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Ellie

Critical Review of The Monkey’s Paw

THE MONKEY’S PAW is a horror short story written by W.W. Jacobs. It is about a mummified monkey paw that granted each owner three wishes but caused evil things to happen to the wisher. In the story, the White family was the victim of the evil curse. Sergeant Morris was the one who gave the paw to the family. But Mr. White was the one who wanted the paw. His greed and curiosity made him receive the paw. But again, Morris took advantage of the family’s unknown knowledge and lied to them. Mr. White first wished for two hundred pounds and that caused Herbert, their son, to be badly hurt. After that, she wished for their son to come back. One night, Mrs. White heard a knock on her door and realized that her son had come back. But then, Mr. White did not want her to open the door because he probably knew that something bad was going to happen. So, he made his last wish which was to wish his son not to come back. Then, he only saw a long, deserted road when he opened the door.


There are many bright sides of human nature, but when greed and curiosity barges in, all would fall into darkness. It is always okay to have a little bit of those traits, but it is a complete tragedy when there is too much. Mr. White’s greediness for money and other attractive conditions caused him to take the paw despite how Sergeant Morris warned him. He wanted the monkey’s paw because of his desire to live a luxurious life and have all the things he wanted. His curiosity about the paw’s magic brought great consequences to his family and him. Mr. White wanted to know more about the monkey’s paw and even to claim it as his own. This brought unforgettable tragedies upon the whole household. The fatal effects from the monkey’s paw was caused by Mr. White’s curiosity and greediness. You need to control these problems, or you would end with a deadly result.


The wanting to take advantage of someone’s, even if it is your best friend’s, ignorance could be overwhelming. It is the kind of evilness that you should look out for. Sergeant Morris uses the monkey’s paw and takes advantage of Mr. White’s greed and inexperience to bring the paw’s curse down on the family. Morris uses the lies to Mr. White to be able to get rid of the unfortunate events that would happen to himself. Although Mr. White was the main cause of this whole tragedy because Morris did give him some warnings about the paw, Morris still was the one who lied to his friend for his own sake. His evilness was his sneakiness and advantage taking. In this story, taking advantage of someone else and lying was Sergeant Morris’s problem.


Suspense is a hanger in a book or story that leaves wanting or thinking about what would happen next. This would be slightly irritating for a lot of people who were reading this book, because it is just hanging there making us dying to know what happened next in the story. This ends in suspense when the character just made the last wish and is waiting for the consequence. There are worse things to come after Mr. White wished Herbert not to come back. It leaves us thinking about the consequences. This is how the author makes us keep thinking about his or her story. A suspense in a story, especially at the end, keeps us wondering what would happen next or what would the main character do next.


The book THE MONKEY’S PAW is about how a family was cursed by a magical monkey’s paw. It was able to grant its owner three wishes but caused some unfortunate event to happen to them. Mr. White’s greed and curiosity brought his whole family down. But also, Morris was the one who tricked the White family. He knew something bad was going to happen to them but didn’t even tell them. At first, Mr. White wished for two hundred pounds because of his greed for money, which brought their son, Herbert, to die. After that, Herbert’s mom, Mrs. White wished that her son could come back to her and her family. Mr. White something bad was going to come in when he heard someone knocking on the door, which his wife thought was Herbert. He was struggling with his wife when he breathed out his last wish-don’t let his son come back. The knock stopped and there was nobody in front of the White’s door. Of course, something wicked is going to happen next, but no one knows what it is because the story ends right there.


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