, symbols, and events, rather than the geography. The river could be any river anywhere, and thus lends to universal metaphors such as the “river of life.” The monkey’s frantic swimming is evocative of smaller being battling a larger force for survival. Even the speaker’s position in the tree makes them a metaphor for an omniscient, but ambiguous, entity.
Though the poem does not contain metaphors in its lines, the entire poem is one. It can be considered a metaphor for an absurd existence, for the human tendency to prefer some life forms over others, or a metaphor for the fallacy of control.
Irony and Humor
The tone of the poem with the flat, matter-of-fact delivery of the speaker sets up the reader to expect an ironic twist or a punchline. An example of the deadpan delivery can be seen in Lines 7-9: “When he swims for it / I look first upriver: predators move faster with / the current than against it.” The irony is heightened by juxtaposing the seriousness of the situation—a person trying to help another being in peril—with a joking manner. The “anaconda from downriver burns / with the same ambition” (Lines 11-12): to eat the monkey. The predators’ desire to kill and eat the prey is jokingly described as “burn[ing] […] with ambition.” Another layer of irony is added by the fact that while the speaker is so invested in the monkey they are watching cross the river, they still make jokes about its possibly tragic fate.
The speaker adds to the humor with inventive but relatable language, such as “rate-of-monkey, / croc- and snake-speed” (Lines 13-14). Hyperbole—extreme exaggeration—deepens the absurd funniness of the situation: The speaker says they will calculate the relative speeds of monkey, crocodile, and snake to determine which animal wins. Such calculations are impossible to pull off in a real-time situation; further, by the time the speaker could conclude their calculations, the predator would likely be too close to the monkey for anyone to change its fate.
The irony deepens as the poem concludes. All the reader’s expectations are reversed, and the speaker’s actions and motivations grow more absurd and ambiguous. Despite the speaker’s best intentions to help the monkey cross the river, the image at the other end is a monkey in a cage that “can be taught to smile” (Line 26). It is bleakly ironic that even if the monkey does reach the other end of the river, it may not end up in its natural habitat as the words “cage” and “taught” (Line 26) hint at captivity and forced obedience.
