The Monkey's Paw

The Monkey's Paw is a horror story written by W. W. Jacobs in 1902. An incredible number of stories in different media have played on it through different variations and adaptations, and it is a subject of frequent parody.

The story begins as Mr. and Mrs. White, average people with a grown son named Herbert, are visited by an old friend of theirs who was a sergeant in India. While there, he got a magical talisman called The Monkey's Paw, which he gives to them while first warning them that its previous owners killed themselves for their third wish. Too excited by its mystical powers, Mr. White first wishes for 200 pounds. He gets his wish, but at a price. The story continues this way until the most dramatic moment, and they learn their lesson: don't tempt fate, and Be Careful What You Wish For.

The full story can be found here.

Tropes used in The Monkey's Paw include:
  • An Aesop: The monkey's paw was charmed by an old fakir to teach people that fate rules people's lives and those who interfere will be punished.
  • Artifact of Doom: The monkey's paw.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For
  • Bittersweet Ending: The Whites lose their only son, but at least the monkey's paw can't hurt anyone ever again. (It can only grant three wishes to three people, remember?)
  • Came Back Wrong: Herbert dies in a horrible accident involving heavy machinery, so this is suspected.
  • Curiosity Is a Crapshoot
  • Fatal Flaw
  • Genre Adultery: The rest of the author's bibliography was focused around boats.
  • Greed
  • Jackass Genie: In the cruelest way. They wish for 200 pounds. Their son is killed in a horrifying machinery accident, and they get 200 pounds compensation for his death.
  • Literal Genie
  • Make a Wish
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: According to the sergeant, this is how the wishes normally go. Only Mr. White can tell that the paw "twisted like a snake" when he wished with it, and it's never proven that the knocking was Herbert. Definitely leaning to the side of "magic," though.
  • Nothing Is Scarier: The walking corpse knocks suspensefully over and over. Because Mr. White knows that Herbert's body is horribly mutilated, Mr. White uses his last wish to wish Herbert dead again. Nothing is there when they open the door.
    • The fact that Herbert is only described as "caught in the machinery" and Mr. White was only able to identify him "by his clothes" are also an example, leaving the exact nature of Herbert's death up to the reader.
  • Rule of Three: The monkey's paw can grant three wishes each to three different people.
  • Schmuck Bait: The sergeant explicitly warns them about what may happen. They wish anyway.
  • Space Whale Aesop: Be careful what you wish for because an evil artifact might intentionally misinterpret it to mean you want tragedy to befall your family.
  • Tempting Fate
  • Three Wishes
  • The Un-Reveal: Several adaptations never say what exactly the final wish that Mr. White makes on the monkey paw is. It is assumed to be on the lines of "I wish for Herbert to be at peace" or "I wish that Herbert would be dead once more".
  • You Can't Fight Fate: The entire point behind the creation of the paw was to teach this lesson.
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