27 pages • 54 minutes read
Stephen KingThe Monkey
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1980A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Nature of Evil
Content Warning: This section contains references to addiction and child abuse.
The monkey’s defining feature is its malevolence; even before it kills anyone, it elicits a vague “disgust” in Hal Shelburn, though this does not override his simultaneous attraction to the toy. The toy is a supernatural and apparently motiveless embodiment of evil, killing at random and exerting a sinister influence over characters like Hal and Petey. Yet the monkey is not purely an abstraction; through it, Stephen King explores more everyday manifestations of evil, ultimately suggesting that much evil is cyclical, automatic, and acquired rather than innate.
The nature of evil arises as an explicit concern toward the story’s conclusion. Struggling to explain the toy to his son, Hal reflects:
Somewhere along the line—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. It might be, […] that some bad things—maybe even most bad things—weren’t even really awake and aware of what they were. […] [M]ost evil might be very much like a monkey full of clockwork that you wind up; the clockwork turns, the cymbals begin to beat, the teeth grin, the stupid glass eyes laugh (188).
The passage is significant for its “humanization” of the monkey. The toy does not kill people because it wants to; Hal speculates that it doesn’t even know what it’s doing. Rather, it behaves the way it does because it is programmed to do so, though what programmed it isn’t entirely clear. Crucially, however, it was not “bad” from the beginning but became so after itself experiencing something “bad.”
Taken as a whole, the passage suggests that evil arises from trauma that becomes embedded in the psyche and plays itself out over and over again. This contextualizes some of the more mundane forms that evil takes in the story—e.g., Hal’s treatment of Dennis. Although the narrative features only one instance of outright abuse, the remark that Hal “had not laid a hand on him since they moved to Texas” implies that Hal’s violence is not without precedent (169). The language used to describe Hal’s feelings in these moments is significant as well, anticipating the later portrayal of evil as unconscious: “He felt this uncontrollable hostility toward Dennis more and more often, but in the aftermath he felt demeaned and tacky...helpless” (168). As with the monkey, the ultimate source of Hal’s behavior is difficult to pinpoint. The repeated emphasis on his father’s abandonment of the family suggests its lasting psychological effect on Hal; there is also a reference to one of Hal’s babysitters pinching him. Overt examples of neglect or abuse aside, Hal’s childhood is full of violence that is traumatizing in and of itself, even as it can also be interpreted allegorically—i.e., as a symbol of a troubled and dangerous home life.
Ultimately, what matters is not where Hal’s “evil” impulses come from but rather the fact that they do have an origin story. Though ingrained to the point of seeming “uncontrollable,” Hal’s violent and destructive tendencies are not innate, and his desire to rid himself of the monkey suggests a desire to break the cycle of evil before it affects his children as it has him.
The Loss of Childhood Innocence
If on the one hand the monkey toy represents Hal’s own dark side, rooted in early trauma, it can also be interpreted as an entirely external evil that mars an otherwise happy childhood. King’s work often features child protagonists who are thrust into terrifying and otherworldly situations. These characters are initially portrayed as innocent, curious, and full of wonder, representing the essence of childhood purity. As the narrative progresses, however, King gradually strips away their innocence, subjecting them to various forms of darkness and evil in a more extreme variation on the conventional coming-of-age arc.
This is true of “The Monkey.” Hal first encounters the toy when he is just four years old—a time when his life seems more or less happy. He adores his mother and goes on adventures with his brother, exploring their home’s nooks and crannies with childish delight. His initial response to the monkey is innocent curiosity. He is “delighted” by its smile and texture, and the discovery that its wind-up feature is broken barely dampens his enthusiasm for the toy, which is “still neat.”
This simple joy in life begins to dissipate as Hal recognizes the monkey’s true nature. He has nightmares after Beulah’s death, but he is still able to forget the monkey for months or years at a time; he hasn’t wholly lost his innocence. However, as the deaths associated with the monkey mount, the toy weighs on him more and more and even begins to talk to him, threatening the lives of Hal and his family: “[W]ho’s Dead at the Scene, Hal? Your mother? Your brother? Or is it you, Hal? Is it you?” (179). Figuratively, this suggests that a growing awareness of mortality—in particular, the apparent randomness of death—plays a key role in the loss of childhood innocence.
As the father of two boys, the adult Hal must relive this loss vicariously. This suggests a symbolic explanation for why the monkey reappears when it does; Hal feels that his older son is already well past innocence, and he is desperate to shelter his younger son for as long as possible. Petey’s initial attachment to the monkey therefore worries Hal, and he fears that Petey will fall victim to its sinister influence or otherwise suffer because of the toy. Notably, Petey remarks that when he heard the monkey talking, it told him, “[Y]our father isn’t going to wake up, he’s never going to wake up at all” (185)—a remark that suggests Petey is already grappling with fears of mortality. Though Hal succeeds in disposing of the monkey in the lake, the mass death of the area’s fish suggests that no one can ever be truly rid of the monkey; at most, Hal has delayed Petey’s inevitable loss of innocence.
The Importance of Family Relationships
King is known for his nuanced and often complex portrayals of family relationships. In “The Monkey” specifically, the family dynamics demonstrate a juxtaposing blend of warmth, tension, and underlying darkness. Ultimately, however, Hal’s love for his family triumphs, allowing him to dispose of the monkey.
Hal’s family life is characterized by instability. Hal and Bill’s father disappeared when the former was too young to even remember him, and the story suggests that this absence deeply wounded the boys; in exploring the closet that contains the monkey, Hal reflects that they were “trying, as best they could, to somehow make contact with their vanished father” (172). Their mother then died in tragic circumstances, leading to the boys’ adoption by their aunt and uncle (as well as a move from Connecticut to Maine).
Although Hal seems to have settled into his adoptive home, the story implies that the upheaval of his childhood influenced his ability to form strong attachments as an adult. Hal and Terry have a strained relationship. Their early conversations consist of him speaking and her merely agreeing to avoid conflict. Later, when they argue over Hal’s treatment of Dennis, Hal tells her to “pop a Valium and everything will look okay again” (175)—a casually cruel remark that weaponizes her apparent substance use disorder against her. Hal also struggles to connect with Dennis, accusing the 12-year-old of disrespect and at one point slamming him against a door.
Nevertheless, King suggests that even a family in crisis will go to great lengths to protect one another. What ultimately redeems Hal is his love for his children—particularly Petey, with whom he is very close. This bond motivates Hal to protect his family from the monkey, and it is his children he thinks of when he throws the toy into the lake: “Whatever happened to him, the monkey would not be back to draw a shadow over Dennis’s life or Petey’s” (199). Symbolically, the family’s struggle against the monkey’s influence represents a battle to protect their unity, and with the monkey gone, King implies that Hal, Terry, and their children will settle into a healthier dynamic.
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