Literary Analysis: Monkey's Paw

What makes a scary story? Is it the death of an important character or a guy in a mask scaring people? W. W. Jacobs, the author of The Monkey’s Paw uses numerous amounts of literary devices to make this story interesting. In my essay I will be responding to the theme, mood/imagery/personification, and foreshadowing. In this story a sergeant major is in possession of a monkey’s paw that appears to be magic. The paw allows him to make wishes. But every time the man makes a wish, death takes someone in return. He does make a wish for a vast amount of pounds, or money. But of course someone dies, and it just so happens that it was his son. The theme in this story is that with great power comes great precaution. For every wish, he must know that lives are at steak. Like the fact that he wishes for money, but his son dies. “What goes around comes around”, was a great quote that wasn’t used but is a grand example of what could, can, and did happen. “Fortune rules peoples live. Sorrow” was another high-quality quote that explains that no matter what you do fate controls people’s lives. His son died because of an accident at work so therefore the company of the work place gave the family 100,000 pounds, so I would say that this was a strange coincidence. “A sergeant major is in possession of a monkey’s paw that appears to be magic. The paw allows him to make three wishes, but for a price. Every time he makes a wish death takes someone in return. The lesson or theme takes place in these aforementioned sentences. The theme is to be careful what you wish for. Foreshadowing is in this whole subsection, a man has a monkey’s paw and he gets to make three wishes. But if he does make a wish, someone will die in return. He does get his wish, but this wish takes course in the death process. In the story, the father makes a wish and the son dies in a terrible accident at work. In the occurrence the son’s employees felt sorry for the father’s family therefore giving him 100,000