The book traces the folkloric origins of the African-American cultural practice of "signifying" and uses the concept of signifyin(g) to analyze the interplay between texts of prominent African-American writers, specifically Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston and Ishmael Reed.
"[1] Bernard W. Bell defines it as an "elaborate, indirect form of goading or insult generally making use of profanity".
[2] Roger D. Abrahams writes that to signify is "to imply, goad, beg, boast by indirect verbal or gestural means".
Gates more thoroughly focuses on oppositional or motivated Signifyin(g) and how it "functions as a metaphor for formal revision, or intertextuality, within the Afro-American literary tradition".
[9] Nonetheless, The Signifying Monkey has helped contribute to the reputation of Gates as being, along with Houston Baker, one of the two most important African-American literary theorists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.