본문 바로가기
  • Home
Basic Search

Dreaming Caribbean Identity: Transformative Spaces in Derek Walcott’s Dream on Monkey Mountain

  • Journal of Modern English Drama
  • Abbr : JMBARD
  • 2026, 39(2), pp.225~253
  • Publisher : 한국현대영미드라마학회
  • Research Area : Humanities > English Language and Literature > English Literature > Contemporary English Drama
  • Received : July 25, 2026
  • Accepted : August 10, 2026
  • Published : August 31, 2026

Dong-uk Kim 1

1서강대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This article examines theatrical spaces in Derek Walcott’s Dream on Monkey Mountain to argue that the play’s shifting dramatic locations function not merely as settings but as active spatial experiences through which postcolonial Caribbean identity is imagined. Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia and Edward Soja’s theory of Thirdspace serve as the theoretical frameworks through which the transformative spaces of the play are analyzed, the sites where conflicting histories, cultural inheritances, and ideological frameworks are superimposed onto and dissolve into one another. The prologue establishes the play’s spatial logic by transforming the sparsely adorned stage into a jail, a zoo, and a courtroom to reveal theatrical space as a site where colonial authority, indigenous traditions, and Afro-Caribbean cultural expressions coexist in tension. This spatial dynamic is maintained through Makak’s journey from Monkey Mountain to an imagined Africa, where sacred Caribbean landscapes, colonial desires, and romanticized notions of ancestral origins converge. Makak’s encounters with the white goddess in Monkey Mountain and the imagined Africa expose the limitations of constructing an identity dependent upon either colonial ideology or idealized visions of Africa. Walcott, by constructing and transforming these heterotopic spaces, suggests that Caribbean identity emerges not from recovering a pure origin or relying on dominant Eurocentric perspectives but from the recognition and acceptance of conflicting yet coexisting cultural inheritances. Through Dream on Monkey Mountain, Derek Walcott presents theatre as more than a representational space. It becomes a transformative site through which Caribbean identities are imagined, contested, and reconfigured.

Statistics

  • 5 Viewed
  • 0 Downloaded

Tools

Issue List

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2025 are currently being built.

Basic Search Advanced Search