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Unit 24: One Act Play: Monekey’s Paw – Discussion on All Spheres of the Text and Questions

In Part III, the Whites bury Herbert. Several days pass, and the couple feels exhausted and Notes
hopeless. A week after the burial, Mr. White wakes up and hears his wife crying by the
window. He gently urges her to come back to bed, but she refuses. He dozes off again until
Mrs. White suddenly cries out that she wants the monkey’s paw. In hysterics, she tells him to
go downstairs and wish Herbert back to life. Mr. White resists and tells her that Herbert’s
death and the two hundred pounds they had received had nothing to do with his wish the
previous night. Mr. White says that he didn’t want to tell her before, but Herbert was so
mangled that he had to identify the body by looking at the clothes. Mrs. White doesn’t listen,
however, and continues to insist on wishing Herbert back to life with the monkey’s paw.
Mr. White retrieves the paw from its place downstairs. Mrs. White orders him to make the
wish two more times until he finally complies. He makes the wish, and as they wait, the
candle goes out. They hear the clock, the creak of a stair, and the sound of a mouse. At last
Mr. White goes downstairs. His match goes out, and before he can strike another, he hears a
knock at the door. Another knock sounds, and Mr. White dashes upstairs. Mrs. White hears
the third knock and says it’s Herbert. She realizes he hadn’t returned right after the wish had
been made because he’d had to walk two miles from the graveyard to their house.
Mr. White begs her not to open the door, but she breaks free and runs downstairs. As she
struggles to reach the bolt, the knocking becomes more insistent. Mr. White searches frantically
for the paw, which had dropped to the floor. As Mrs. White pulls back the bolt,
Mr. White finds the paw and makes a final wish. The knocking stops, and Mrs. White cries
out. Mr. White dashes downstairs and sees that beyond the door, the street is empty.

24.3 Analysis of Major Characters

Herbert White

The possible transformation of Herbert White from a gentle, happy, and devoted young man
into a threatening monster is the central horror of “The Monkey’s Paw.” A thoughtful and
loving son, Herbert plays chess with his father and gently teases his mother. He is the only
member of the family who works, so readers can assume that he supports his parents in their
old age. Herbert believes that Sergeant-Major Morris’s stories are nothing but a pack of tall
tales and treats the monkey’s paw with irreverent humour.
He encourages his father to wish for an emperorship and then jokingly suggests he wish for
two hundred pounds to pay off the mortgage. Herbert does not believe for a moment that the
paw is magical, but he unwittingly predicts the outcome of the wish when he tells his parents
that he knows he’ll never see the money. The sunny, sceptical quality of Herbert’s nature
makes his eventual transformation, induced by his father’s wish, more horrifying. Mr. White
fears that his son has become a horribly mangled, evil being, after wishing him back to life.
The fact that Jacobs never actually describes who—or what—knocks repeatedly on the Whites’
door, however, suggests that the caller may not really be Herbert’s revived corpse.

Mrs. White

Mr. and Mrs. White also undergo an upsetting change, transforming from a happy couple into
parents racked by grief. During the sergeant-major’s visit, Mrs. White is as eager as Herbert
and Mr. White are to hear the tales of his exploits abroad. She is more willing to consider the
truth of the monkey-paw story than Herbert is, but she is far less credulous than her husband.
Indeed, she often shows herself to be more quick-witted than Mr. White. For example, she
understands the significance of the Maw and Meggins representative’s visit before her husband

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