How WW Jacobs Creates a Sense of Horror in The Monkey’s Paw Essay

The authors of both stories, last but not leastly, use suspenseful moods, the feeling that the story creates within the reader, and dangerous/mysterious tones, an author’s attitude toward the subject or audience of the story, throughout the story. In The Monkey’s Paw, the author says, “...The clock tick.s. A chair creaks. Finally, a quiet knock is heard. Mrs. White jumps up.” This is an example of a suspenseful mood and mysterious tone. In the

Turners short narrative ‘Fingers’, explores the intuition of fantasy and the mysterious actions of the protagonist Lonsdale Prince. In order to establish a sense of horror, Turner demonstrates the use of essential and vivid imagery hence persisting to continue tonal adjustments throughout. Turner has this possible ability to be able to connect a sense of creativity and mystery to his reality. Turner utilizes a range of language features when outlining the central object to the story ‘A severed human finger’ (pg 3). The finger is the innermost focus of the tale. This connection is what creates a true horror setting and it is evident when Turner states.. ’clearly mummified the skin…dry … but it was nonetheless perfect’

W.W. Jacobs creates suspense using a mysterious monkey’s paw. Ricky Lewis Jr. attempted to create similar suspense using different techniques. As told in the story in the book,”He took the paw, and dangling it between his forefinger and thumb, suddenly threw it upon the fire. White, with a slight cry, stooped down and snatched it off. ”Better let it burn,” said the soldier solemnly. “If you don’t want it, Morris,” said the other, “give it to me.”.”I won’t said his friend doggedly.”I threw it on the fire. If you keep it, don’t blame me for what if happens. Pitch it on the fire like a sensible man.”(Jacobs,108) Therefore, W.W. Jacobs fundamentally builds suspense with the dialogue between Morris, who owned the paw initially, and Mr. White, who was interested and curious on what the paw had to offer.

Thinking of the farmhouse window made her have a slight change of heart, and knowing she would be able to have the window again changed her behaviour. While describing the farmhouse window, the thought of the old window coming back gave her have a new outlook on life. It was almost like the window brought back a piece from her old life making her feel more whole again. The window is symbolic because it shows the past of Leah and how she is slowly stepping away from the past. Allowing for a bigger window is symbolic because it resembles Leah’s mind, being more open and seeing things more clearly. The house itself has an overall darkness to it and this is shown through Leah’s character and the description of the kitchen, “In the kitchen a naked bulb hung from a twisted back cord [...] Its hard yellow glare revealed every grease mark on the motley wallpaper, every chip in the rust-coloured sink, it shone unmercifully on Ruth’s tired face and unkempt hair” (Morgan 4). The more light that is brought in can have an effect; this effect shows how the darkness that once overshadowed their family is coming to an end. The light from the window is a symbol showing that there is more light coming their way, showing that Leah’s dark and unpleasant mind is changing along with the window.

The “Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Monkey’s Paw” both convey suspicion and growing fear of what will happen “The Monkey’s Paw” is about a monkey’s paw that grants three wishes, but in the worst way. The “Tell-Tale Heart” is about a man who murders an old man, but his guilty conscience betrayed him by making him hear the old man’s heart after he died. "The Monkey's Paw" creates suspense through a slow paced timeline, and "The Tell-Tale Heart" creates suspense throughout the plot, the murder, and finally the heart beating after death causing him to surrender and confess.

While both short stories can be considered entertaining, W. W. Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw” does an overall better job at using characterization, irony and foreshadowing to create the long-lasting effect of suspense. Throughout the story, Jacobs creates a theme which can be interpreted in many ways such as: “Be careful what you wish for.” or “Evil can come in the most unexpected forms,“ (such as the paw). If the theme of evil and regret is present before the story is even introduced, the reader is automatically pulled into this preconceived idea that there will be a great amount of suspense. This idea continues to be confirmed as the story develops.

"Although there was evening brightness showing through the windows of the bunkhouse, inside it was dust". This shows that the light tries to get in but never manages to penetrate the darkness. This is important to the themes of the story because workers' hope for a future farm is just like the light while the cruel reality is like the darkness. Their efforts to realize this plan is just like the light trying to penetrate the darkness, but their dream

For centuries immigrants have left their homes and have journeyed to the United States in pursuit to live out the “American Dream”, an idea that the U.S. will provide people with a better life. However, this “better life” was not just given upon arrival, immigrants were not told the horrid experiences, and backbreaking hour, they would face in search for a better life. There is no better representation of this than Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, this book is a very accurate representation of the life of the vast majority of people within the United States. During the time when this book was written there were few jobs, and the jobs that were obtainable were mostly factory jobs with horrible conditions that entailed excruciating hours. Aside from the dangerous conditions, the pay was next to nothing making it near impossible to afford food and shelter, let alone providing for a family. Immigrants quickly found out that the “American Dream” was not the glorified vision that they thought, rather more like the song “Welcome to the Jungle” by “Guns N Roses”. After examining the lyrics, you can tell the similarities Axl Rose and the rest of Guns N Roses were facing as they tried to make it in the music industry. “In the jungle, welcome to jungle, watch it bring you to your knees, I wanna watch you bleed,” once you get to the U.S. you’ll get ripped down to almost nothing and suffer from the horrible conditions that you are faced with. The Jungle takes all of the issues immigrants

journey. Two of the inner forces that hinder Jay Berry is his fear of the

Monkey: Journey to the West is a story of an adventure for enlightenment to India in order to find ancient Buddhist scriptures. The story consists of Chinese legends, tales, and superstitions. Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism play a huge role throughout this story. Monkey: Journey to the West is a story that discusses religion, and moral issues. The monkey acts the way he does due to underlying religious themes played throughout the story. At first understanding why the Monkey acts the way he does may seem difficult. However, after reading deeper through the story one learns that social satire in the Monkey is what gives him his rebellious personality. The end of the story reveals the hidden spiritual meaning behind the monkeys change in

Rice describes how these monkeys that are living in an artificial world and still remain detached from reality. The monkeys play and interact with each other in the exhibit as if they were in their natural habitat. These monkey continued to play on the fake hill oblivious to the fact that it was synthetic. Rice writes: “when out of the concrete slabs piled to resemble a hill/a splendidly squealing chaos of monkeys/ rushes, some trespass or crime in mokeydom.” These monkeys are unaware or carefree about the fact that they are being watched by many people. They act as they would anywhere else in the world with each other. Another part in the poem where Rice shows that these monkeys are oblivious to reality is when the mother is standing staring at nothing in particular. Rice writes: “The mother will stand on all fours and stare into space/and we will see by her eyes that all of this is beyond her.” The mother demeonstrates how unfased and unware she is by all of her surroundings. Rice uses imagery in this poem because he describes these monkeys playing on the “concrete slabs piled to resemble a hill” and helps the readers clearly visualize this fake hill and the fake life that these monkeys are living. He also describes how the mother monkey “stands on all fours” and “stares into space” in order to show the readers how unmindful the monkey is to her surroundings.

If one has everything he desires, why ask for more? In the passage, “The Monkey’s Paw,” by W.W.Jacobs, it makes clear that sometimes wanting more comes with a well effect. In this dilemma, The White family inherits a monkey’s paw that modifies the nature of the family. Therefore, the general theme of the story is to be cautious in hunger for things because it may come increased with unexpectancies. To commence, the White’s conformed and made an inane wish for two hundred pounds.

The story ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ by W.W. Jacobs best fits the horror genre because of the unknown, unbelieveable, and the unstoppable. The unknown is the suspense that drives our imaginations to start drawing conclusions and, begin forming an ending to the story. The unbelievable is how beyond belief something is such as a man saying a giant frying pan will crush the city in one hour, it's beyond belief and doesn’t fit our expectations. The unstoppable is where you cannot change anything so you try to avoid it as much as possible, such as death, humans cannot escape death so we try to avoid it as much as possible, like height, drowning, planes, car crashes, etc. The elements of horror go on but these three are what makes this scary story.

Sudden terror is like a wide open mouth asking to breathe without the kindness of air. This is the terror Jacob felt, but it was only brief. You could say it was very much diving in a cold lake type of dread, but what followed was strangely familiar, and yet, totally bizarre.

The Ways in Which the Writers Create an Atmosphere of Tension, Mystery and Suspense in the Stories The Monkeys Paw and The Red Room