(it was written in 1902), during the high point of the British Raj, when India was Great Britain's prize colony, it's "jewel in the crown." The importance of this is that England in general and the much of the literature at the time made India seem to be a very exotic place where occurrences of things mysterious or supernatural were likely to take place.  Without these assumptions about India, the events of the story would lack  import, and without the story of India as "place" in the background, a sort of "sub-setting" to the setting of the White's house, the story would lack the mood it offers.

The entire story is set in the White's house, where Herbert White lives with his elderly parents.

Some incidents do occur outside the house, like Sergeant-Major Morris's exploits in India and Herbert's accident at work, but the reader sees only what occurs in the house and knows of these other things when they are told to people in the house.

Hope that helps.

Mrs. SO

What makes this story intriguing is the juxtaposition of the rather dull setting of the remote Laburnam Villa in which the Whites live with the suggestion of the exotic setting of India brought to the Whites by the weathered British Sergeant Major. With its fakirs, talismans, sacred cows, snakes, and mystics, there is a certain mystery and ominousness to this place.

1. Laburnam Villa

• The pathway has turned into a bog
• The road is flooded
• A high wind blows 

2. India

• Represented by Sergeant Major Morris, the India of the British Empire comes to Laburnam Villa in the form of a petrified monkey paw that has belonged to a fakir, a paw which he brings with him, but relinquishes reluctantly, it seems.

3. Maw and Meggins

• This setting is also represented by a man who passes back and forth outside the house, the agent of Maw and Meggins, who comes to the home of the Whites to inform them of the accidental death of their son.

4. The cemetery 

• Set two miles from the house at Laburnam Villa where the Whites bury their only child, mangled so badly by machinery that he is unrecognizable, the cemetery haunts the Whites for a while. From this setting, Herbert White is removed by the magic of the monkey's paw, picked us again from the mantelpiece in the house; however, it is a perverse magic that has both killed and resurrected him. For, the final wish by the parents in their mercy must send his grotesque body a second death and a return into the earth.

 Indeed, the words of the sergeant

It had a spell put on it by an old fakir...[who] wanted to show that fate ruled people's lives, and those that interfered with it did so to their sorrow.

W. W. Jacobs’s short story “The Monkey’s Paw” could have technically taken place anywhere. However, setting the story in this remote English manor in cold weather allows him to create a suspenseful story that comments on clichés of orientalism. Consider how details like the Whites’ isolation and the gloomy weather are key aspects of the story that make it gothic. The dreary, remote setting heightens the stress and fear that the Whites, and the reader, experience. If the story took place in a crowded urban neighborhood, the scene with the knocking on the door would not be as suspenseful, because there would be many possible people who could be knocking, and it would not necessarily be Herbert.

Also, the fact that Jacobs sets the story in England allows him to highlight the way that Western countries, typically Western colonial powers, exoticized cultures of the lands that they colonized. The English characters in the story are fascinated that this artifact from India could be magical, which illustrates clichés and superstitions that Western people had about what they saw to be exotic faraway lands. If Jacobs had set the story somewhere other than the West, like in India, the characters’ curiosity about the paw would not have made as much sense.

The setting at the beginning of the story is "the small parlour of Laburnam Villa." It is "cold and wet" outside, but inside the "blinds [are] drawn and the fire burns brightly." The contrast between the cold outside and the warm inside emphasizes the cozy, comfortable setting of the White family's home. The cold, wintry scene outside also perhaps ominously forebodes the sadness and despair which descends upon the family home later in the story.

Also at the beginning of the story, the writer implies that the White family live in a quiet, rural setting. Mr. White says that they live in a "slushy, out-of-the-way place," and that "only two houses in the road are let."

Later in the story, after the son's death, the setting of the house changes from cozy and comfortable to "steeped in shadow and silence." As the mother and father try to use the monkey's paw to wish for their son's return, the atmosphere in the house also becomes rather gothic and sinister. The candle throws "pulsating shadows on the ceiling and walls," and there is a chilling coldness in the air. The darkness is also described as "oppressive." At the end of the story, a "cold wind rush[es] up the staircase," and the street lamp opposite the house "flicker[s] ... on a quiet and deserted road."

In summary, the story is set almost entirely inside the White family's home. The home is described as cozy, comfortable, and busy at the beginning of the story, but by the end it is dark, sinister, chilling, and eerily quiet. This changing setting of course reflects the unfolding events of the story. Throughout the story there is also a cold and wintry setting outside of the house. This coldness seems to invade the house bit by bit throughout the story, until, at the end, it floods into the house through the open door and up the stairs, filling the house from top to bottom.

W. W. Jacobs' short story, "The Monkey's Paw", has a rather limited setting. All the action takes place in and immediately outside the White family home of Laburnam Villa somewhere in England. It is most likely meant to take place around the time that the story was originally published in 1902.

The setting often seems to reflect the mood of the characters themselves. At the start o the story, everyone is jovial and in good spirits. The home is described as a cheerful and comfortable place; however, after Herbert's untimely death, the tone of the setting changes. Silence and shadows come to replace the conversation and light that once filled the place.

The passage of time is nearly as limited as the physical setting. The first section of the story occurs over the course of a single evening while the second part covers the events of the following day. The third and final section occurs over the course of just a few hours at night ten days later.

Although all the action of this story takes place at Laburnam Villa, two other locations are referred to. There is the factory Maw and Meggins where Herbert works and meets his end. We also hear a little about India where Sergeant-Major Morris came into possession of the magical monkey's paw.

While never explicitly stated, the setting of W.W. Jacobs short story "The Monkey's Paw" is the English countryside either at the end of the nineteenth century or the beginning of the twentieth. Jacobs refers to the home where Mr. and Mrs. White and their son Herbert live as "Laburnum Villa." The house is "far out" from the nearest town and this setting adds to the suspense at the end when the corpse of Herbert makes its way home from the cemetery which was two miles away. The laburnum is a deciduous tree which, while coveted for its beautiful flowers, is highly poisonous. Jacobs obviously used this name intentionally to indicate a place that seemed on the surface to be beautiful but was actually quite deadly. This name is in tune with the dark romanticism of the story. In dark romantic pieces of literature there is often a struggle between good and evil. In the story, the Whites are obviously good people who are lured into evil by the temptation of the paw which promises three wishes.

The story could've been set pretty much anywhere, but setting it in a remote part of England makes it all the more effective. The reason for this is that it makes for an intriguing contrast between the exotic world of the monkey's paw and the humdrum respectable world of middle-class English life inhabited by the White family.

Had the Whites been living abroad, say in a far-flung corner of the British Empire, then such an intriguing contrast could not have been drawn. In all likelihood the Whites would've heeded Sergeant-Major Morris's dire warnings about the mystical powers of his magic talisman.

But because the Whites live in England, they become more easily embroiled into the dark, mysterious world of the monkey's paw. To them, the paw represents something weird and exotic, and like most people, they find themselves irresistibly drawn to something they don't encounter in their daily lives.

It is because the monkey's paw appears to be nothing more than a piece of harmless mumbo-jumbo that the Whites make the fateful decision to make three wishes on it. Their geographical distance from India lulls them into a false sense of security. They think that because the kind of weird happenings of which Sergeant-Major Morris spoke don't take place in "civilized" countries that they are somehow immune from any dark powers the paw may have. This foolish assumption only makes subsequent events all the more frightening.

When Mr. White loses yet another game of chess to his son Herbert, he vents his frustration by complaining about the bad weather and the isolated setting.

"That's the worst of living so far out," bawled Mr. White, with sudden and unlooked-for violence; "of all the beastly, slushy, out-of-the-way places to live in, this is the worst. Pathway's a bog, and the road's a torrent. I don't know what people are thinking about. I suppose because only two houses in the road are let, they think it doesn't matter."

The author's main reason for describing the setting as "slushy" and "out-of-the-way" is to make it seem very likely that the person who comes knocking at the door will be the White's son Herbert returned from the grave, horribly mangled and decayed, and now soaked and covered with mud. The little house is so isolated that it would be extremely unlikely that anyone else would be out there in the dead of night. Still, it is not entirely impossible that some stranger might be lost and seeking directions. The author wants to leave the possibility open that the knocking could be the result of sheer coincidence. Early in Part II, W. W. Jacobs again uses Mr. White's dialogue to cast some doubt on the magical powers of the monkey's paw.

"Morris said the things happened so naturally," said his father, "that you might if you so wished attribute it to coincidence."

The reader will be left wondering. Was it only a coincidence that Maw and Meggins paid the Whites two hundred pounds compensation for their son's accident, the exact amount that Mr. White had wished for the night before? Did the monkey's paw cause Herbert to get caught in the machinery, or was he groggy and hung over after staying up later than usual talking to their interesting visitor and drinking too much whiskey with him? Was that really Herbert knocking at the door, or was it just a coincidence that some stranger was lost in that dark, isolated setting and was only trying to get directions back to the main road? 

Mr. White describes the exterior setting in his tirade after losing the chess game. The interior of the little house is described succinctly in the first paragraph of the story.

Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly. Father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about the game involving radical changes, putting his king into such sharp and unnecessary perils that it even provoked comment from the white-haired old lady knitting placidly by the fire.

The house is obviously small and cozy. It has a nice fireplace which all the family members enjoy. Evidently Mr. White only paid about two hundred pounds for the house and lot in a new real estate development. There is only one other house in the tract that has been "let." The word "let" suggest that the houses are sold on rent-to-buy plans. The monthly rents are applied to the purchase price, and the lessee can take title when he has paid the full purchase price in the form of rental fees. The fact that there is only one other house occupied will make it all the more likely that the person knocking at the door is not the dead Herbert but some lost stranger who has tried at the other house and now is desperately pounding at the Whites' front door as his last resort. The hypothetical stranger would know there is someone at home because he would have seen a light. After Mrs. White forces her husband to wish for Herbert to return, she stands at their bedroom window looking out, hoping to see her son.

He sat until he was chilled with the cold, glancing occasionally at the figure of the old woman peering through the window. The candle-end, which had burned below the rim of the china candlestick, was throwing pulsating shadows on the ceiling and walls, until, with a flicker larger than the rest, it expired. 

In that dark setting, the light would have been visible all over the isolated little housing development. That could explain why the knocking became more and more insistent. The reader will never know whether the monkey's paw brought the Whites their fortune and misfortune, or whether it was sheer coincidence. Many of our worst fears are purely imaginary.