Discussion Topic
Mr. White's Wishes and Their Consequences in "The Monkey's Paw"
Summary:
In W.W. Jacobs' "The Monkey's Paw," Mr. White makes three wishes with dire consequences. The first wish for 200 pounds results in his son Herbert's death, as the money comes as compensation for the accident. The second wish, prompted by Mrs. White's grief, is for Herbert to return to life, but Mr. White realizes the horrific implications and makes a third wish to reverse it, likely wishing for Herbert to return to his grave. The story illustrates the dangers of interfering with fate.
What is Mr. White's third wish in "The Monkey's Paw"?
The author does not spell out Mr. White's third and last wish, but the reader can easily imagine what the old man wished for. He wished for the knocking to stop and for the knocker to go away forever.
A perfect fusillade of knocks reverberated through the house, and he heard the scraping of a chair as his wife put it down in the passage against the door. He heard the creaking of the bolt as it came slowly back, and at the same moment he found the monkey's paw, and frantically breathed his third and last wish.
Mr. White is under extreme pressure. His wife is trying desperately to open the door in the firm belief that it is her son Herbert outside. Mr. White believes it too. He is having trouble finding the monkey's paw with which he intends to make his third wish before his wife gets the door open. He probably would...
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be unable to formulate his wish in precise words. No doubt he would have said something like, "I wish he would go away forever!" Those words would probably be sufficient to do the trick--assuming it really was Herbert returned from the grave and knocking for admission. The reader, of course, will never know whether it was Herbert or some stranger lost in a dark, unfamiliar area and trying to get some kind of help. Whether it was Herbert or a stranger, the wish has the desired effect.
The knocking ceased suddenly, although the echoes of it were still in the house. He heard the chair drawn back, and the door opened. A cold wind rushed up the staircase, and a long loud wail of disappointment and misery from his wife gave him courage to run down to her side, and then to the gate beyond. The street lamp flickering opposite shone on a quiet and deserted road.
The author has built up such a feeling of horror that the average reader probably believes it actually was the Whites' dead and mutilated son standing on the other side of the door and doing all that terrifying knocking. In fact, the reader can almost visualize what Herbert looks like! If the knocker had only been some ordinary human being, why and how did he disappear so quickly? The Whites should have been able to see him on the road. There is something about a loud knocking at our door that frightens most of us. We can imagine all sorts of things.
Immediately after making his first wish, Herbert crashes the keys on the piano to frighten his father, who screams in terror. Herbert meant to scare his father, but Mr. White insists that the monkey's paw twisted in his hand "like a snake." Little do the Whites know that the first wish will have disastrous consequences and result in Herbert's tragic death.
The next day, Mr. and Mrs. White receive the terrible news that their son died in a work-related accident and are awarded two hundred pounds from Herbert's company. After Herbert is buried, Mrs. White connects her son's death to the monkey's paw and begs her husband to make a second wish, which leads to the story's suspenseful ending.
In "The Monkey's Paw," what was the White family's last wish?
Actually, the last wish was only Mr. White's. Both husband and wife believed their son Herbert had come back from the dead as a result of their second wish. Mr. White was horrified at the prospect of seeing Herbert as he must look after being mangled in the machinery at work and then being dead and buried for ten days. Mrs. White, on the other hand, was anxious to open the door and hug her son. Unlike her husband, she had never seen his body and had no idea how horrible he must look. The tiny woman was having a hard time opening the door because one of the bolts was too high for her to reach.
"For God's sake don't let it in," cried the old man, trembling.
"You're afraid of your own son," she cried struggling. "Let me go. I'm coming, Herbert; I'm coming."
The reader has been made to believe that it must be Herbert doing all that knocking and dreads seeing the living-dead monster if Mrs. White gets the door open. Herbert was introduced as a good-natured, funny young man full of high spirits. But if he came back to live with his parents after being dead and buried, he would not be the same Herbert. The feeling produced here is uncanny. Imagine having to live with such a creature!
So Mr. White finally makes a decision of his own. The first wish was suggested by Herbert, and his father wished for two hundred pounds. The second wish was forced on White by his wife, who insisted that he wish for Herbert to come back to them. The third and final wish was White's alone. We do not know the exact words he said, but he obviously wished that the knocking would cease and the person knocking would go away forever.
"The bolt," she cried loudly. "Come down. I can't reach it."
But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the floor in search of the paw....He heard the creaking of the bolt as it came slowly back, and at the same moment he found the monkey's paw, and frantically breathed his third and last wish.
The knocking ceases as soon as he makes the wish. When his wife opens the door there is no one there. Mr. White follows her outside and then runs down to the gate.
The street lamp flickering opposite shone on a quiet and deserted road.
Was it really Herbert out there, or some lost traveler seeking directions? If it was a real human being knocking, where did he disappear to?
In "The Monkey's Paw", what were the three wishes of Mr. White's family and their outcomes?
While "The Monkey's Paw" is a story which has "Dame Fortuna" as its motif, the macabre paw and the outcomes of the wishes are what lend the suspense to the narrative.
Despite the warnings of the sergeant major, the Whites do not give any credence to the warnings or the tale of the misfortune of the previous owner. For, they do not believe in fate. So, after Herbert's making light of the suspicions about the paw, Mr. White first wishes for two hundred pounds. Then, after Mr. and Mrs. White do receive two hundred pounds, but only after misfortune has dealt them a cruel blow: Herbert has been killed; the two hundred pounds is insurance money.
Having lost her son so tragically, Mrs. White is disconsolate. Her husband then realizes that he can bring Herbert back by using the second wish and ask that their son be returned to life; however, again the Whites do not foresee all possible consequences of their wishes. The mangled Herbert comes to their door, tortured. There is nothing to do but make a third wish that Herbert be returned to his grave. Thus, after having acquired the talisman, the Whites are more misfortunate than before when they were afforded a chance to change fate.
As Shakespeare so often proved, meddling with Fortune has its consequences. Like Romeo, the Whites, too, have become "Fortune's fools."
One more thing about the wishes, actually, three more things:
The first wish is done mostly in disbelief, sort of as a joke. Mr. White holds the paw up...
as his son, with a solemn face, somewhat marred by a wink at his mother, sat down at the piano and struck a few impressive chords.
"I wish for two hundred pounds," said the old man distinctly.
A fine crash from the piano greeted the words, interrupted by a shuddering cry from the old man. His wife and son ran toward him.
"It moved," he cried, with a glance of disgust at the object as it lay on the floor.
"As I wished, it twisted in my hand like a snake."
The second wish, to have The Whites' mangled, dead son alive again is made in sadness and desperation:
"Wish!" she cried, in a strong voice.
"It is foolish and wicked," he faltered.
"Wish!" repeated his wife.
He raised his hand. "I wish my son alive again."
The talisman fell to the floor, and he regarded it fearfully.
The final wish, to have Harold dead again, is done in terror and dread:
He heard the creaking of the bolt as it came slowly back, and at the same moment he found the monkey's paw, and frantically breathed his third and last wish.
We know the first two wishes for sure, but the third one is only implied.
The first wish that Mr. White makes (his family helps him to decide on this one) is for 200 pounds (money). This wish is granted, but it only happens by his son being killed.
The second wish is ordered by Mrs. White. She makes Mr. White wish that their son would not be dead anymore.
The final wish is only implied. It is implied that Mr. White wishes that their son would go back to his grave and stay dead.
Mr. White, in W. W. Jacobs' short story "The Monkey's Paw," makes three wishes. Given that the talisman is supposed to give the possessor of it three total wishes, Mr. White takes complete advantage of all three (even after initially not wanting to make a second wish after the catastrophe which followed his first wish).
Mr. White's first wish is one which he believes to be sensible given the warning provided by Major Morris:
"If you must wish," he said, gruffly, "wish for something sensible."
Mr. White's first wish was for 200 pounds (given it was sensible because it
would only "clear the house").
Mr. White did get his 200 pounds, at the cost of his son's life.
Mr. White's second wish was made because his wife pressured him to. His second wish was to bring back his son.
Immediately after the wish is made, Mr. White becomes very frightened. He seems to understand that the consequences of the wishes far surpass the wishes. Not soon after making the wish to bring back his son, Mr. White made his third wish. The knocking which was heard at the door immediately stopped. In the end, Mr. White's last wish was meant to cancel out his second wish.
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What if Mr. White couldn't make his third wish in "The Monkey's Paw"?
Mr. White already understands the terrible implications of the second wish, that Herbert be alive once again. Although Mrs. White has not seen the body, her husband has.
The old man turned and regarded her, and his voice shook. "He has been dead ten days, and besides he--I would not tell you else, but--I could only recognize him by his clothing. If he was too terrible for you to see then, how now?"
"Bring him back," cried the old woman, and dragged him toward the door. "Do you think I fear the child I have nursed?"
Mr. White wishes Herbert back to life to please his wife, and they nervously anticipate his arrival. But the cemetery is a long distance away, and presumably, their son's deformities restrict the speed in which he can return to them. At the last moment, Mr. White decides against allowing the second wish to be fulfilled, and he wishes Herbert dead again with the final wish. What would have happened if he had not made the third wish? Herbert would have probably appeared at the door--mangled, decomposing and unable to speak, hardly the same young man who had made the old couple so happy before his death.
References
What was Mr. White's second wish in "The Monkey's Paw"?
Ten days after the Whites bury their son, Mrs. White suddenly demands that her husband make another wish using the monkey's paw in the middle of the night. She instructs him to grab the monkey's paw and wish for Herbert to be alive again. Mr. White follows his wife's instructions by retrieving the monkey's paw and making a second wish. Despite briefly arguing with his wife, Mr. White reluctantly holds the paw and says, "I wish my son alive again" (Jacobs, 12).
The way Mr. White phrases the second wish is particularly important, because he exclusively wishes for Herbert to be alive again, without any further stipulations. Mr. White does not elaborate on the condition of Herbert's body when he is resurrected from the grave, which adds to the suspense of the story. By simply wishing for Herbert to be "alive again," Mr. White opens the possibility that his son will return in zombie form. As a result of Mr. White's vaguely phrased wish, the reader imagines Herbert's decaying, grotesque corpse rising from the grave and returning home, where he attempts to enter his parents' house. Fortunately, Mr. White is able to make a third and final wish before his wife opens the front door to see her son's decaying body in zombie form.
What is Mr. White's first wish in "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs?
"The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs was first published as a magazine article in 1902, and it is now a famous example of the surprise-ending genre.
The story takes place in the quiet home of the White family, Mr. and Mrs. White and their grown son Herbert. The family receives a visitor tonight, the Sergeant-Major, who tells them stories about his time in India. One of the things he tells them about is a magical monkey's paw which is supposed to grant three wishes to whoever has it.
While that may sound like something wonderful to own, the Sergeant-Major tells the Whites that one man who possessed it has already been killed, and the officer starts to throw the talisman into the fire. Mr. White stops him and ends up with it by the end of the night. The Sergeant-Major leaves them with one piece of advice:
"If you must wish," he said gruffly, "wish for something sensible."
Once their visitor is gone, the Whites have a rather light-hearted discussion about what to wish for.
Mr. White took the paw from his pocket and eyed it dubiously. "I don't know what to wish for, and that's a fact," he said slowly. "It seems to me I've got all I want."
Herbert is the most casual about the entire thing, and he tells his father to wish for two hundred pounds, which would be enough money to pay off the mortgage on his house. This seems to be the most sensible first wish, so that is what happens.
His father, smiling shamefacedly at his own credulity, held up the talisman, as his son, with a solemn face somewhat marred by a wink at his mother, sat down at the piano and struck a few impressive chords.
"I wish for two hundred pounds," said the old man distinctly.
Mr. White's first wish is for money, two hundred pounds, with which he will pay off his house.
Mr. White, having retrieved the monkey's paw from the fire and learned how to make a wish, feels ashamed to do so, especially after the way he has been warned against the paw by Sergeant-Major Morris. Morris tells the Whites that the Indian holy man, from whom the paw has been passed down, devised it to show people that they defy fate at their own peril.
Despite feeling uncomfortable, Mr. White wants to make a wish on the paw. When his son, Herbert, urges him to ask for for 200 pounds so that his mortgage can be paid off, Mr. White decides to make that his first wish. His son says to him:
If you only cleared the house, you'd be quite happy, wouldn't you?
It is because of Herbert's suggestion that Mr. White makes the mortgage money his first wish—but beneath that is his desire to use the monkey's paw and see what happens.
In "The Monkey's Paw," was Mr. White's first wish a sensible choice?
In "The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. Jacobs, Mr. White's first wish seems sensible enough. He is not sure that he actually believes what the Sergeant Major has told him about it anyway, but he does heed Morris' warning by wishing for something he feels is sensible. Wishing for enough money to pay off his mortgage is not greedy or selfish in most people's eyes.
If he had wished for "all the money in the world," as people often do, that would not seem very sensible because if it were to come true, nobody else in the world would have any money at all. By wishing for just enough, Mr. White, his wife, and son all felt as though they were being sensible.
Of course in the end, Mr. and Mrs. White would do anything to take that wish back. Perhaps they should have listened more closely to what Morris said about how wishes occur in a very natural kind of way. If they had thought through what consequences might come because of their wish, they may have passed it up, but how could they possibly know? Maybe they should have questioned Sergeant Major Morris more thoroughly. If they had found out how the wishes of the men before them had manifested, they probably would not have wished at all.
The wish was sensible, but the consequences of the wish were horrifying.
In "The Monkey's Paw", what are Mr. White's second and third wishes and how are they fulfilled?
Of course this is a perplexing story exactly becuase we can never know if ANY of the three wishes are fulfilled.
The first wish is for two hundred pounds. The day after the wish is made while holding the monkey's paw, the White's only son, Howard, is caught in some machinery at work and gets mangled to death. The company says they are not responsible for the horrible accident, but they give the Whites 200 pounds as compensation for their loss. Of course they associate the 200 pounds with the supposed power of the shriveled, old monkey's paw, but who's to say for sure that the paw had anything to do with the money? It's a problem of confusing cause and effect, something we all do all the time.
When Mrs. White gets her husband to wish for their son to be alive again, it takes a while, but there is eventually a knocking at the door. Is it mangled Howard come from the grave knock, knock, knocking at the door? Maybe, maybe not. Believers in supernatural powers think yes, others think no. Maybe it's just the wind, or some lost stranger, or a late night FedEx express delivery that needs a signature. Mr. White is so horrified by what might be on the other side of the door, that he finds the paw and, just as the Mrs White is about to open the door, he wishes Howard dead again. The knocking stops. Well, if it was poor Howard knocking, then he must have gone back to being dead again. Or the knocking was caused by something or someone else entirely and just stopped as capriciously as it had started. Or maybe the FedEx guy gave up and figured he'd try again first thing in the morning.
In short, there's no way of knowing if any of the wishes were fulfilled and no one will ever know. But aren't you glad you asked?
The first wish was for 200 pounds (money). That was fulfilled by the Whites' son getting killed at his workplace. The next two wishes come out of that wish and result.
The second wish was demanded by Mrs. White. She was so sad about her son's death that she made her husband wish that he would come alive again.
Some time later (about the amount of time needed to walk from the cemetery to the Whites' house) there was a pounding on the door. We don't know what it was, but it's implied that it was the son's body risen from the dead as some kind of zombie.
We aren't told what the third wish is explicitly, but it is clearly a wish for the son to be dead again because after Mr. White wishes it, there is no one out on the street.
Was Mr. White's first wish in "The Monkey's Paw" wise?
It is very easy to read with smug self-satisfaction this chilling tale and completely ignore the pull on human temptation and curiosity that lies at the heart of this tale. Clearly there are enough carefully placed hints given throughout the start of the story to indicate the truth of the soldier's claim about the monkey's paw - for example, his manner and composure whilst telling the White family about the monkey's paw, his saying that "it has caused enough mischief already" and his reluctance to part with the paw, even for money.
However, despite these warning clues, the tale clearly smacks of childish ghost stories, completely separate from the rational world in which we live. It is clear that the son and Mrs. White treat this paw as nothing more than an oddity, a joke to be played with, and thus their first wish evidently displays this opinion - it is wished with half-seriousness, with Mr. White "smiling shamefacedly at his own credulity". This shows that they half expected nothing to happen with this interesting momento from India. However, the power of human curiosity is not to be underestimated and I guess that if we are honest with ourselves in the same situation we would probably have made such a wish in such a fashion just to see what would happen.
Compare the circumstances of Mr. White's first and last wish in "The Monkey's Paw".
The author wanted to make sure that the wishes, especially the first one, were not outlandish, because he was writing about simple people who experience an extraordinary, seemingly supernatural intrusion into their humble, uneventful lives. He did not want them wishing for a million pounds in gold coins, or a marble mansion, or anything like The Arabian Nights. He wanted to leave some margin of possibility that the wishes only seemed to be granted because of pure coincidence.
"Might drop on his head from the sky," said the frivolous Herbert.
"Morris said the things happened so naturally," said his father, "that you might if you so wished attribute it to coincidence."
The narrator calls Herbert "frivolous" to suggest that he might wish for a million pounds in gold coins. The author wanted to establish that only Mr. White could make wishes, because only the owner of the monkey's paw could do so. That is why the narrator specifies that Mr. White insists on paying Sergeant-Major Moore for the paw.
"Did you give him anything for it, father?" inquired Mrs. White, regarding her husband closely.
"A trifle," said he, colouring slightly. "He didn't want it, but I made him take it. And he pressed me again to throw it away."
Mr. White is the sole owner. Only Mr. White can make wishes. He is a modest, cautious man, so he is unlikely to make any kind of wish that could obviously only be granted by magic. As a matter of fact, he can't think of anything to wish for. His son Herbert suggests that his father wish for two hundred pounds to pay off the mortgage, so the first wish is Herbert's, although his father has to make it.
The outcome could have been the result of coincidence. Herbert stayed up later than usual and probably drank more whiskey than usual to keep up with their "bibulous" guest. He must have gone to work next morning without his usual amount of sleep and feeling hung over. This could explain how he happened to get caught up in the textile machinery.
Mr. White makes the second wish at his wife's insistence. When he raises his hand and says, "I wish my son alive again," it is really his wife's wish and not his. The wish is not immediately granted, and this makes Mr. White hopeful that the monkey's paw does not really possess any magic powers. But then there is a soft knocking at the front door. This has a chilling effect on the reader. The soft knocking seems somehow worse than a loud knocking would be.
Mrs. White is trying desperately to open the front door, but she can't reach the high bolt. Finally Mr. White makes a wish of his own. The narrator does not quote the exact words, but the reader can understand that White is wishing that the knocking will stop and that whoever is outside will go away and stay away forever. The loud, persistent knocking stops immediately. There is still a possibility that this was a coincidence. The old couple will never know whether the knocker was Herbert returned from the dead all mangled and decayed, or whether it was some stranger lost in these remote, unlighted suburbs and trying to get directions.
There is an uncanny silence when the door is finally opened. Mr. White gathers courage to go outside and then all the way down to the gate.
The street lamp flickering opposite shone on a quiet and deserted road.