monkey’s paw for the three wishes. However, when it came time to make a wish, Mr. White said, “I don’t know what to wish for, and that’s a fact…it seems to me I’ve got all I want.” (pg 3)

So his son tells him, jokingly, to wish for two hundred pounds. Nothing immediately happens, so everyone thinks it is a hoax. However, the next day, a man arrives from Maw and Meggins. He informs Mr. and Mrs. White that their son got caught in some machinery at work and died. The firm admits no liability for the accident, but due to the son’s dedicated services, the company wanted to give Mr. and Mrs. White some compensation. It was two hundred pounds. Their wish had come true.

The death of their son hit them both hard. Suddenly the old woman yelled out that they could use the monkey’s paw to wish their son back to life. The old man wasn’t sure he wanted to wish his son back to life since the son had been so badly mangled in the machinery that he didn’t even recognize him. He is reluctant to use the monkey’s paw again for fear of what may happen. However, he does as she wishes and wishes his son alive again.

They wait patiently for a response to the wish, and then there is a knock on the door. The old man is afraid to open it, although his wife is eager to see her son again. Finally the third knock is very loud, and the woman insists on opening the door. The man is so fearful of what is on the other side of the door that he grabs the talisman and makes his third and final wish: that his son not come back to life. The knocking suddenly ceases and the road outside the house is deserted.

Mr. White's first wish is fulfilled because he receives the money that he has wished for.  For lack of anything more interesting, White ends up wishing for "200 pounds."  This actually seems to be a pretty common wish for people without a more specific option: money.  It doesn't sound like a lot, and indeed, even at the time of the story's writing it wouldn't have exactly been a fortune, but it would have been a nice sum of cash.  Why not wish for a million?  I don't know...he doesn't seem to want to be greedy.  Of course, he doesn't think that paw will work, anyway.

Amazingly, he gets his wish, which also leads to the irony.  It is ironic because he receives the 200 smackers  as a settlement payment for his son's death.  His beloved son has fallen prey to some nefarious industrial accident and his corpse has been pretty messed up in the process. "'He was caught in the machinery,' said the visitor at length in a low voice." The owners of the factory, admitting no liability or guilt, have decided to give the parents the 200 pounds as compensation.

Therein lies the irony.  His wish comes true, and he gets the money, but at the cost of his son.

Mr. White's first wish was fulfilled in a shocking and tragic way. When he first decided to make a wish, he could think of nothing to wish for. He said, ironically, "It seems to me I've got all I want." More irony is introduced when his son Herbert suggests that his father wish for two hundred pounds to pay off the mortgage on the house. If the house were free and clear, Herbert suggested, his father's happiness would be complete. Mr. White then makes the wish on the monkey's paw for two hundred pounds.

The next day Mr. and Mrs. White and Herbert laugh about the idea of receiving the money. Later that day, after Herbert had gone to work, a stranger comes to the door. He is a representative of Herbert's employer, and he brings the news that Herbert has been killed after being caught in the machinery where he worked. The company representative then gives the Whites a sum of money "in consideration of your son's services." The amount of money he brings to them? Two hundred pounds. As Sergeant Major Morris had said, wishes made on the monkey's paw were fulfilled very naturally:

. . . so naturally . . . that you might if you so wished attribute it to coincidence.

Neither of Herbert's parents, however, thought his death was coincidental. The first wish had come true.

Throughout the story it is impossible to know for certain whether the Whites' wishes were granted by some supernatural force or whether they were nothing but pure coincidences. The monkey's paw cannot be blamed for Herbert's being caught in the machinery the following day. There is a logical explanation. The whole family stayed up later than usual because they had a visitor. This would mean that Herbert drank a little more than usual that night and got less sleep because of staying up perhaps two or three hours later than usual listening to their interesting visitor. So Herbert could have been more careless and less alert at work the next day. The accident was indirectly due to the monkey's paw but not directly. That, in fact, is the scary part of the story. It could have something to do with blind cause and effect rather than some omniscient and omnipotent hidden power. The fact that the representative of Herbert's employers pays a visit is not supernatural. Someone would be expected to visit the Whites' to pay condolences. The fact that the company pays them the exact sum that Mr. White wished for could easily be a coincidence. If he wished for an odd amount, such as 187 pounds, then it would seem strange indeed if the company sent a check for that amount. But he wished for a round figure, and they would have paid a round figure of one hundred, two hundred, three hundred--but not much more! Then when there is a knocking at the door in the middle of the night, they assume that it is Herbert returning home in answer to their wish. But it could have been a motorist wanting to use their phone or to ask directions. It takes a long time to get the door open because Mrs. White can't reach the top latch and Mr. White doesn't want to open it at all. The knocker is gone, but he could easily have given up and left after getting no response. Many happenings in life seem mysterious and magical.

When Mr White foolishly tests out the monkey's paw by wishing for £200, he and his son joke about how it will be found wrapped up on top of some dusty item of furniture. Yet the real truth is far more disturbing and sinister. Instead of being found somewhere or coming into the Whites' possession without any real cost on their part, the £200 comes to them at such a massively disproportionate price it emphasises the full horror of the money's paw and what it does. The £200 is given to them by the company where their son works as a token of sympathy because of their son's terrible death when, the very next day, he was trapped in the machinery and died. Note what the messenger from the company says:

"I was to say that Maw and Meggins disclaim all responsibility," continued the other. "They admit no liability at all, but in consideration of your son's services they wish to present you with a certain sum as compensation."

The "certain compensation," as Mr and Mrs White are terrified and appalled to hear, is of course precisely £200. The truth of what they had been told about the monkey's paw, that it was meant to show humans the folly of trying to interfere in their fate, is shown to be completely just.

Initially, Mr. White is intrigued by the idea that his three wishes will be granted by the mysterious monkey's paw and takes a risk by wishing for two hundred pounds to pay off his home. In contrast, Mrs. White is skeptical about the authenticity of the monkey's paw and does not believe that it is actually magic. When her husband insists that the monkey's paw moved in his hand, Mrs. White tells him that he is imagining things. At the beginning of the story, Mr. White is portrayed as a risk-taker, while his wife is depicted as a cautious woman.

The next day, the Whites receive news that their son Herbert has been tragically killed at work and they collect two hundred dollars as compensation for his accident. Herbert's death drastically alters the trajectory of Mr. and Mrs. White's life, impacts their perspective on the monkey's paw, and influences their personalities. After Herbert's death, Mrs. White firmly believes in the paw's powers, and Mr. White views it with caution. He realizes that the monkey's paw is a malevolent source of evil, while his wife views it as a way to bring her son back to life. After Mrs. White wishes for Herbert's return, her husband pragmatically makes a wish to send Herbert back to the grave moments before Mrs. White opens the door. The monkey's paw influences Mr. and Mrs. White's personalities and perception of its magical nature. While Mrs. White becomes an unhinged, desperate woman in grief, her husband begins to act cautiously. Both individuals also believe in the magic of the monkey's paw by the end of the story and wish for different things.

The characters of Mr. and Mrs. White seem to change in opposite ways in W.W. Jacobs's short story "The Monkey's Paw." In the beginning of the story, Mr. White appears to be something of a risk taker. First, the narrator claims Mr. White was involved in "radical changes" when it came to playing chess with his son Herbert. He tended to risk his king by putting the piece "into such sharp and unnecessary perils." Second, Mr. White takes a chance that the monkey's paw is indeed some magical charm and buys it from Sergeant Major Morris. Unknowingly, the procurement of the talisman puts his family into peril. On the other hand, Mrs. White appears cautious and conservative. She is initially repulsed by the monkey's paw, but later seems to regard it as insignificant. She even joins Herbert in making jokes about it: "Sounds like the Arabian Nights. . . Don't you think you might wish for four pairs of hands for me?"

After the evil of the monkey's paw is revealed when Herbert turns up dead and the couple is awarded two hundred pounds, the old man and woman change in different ways. In her grief over the loss of her son, Mrs. White becomes the gambler, insisting that Mr. White make another wish for Herbert to come back to life. In contrast, Mr. White becomes cautious and realizes the thing he wished for will not ease his wife's grief. Finally, he acts conservatively by wishing away the walking corpse that bangs on their door before his wife can let it in. Because of the evil which has pervaded their lives, Mr. and Mrs. White undergo "radical" changes in their willingness to take risks.

Mr. White does not fully believe the story of the monkey's paw, but since he is susceptible to suggestion, he allows himself to be drawn into the idea that the paw may hold supernatural powers. Despite this, he takes the paw from his friend Morris as a gesture of solidarity; he knows that Morris has been through a lot of tragedy, and he wishes to take some of that away. Morris, for his part, is well-aware of the paw's capabilities, and hopes that White will remain skeptical and not use it.

"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."

"If you only cleared the house, you'd be quite happy, wouldn't you?" said Herbert, with his hand on his shoulder. "Well, wish for two hundred pounds, then; that'll just do it."

His father, smiling shamefacedly at his own credulity, held up the talisman...
(Jacobs, "The Monkey's Paw," gaslight.mtroyal.ca)

As seen in the prior excerpt, White is hesitant and only wishes because, in his mind, no harm can come of it. He cannot fully understand the consequences of "meddling with fate," as Morris puts it; instead, he thinks that the wish will either have no effect, or he will gain the money. Of course, his hopes are dashed, and he is forced to face the truth. His first wish stems entirely from his skepticism and his general wishes to keep his wife and son happy; they are cheerful to go along with the farce, and none of them believe that it can actually have a real effect.

The White family exists as a typical family with some struggles with money, and they jump at the chance to have three wishes granted by a mysterious monkey's paw. Even though Sergeant-Major Morris warns them that people get hurt with wishing on h the paw, the White family quickly takes it (even after Morris attempts to burn the paw in the fire) and almost immediately decides to wish for enough money to pay off their house.

The next day, their son doesn't come home from work, and the company he works for shows up with a form of settlement (although they take no blame) for his untimely death. The amount is exactly what the family had wished for.

As if this isn't bad enough, Mrs. White soon decides to use the paw to wish her son back to life. Mr. White doesn't think this is a good idea, and both are horrified when they actually hear knocking at the door.

Mr. White makes his final wish (which we can assume is for his son not to have arisen from his grave after a physically devastating accident), and the knocking stops.

This all impacts the family in various ways. First, the Whites lose their son in what appears to be a direct correlation with their wish using the monkey's paw. Second, the memories they have of him are now tied together with the image of a zombie-son knocking at their door, whether this is what really happened or not. They wished for it, and the knocking began at approximately the same time it would have taken a person to walk from the cemetery to the house. So any images of their son "resting peacefully" are forever altered. Third, the reader can assume that Mrs. White may be angry with her husband for using the third wish to end all hope of seeing her son again, and this likely alters their relationship forever. All of this conflict resulting from the monkey's paw could be enough to end their marriage, but it will certainly change the way they are able to structure their relationship.

The White family was happy and content until the Sergeant stops by with the monkey's paw. The father and son had been enjoying the evening playing chess. The mother sat by knitting, content. She was teasing her husband about losing at chess to his son. 

The Sergeant stops by and has a story to tell. He has a monkey's paw that will ruin the White family's lives. The Sergeant tells how a monkey's paw has magical powers, but the three wishes will cause much grief. He even throws the monkey's paw into the fire. Mr. White scoops it out of the fire. 

Mr. White's son, Herbert, encourages his father to wish for money to free the family of the mortgage on their home. Due to an ironic turn of events, Herbert's death brings in the money to pay off the mortage. 

A week later, Mrs. White insists that they make the second wish for her son to be alive again. Not really thinking, Mr. White wishes Herbert alive again. 

As a knock comes at the door, Mr. White realizes that his son will be a mangled body since he was in a machine accident. Due to this fact, Mr. White wishes for Herbert to be dead again. 

No doubt, the family is ruined by the events connected with the monkey's paw. What seemed to be an exciting, fantastic happening turned out to ruin the White family's lives. If only the Sergeant had not stopped by, the White family would still be happy and content.