How Does W. Jacobs Create Tension In The Monkey's Paw

Tension is created in ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ in a various way, mainly using sentence structures such as lots of minor sentences or short dialogues which builds up tension because lots of things are happening in a short amount of time. Gothic stories have lots of element to it, for this instance, it uses the symbolism, the ‘Monkey’s Paw’ to portray the mysteriousness happening to the White Family.

At the beginning when the author, W.W. Jacobs creates tension through the pathetic fallacy when explaining the settings in the story ‘The Monkey’s Paw’: “The night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnum Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly.” This means that inside of the Villa is warm whereas it is pitch-black and cold outside. The

Jacobs continues to build up the tension using sentence structures: ‘“Wish!” She cried, in a strong voice. / “it is foolish and wicked,” he faltered. / “Wish!” repeated his wife.’ This means that the wife is forcing her husband to wish to bring Herbert back. The fact that Mr. White suggesting to not to bring their son back gives the effect that he does not want his son to be back since their son died from a machine, it is likely that he will come out as deformed child, as an ‘uncanny’ man that Mr. White does not want to be with. However, this idea is juxtaposed when his wife uses repetition, ‘wish’ which gives the effect that Mrs. White is desperate to bring her son back. This is developed by the phrase ‘strong voice’ as people will say it with strong voice when they are serious. The repetition also suggests insanity because the tone the wife speaks gets more and more threatening as she repeats herself. Sentence structure in here really builds up the tension because the quick pace that story progress really makes the reader question that what’s going to happen next rather than if the author have used complex sentence, it wouldn’t have gained any pace to the story and will drop the interest of the