Suffering In The Monkey's Paw By W. Jacobs

If you were given 3 wishes, you would almost certainly use them all to get what you wanted, even if there was a warning. This is what happens in “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs. The main characters, Mr. White, Mrs. White, and Herbert White, are given a magical monkey paw from General Morris. He warns them not to use it, as bad things are sure to happen. Mr. White wishes for 200 pounds at first, but then Herbert dies and they get 200 pounds from the company he worked at. Next, Mr. White wishes for Herbert to come back to life. In the end, there is a spooky knocking on the door that he thinks is Herbert, so he wishes for Herbert to die again. Mr. White is motivated to make these wishes through curiosity, pressure from his wife, and fear. Mr. White is motivated by

White does not make the wish because of his own intentions. He is terrified of what his wife wants, and she pressures him to make the decision. If his wife was not there, he would never have wished for his son to return. Therefore, he made the wish only because his wife was practically forcing him. Mr. White is motivated to make the last wish out of fear. He is not sure what is behind the door, and if it is Herbert, he knows Herbert would not look human. As Mrs. White struggles to get the door open to see what she thinks is her son, Mr. White is racing to find the monkey’s paw. The author writes, “But her husband was on his hands and knees, groping wildly on the floor in search of the paw. If he could only find it before the thing outside got in. A perfect fusillade of knocks reverberated through the house, and he heard the scraping of a chair as his wife put it down in the passage against the door. He heard the creaking of the bolt as it came slowly back, and at the same moment he found the monkey’s paw, and frantically breathed his third and last wish.” (142) This part of the story is very intense. Mr. White knows whatever is behind the door will look