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The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs

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The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs
“The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs

Setting: The main setting of “The Monkey’s Paw” would be stationed around the Laburnam Villa, the White family home. We enter the story by the weather being dark and stormy, but as soon as we walk into the Villa, it’s immediately warm and comfortable. As the story progresses deeper, the Villa becomes more haunting and progressively darker. After Herbert dies, the house is completely thick with silence.

Point of view: This story is told in third person omniscient. The narrator is able to minimally describe the events that occur in the household and make remarks or comments upon them, but they never truly engage themselves in the action. We’re able to know the bigger picture of the story and also take a look at the thought of all the characters. On top of this, the narrator gives us just enough information, so that we’re left to piecing all the parts together.

Character: The main characters of this story would be the members of the White family. Herbert White is the character who essentially changes the most throughout the story. He starts as this gentle young, who takes care of his parents at their old age, man to this frightening monster. Mr. and Mrs. White also go through a transformation from loving parents to parents who just lost their son. Mrs. White almost drives herself mad over the death, changing her from a strong female part to a wilting and weeping character. As for Mr. White, he sort of blames himself for his son’s death as he stirred up trouble with the monkey paw in the first place. He seems to be a strong character, as shown through the very last monkey paw wish and he wished the visitor away a he knew that evil was waiting for the married couple outside of the door.

Conflict: The main conflict in the story is when Mr. White initially is debating on whether to make the wish or not. Although his mentality was more of a just to see what it would do, it led to horrible consequences. Drunk Sergeant-Major

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