Sergeant-Major Morris

Sergeant-Major Morris serves as the story's catalyst, bringing the monkey’s paw into the Whites' household. Described as “a tall, burly man, beady of eye and rubicund of visage,” his eyes brighten after his third glass of whiskey by the Whites' fireplace. Morris is both familiar and exotic. He and Mr. White share a common starting point in life; Mr. White recalls his friend as “a slip of a youth in the warehouse.” However, Morris's twenty-one years of travel and soldiering have exposed him to “wild scenes and doughty deeds; of wars and plagues and strange peoples.” Along with these tales, Morris brings the monkey’s paw, which dramatically alters the Whites' lives.

The Stranger

The final character in “The Monkey’s Paw” remains unnamed. He is the harbinger of death, a company representative who arrives to inform Herbert’s parents of their son's tragic workplace accident. On one level, Jacobs depicts a realistic image of this man; Mrs. White observes that he is well-dressed and visibly nervous, hesitating at their gate and picking lint from his clothes before delivering the dreadful news. On another level, the author keeps this character anonymous: the man never reveals his name, and his face is described only as “perverted.” This anonymity allows the character to symbolize death or fate.

Herbert White

Herbert White lives harmoniously with his elderly parents and works at a local company called Maw and Meggins. Like his father, he is good-natured and dependable.

Despite his reliability, Herbert exhibits a playful side. He is the first to ask Morris if the old soldier used his three wishes, prompting Morris to look at him “in the way that middle age is wont to regard presumptuous youth.” Herbert playfully encourages his parents to wish on the monkey’s paw, goading his mother into chasing him around the table and his father into making the first wish. He remains skeptical and dismissive of the paw’s powers: “‘Well, I don't see the money,’ said his son as he picked [the paw] up and placed it on the table, ‘and I bet I never shall.’” Later, Herbert jokes, “I expect you’ll find the cash tied up in a big bag in the middle of your bed.”

Herbert’s irreverence, like his father’s flaws, is entirely relatable and adds to his charm. However, when Herbert suffers a gruesome death, “caught in the machinery” at Maw and Meggins, it suggests that his demise may be linked to his failure to take the monkey’s paw seriously.

Mr. White

Mr. White is a conservative, content man who relishes his tranquil domestic life. Jacobs illustrates this in the opening scene of the story, where father and son are playing chess in their cozy cottage on a rainy night, while Mrs. White, knitting by the fire, remarks on their game. It is evident that the Whites lead a happy, albeit somewhat secluded, life. Later in the narrative, the most extravagant wish Mr. White can imagine is to pay off the mortgage on their modest home.

Despite his contentment, White has a reckless streak. In the story's initial paragraph, during the chess game with his son, he places his king "into such sharp and unnecessary perils that it even provoked comment" from his usually gentle wife. This recklessness compels him to tempt fate with the monkey’s paw, ultimately putting his family in jeopardy.

Mr. White embodies the "everyman." Happily retired and content with his life and family, he is nonetheless fascinated by the exotic tales brought home by his friend, Sergeant-Major Morris. His curiosity and minor greed lead to the downfall of his entire family—yet these traits are what make him so relatable.

Although influenced by the other characters, Mr. White is the driving force in the story—the one who initiates events. Morris introduces the monkey’s paw, but it is Mr. White who retrieves it from the fire and later buys it from the sergeant-major. His son, Herbert, goads him into making the first wish, and his wife compels him to make the second. Mr. White makes the third wish on his own, without anyone witnessing it. As the new owner of the paw, he is the one who makes all three wishes, setting the story in motion and arguably paying the heaviest price for using the monkey’s paw. Although Herbert loses his life and Mrs. White loses her primary reason for living, Mr. White effectively loses his entire family and must live with the knowledge that these losses are his own doing.

Mrs. White

Mrs. White is a calm and reserved woman. In the story’s opening scene, Jacobs notes that Mr. White’s chess moves are so "radical" that they "even provoked comment from the white-haired old lady knitting placidly by the fire"—implying that significant events must occur to prompt her to speak.

Mrs. White shares a warm relationship with both her husband and her son, Herbert. She teases and entertains them; when Mr. White insists that the monkey’s paw moved in his hand during his first wish, she gently reassures him, saying, “You thought it did.” She embodies the traditional role of a good housewife, typical of the era when Jacobs wrote: she manages the household and prepares supper, with her husband and son as the focal points of her life.

Her strong maternal instinct drives her actions at the story's climax, following Herbert's death. Devastated by the loss of her cherished son, she compels Mr. White to use the monkey’s paw for a second wish: to bring Herbert back. Tragically, neither Mrs. White nor Mr. White remembers to specify that Herbert should return whole and unscathed. Just before the door opens, Mr. White wishes Herbert away again to spare his wife from seeing the mutilated, partially decayed body they both anticipate. Thus, Mrs. White endures the heartbreak of losing her son twice.