The sergeant major gave Mr. White advice about the monkey’s paw, “Better let it burn,” and “If you must wish …wish for something sensible.” The sergeant major’s general advice is leave the monkey’s paw alone. This gives us the sense of fear for the unknown. It shows the monkey’s paw is not good and dread will come from it. Like all mystical stories there is always one person who does not believe and makes jokes about the situation. In this case the non believer is Mrs White, “Don’t you think you might wish for four pairs of hands for me?” This does alarm the sergeant major because the family don’t realise the consequences of the monkey’s paw.
The chords on the piano crashed to build up the tension, “A fine crash from the piano”. This is a good way to create tension because it is unexpected therefore the family and the reader have a sense of fear. This crash from the piano was one of the frightening things that happen when the first wish was made. The second was the sudden cry from the old man from when the monkey’s paw moved on his hand; “interrupted by a shuddering cry from the old man” “it moved he cried.” All these action are implications of terror of the monkey’s paw. They are all signs to inform the family to take the sergeant major advice and leave the monkey’s paw. Another implication to this was more impersonal as only Herbert experienced it. Herbert was alone in the dark and he saw a face in the fire, “gazing at the dying fire, and seeing faces in it.” This was all building up the tension, show that something was going to happen. It may have been the face of Lucifer he saw in the fire, “The last face was so horrible that he gazes at it in amazement. It got so vivid”. This may’ve been the sign was him that he was going to die because he saw the face of the devil in a dying. The tension disappears because the next in the paragraph it is morning, and with all horror books or films daylight dispels the fear, “In the brightness of the wintry sun next morning as it streamed over the breakfast table, he laughed at his fears.” The mood is back to same way it started, warm and cosy. It seems as if last night was a bad dream.
The visitor gives the family and the reader a very suspicious feeling. He is outside the gate trying to decide whether he should come to the door or not, “She was watching the mysterious movements of a man outside, who, peering in an undecided fashion at the house, appeared to be trying to make up his mind to enter.” There is also a sense of fear because of the way he is dressed, “she noticed that the stranger was well dressed, and wore a silk hat of glossy newness.” This was obviously related to the wish they made for £200. Tension is developed with the stranger’s actions, “Three times he passed the gate, and walked on again. The forth time he stood with his hand upon it”, this give a fear of the unknown. Mrs White does not know who this stranger is, and what he wants and neither do the readers. When we hear what has happened to Herbert we believe that the monkey’s paw is magical and we wonder what else may happen in relation to it. When the parents realise that Herbert has died that’s when the tension and fear has risen to the maximum. Both parents react differently. The mother is hysterical, “laid her trembling old hand upon his.” and the father is just stunned, “Caught in the machinery, repeated Mr White in a dazed fashion,” The anticipation has come to an end, the son’s death was the trigger for the tension and fear.
Mrs White suddenly starts crying because she realises that they still have two wishes for the monkey’s paw. She knows that there is a way of bring Herbert back to life, “The paw! … The monkey’s paw” this starts to increase the fear and tension in the story. However then Mr. White finds out what Mrs. White is trying to do and he becomes fearful “Good God, you are mad!” this is because Mr. White is a realist and still think that this whole think is a coincidence, “A coincidence”. However Mrs. White is very excited because this is the only possible way she knows to get her son back alive, “we’ll have one more. Go down and get it quickly, and wish our boy alive again.” This gets the situation really dramatic because they want to attempt to have another wish with the monkey’s paw and Mrs. White doesn’t even take into consideration that something will go wrong when they wish for their son back. The tension disappears after the second wish because after the second wish, nothing happens, “The old man, with an unspeakable sense of relief at the failure of the talisman, crept back to his bed” Because they both went back to bed and no unexpected activities took place at the time, the reader assumes that the monkey’s paw did not work and they start to anticipate and wait with fear.
The tension starts again when the old man’s match went out for no reason, “At the foot of the stairs the match went out”. The old man is inside, standing on the foot stairs so there is not any wind in the house to blow the light out. This is frightening because, suddenly there is darkness which is always a source for fear, so again the tension starts to build up again. At the same time the old man attempt to strike another match there was a sudden knock on the door, “And he paused to strike another; and at the same moment a knock, so quiet and stealthy as to be scarcely audible, sounded on the front door.” Again there is the fear of the unknown, the knock suddenly happens in the middle of the night. Good language is used to create fear. The knocks repeated three and each time the knock grew louder, “A third knock sounded through the house.” This time the knock was loud enough to be heard almost around the house, and then the forth knock,” A loud knock resounded through the house.” This time knock was so loud it got Mrs. White attention that was upstairs. The writer uses good use of vocabulary to build up the tension as the knock grew louder. When the mother says “I forgot it was two miles away,” we get the horrible image that Herbert has woken from his grave and has walked two miles to the house. We get this image because Herbert had been taken to the cemetery and we know that the cemetery is two miles away,” The whites buried their son in the cemetery two miles away.”
The father knows that it is Herbert outside, but he has realised that Herbert will look like the same as when he died, and he died in machinery so he must look torn and cut and this is a week after Herbert’s death, so Hebert has already started to decomposed. This is why he is does want Herbert in the house, “But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the floor in search of the paw.” However the wife is so wholly excited she hasn’t even thought of the consequence of the wish, “The bolt, and ’she cried loudly. ‘Come down I can’t reach it.’ She just wants to open the door and let her son in. In this scene there are so many activities going on. At the same when both parents are hurrying to do what they want to do, the knocks of the corpses continues,” A perfect fusillade of knocks reverberated through the house”. The writer uses very good vocabulary to keep increasing the fear and tension. The father finally gets the monkey’s paw and wishes for his son to go back to his grave, ”he found the monkey’s paw, and frantically breathed his third and last wish.” As soon as the wish was made the knocking stopped, “The knocking ceases suddenly, although the echoes of it were still in the house.” This gives the readers a sense of relief and the tension started to decline. When the door opened and there was no one there, the tension was at a minimum however the anticipation was at the maximum because there was still the fear of the unknown. The reader would feel relieved because the corpses has gone but still wonder what may happen to the monkey’s paw in the future.
I think the story is very-well told, there is a lot of fear and tension throughout the story and it was frightening. The writer used good use of anticipation to get the reader scared and he used good use of vocabulary a horror methods to create a perfect horror story. I think the tensest section was the third wish and the arrival of Herbert, because there is so much anticipation you get frightened waiting.
