56 pages • 1 hour read
Salman RushdieVictory City
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Pink Monkeys
Content Warning: The section of the guide contains mentions of sexual abuse.
In Part 2 of Victory City, Pampa learns about the pink monkeys who are bothering the inhabitants of the Enchanted Forest. These pink monkeys are not native to the forest, yet they have arrived in the area with the aim of making money by turning the locals against one another, taking over land, and establishing trade networks to extract valuable local resources. While Pampa may not understand the intricacies of European colonialism, the pink monkeys are a symbol for the arrival of Europeans on the Indian subcontinent during this era. As Domingo Nunes warned Pampa earlier in the novel, the British traders are the most devious and least trustworthy. Not long after the events described in the novel, British colonial forces will take over large swathes of India. Victory City does not explicitly deal with this form of British colonialism (which begins after the fall of Bisnaga) but the symbolism of the pink monkeys foreshadows of what is to come for the people of India. As mentioned when the pink monkeys are sent away, their departure can only be considered temporary. They will be back, and in greater numbers, but Pampa is able to provide the inhabitants of the Enchanted Forest with a temporary reprieve from the symbolic forces of colonialism that do not yet have a precedent or an explanation.
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