Year of the Monkey

The Year of the Monkey is invoked during a discussion of zodiac compatibility, when Margaret Campbell identifies herself as having been born in a monkey year. The classification becomes more than a biographical detail when a reading places monkeys and tigers in direct opposition, giving the novel’s personal tensions an unexpected symbolic frame.

Margaret’s Zodiac Identity

Margaret says that people have called her a monkey for much of her life and that she was born in 1968, which she has been told was a Year of the Monkey. Her remark connects an identity she presents with playful self-awareness to the traditional animal cycle being discussed at the table.

Compatibility and Rivalry

After learning that horses and tigers belong to a compatible group, Margaret asks where monkeys stand in relation to horses, then turns the question to monkeys and tigers while looking directly at Nien Mei-Ling. Aunt Teng consults a chart and declares that monkey and tiger are opposites and deadly enemies. The reading thus singles out Margaret and Nien Mei-Ling as incompatible, converting the zodiac’s system of animal groupings into a pointed reflection of their existing antagonism.

Narrative Significance

Margaret responds with a smile and the observation, “Maybe there’s something to this after all.” The scene leaves the zodiac reading in a double register: it is a comic social exchange, but its coincidence with the women’s rivalry gives the classification a sharper edge. The Year of the Monkey supplies a compact symbolic language through which their conflict can be teased, recognized, and momentarily treated as fate.