Monkeys Paw Suspense

The suspense is defined as, “An anxious feeling caused by having to wait to see what happens.” (Scholastic Children’s Dictionary, 541). In other words, suspense is where you are unsettled of what may happen. Scary stories are written to cause a feeling of suspense. “The Monkeys Paw” and “Tell-Tale Heart” both have the same relationship with cause and effect, and both authors use repetition of sound to create suspense. Suspense is created in “The Monkeys Paw” through the sound of the knocks on the door. A visitor gives Mr. and Mrs. White and Herbert White a monkeys paw. The visitor explains that supposedly the monkeys paw grants wishes, but bad things happen when wishes come true. Joking around Mr. and Mrs. white wish for two hundred pounds;

The narrator sneaked into the old man’s room many nights. The narrator killed the old man because he did not like the way his eye looked. He threw a bed on top of the old man and buried him underneath the floor boards. The narrator is crazy and hears voices in his head. He started hearing the old man’s heart beat gets louder and louder. Suspense is created when the narrator repeats himself that the heartbeat was getting louder and louder. Poe creates suspense through repetition of the sound of a beating heart that gets louder and louder in his head. He says, ”Yet the sound increased—and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound—much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.… I talked more quickly—more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations, but the noise steadily increased” (Poe, 94). The effect of the narrator repeating himself is the reader feels uncertainty and wonders things like this, how are the police going to respond? What are the police thinking? Is the narrator the only person hearing things in his head? I wonder who else would hear it. I thought the old man was dead and buried underneath their feet. Because the narrator repeats himself that the noise was getting louder and louder the reader feels