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;

their wish came true, but Herbert died. In their grief, they wished for Herbert to come back alive, a few minutes later they heard a knock at the door. The first knock was “so quiet and stealthy” (Jacobs,115). The knock grew louder and louder as shown in this quote, “The knock was repeated the third knock sounded through the whole house” (Jacobs, 115). Mrs. White thought it was Herbert. Mr. White was scared and did not want to see what was behind the door, he cried, “Don’t let it in” (Jacobs,116). Mrs. white attempts to open the door as the knocks grow louder. It builds suspense as shown in this quote “a perfect fusillade of knocks reverberated through the house and he heard the scraping of a chair as his wife puts it down in the passage against the door” (Jacobs,118). The effect is that the knocks are scary. The author builds suspense on who is behind the door its effect is that the reader is worried about the whites. What will evil Herbert do if he gets in the house? The reader has an uncertainty feeling about the monkey’s paw. As the knocks get louder it strengthens suspense. The knocks start as a scratch and then to gun shots. The effect on the reader is it’s scary because it started as just a little knock to and then got loud and reverberated the whole house.
The “Tell-Tale Heart” also builds suspense through the repetition of the narrator.

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

suspense.
“The Monkeys Paw” and “Tell-Tale Heart” both have the same relationship with cause and effect, both authors use repetition of sound to create suspense. People love scary movies and love feeling suspense.

Works Cited
Poe, Edgar Allen. ”The Tell-Tale Heart.” Collections Grade 8. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2015. Web. 15 Dec. 2017.
“Suspense.” Scholastic Children’s Dictionary, Scholastic Reference, 2002, p. 541.
William, Wymark Jacobs. ” The Monkey’s Paw.” Collections Grade 8. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2015. Web. 15 Dec. 2017.