The Monkey's PawW. W. JacobsOmniClassics · Literature
The Monkey's Paw
W. W. JacobsAn ordinary household receives an object whose promised power may be impossible to control.
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About the book
A visitor brings the White family a monkey's paw said to grant wishes, together with a warning about the consequences of interfering with fate. The family's mixture of curiosity, scepticism, and modest desire makes the strange object seem almost manageable. Jacobs establishes warmth and familiar conversation before allowing uncertainty to alter the meaning of sounds, waiting, and apparently ordinary events. The story's brevity depends on careful restraint: readers are given enough to connect possibilities without being allowed a comfortable explanation of everything. Its horror concerns the distance between wanting a result and understanding what would be required to produce it. A domestic setting makes that problem immediate, placing extraordinary promises beside the ordinary attachments that give any wish its emotional force.
- Desire and consequence
- Fate
- Family
Why read it
For economical suspense that makes waiting and implication more unsettling than elaborate description.
English text