Summary Of Christina Garcia's Monkey Hunting

Latin America is distinguished by its incredible supply of natural resources as well as an immensely rich and extensive geography, and as a result of rapid economic growth around the world, the continent was invaluable to investors in the nineteenth century. However, production of goods required immense labour, so as would be expected of the time, slaves were put to work. Working alongside slaves, as had happened similarly in other regions of the Americas, South America also employed thousands of Asian indentured workers, whose status was on par with that of the African slaves. Latin American novelist Christina García’s deals with this period of history in her 2003 novel Monkey Hunting, which exposes the Chinese immigration experience and their …show more content…
Given that he is provided with the most character development, his story is naturally the most intriguing; however, from this stems one of the novels shortcomings. Being only 270 pages, there doesn’t appear to be enough time permitted to allow the other characters stories to unfold smoothly. By the time the reader begins to become invested in the plot and familiar with the characters, the novel reaches its conclusion. This came to be a disappointment as the book would have been greatly improved if the author had lengthened it to allow a deeper understanding to be had of the main characters. Additionally, the way that García moves from the three plots as well as how she moves to and from important events is problematic. The transitions are quite abrupt and leave the reader awkwardly moving from one point of the story to the next. One important example is that of Chen Pan in his acquisition of freedom, where at the end of one chapter he is in the process of escaping his plantation, and two chapters later where his story picks up again, he has already established his business in Havana. This is the case in a few other instances in the novel, where the reader misses out on experiencing the trials and tribulations with the characters, but instead is told where they were and where they end up left wondering the events leading up to their successes. This is not to say that …show more content…
The novel exposes the reader to the hardships of slavery experienced firsthand by the main character Chen Pan, the imprint the Chinese indentured workers made in Cuban society, and the legacy which was carried on by the descendants of these workers. The simplistic, straight-forward manner in which the material is presented will allow most readers, even those without any prior knowledge to this period of history, will be able to walk away from Monkey Hunting with an understanding of a just one aspect of a much broader Latin American