English Literature Coursework
Pre 1914 Prose
Explain what makes a good mystery story based on your
understanding of “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacob.
Simplicity is the key when it comes to the plot of a mystery story. Very few characters and not many sub-plots. If you have a complicated plot then the story is hard to follow and if there are a lot of characters then you can’t build up the readers pity or understanding of a single character ,which is how good mystery stories work. The author makes us understand a character so that when something happens to them we have come to know them and ether want something bad to happen to them if they’re a nasty character or you want them to get out of trouble if the character is likable. It is also possible that the author will aim to show us how a character can be changed by a traumatic or bad experience. It is therefore a bad idea to have many characters in a mystery story.
“The Monkey’s Paw” has very few important characters. In this story we have only “Mr. White”, “Mrs. White”, “Herbert” and the “Sergeant-Major”. Because of this “The Monkey’s Paw” is a well written mystery story. We know “Herbert” well and of his strong bond with his mother. Because when he dies naturally we want to know how the mother copes. We also no that the father is quite petulant at the beginning of the story he tries to distracted his so who is about to beat him at chess by saying “Hark at the wind”. This show that he is childish as he doesn’t want to loose a game to his son. Also at the start “Mrs. White” is in control and is in charge. She knows how to treat “Mr. White” like when he looses the game of chess she says “Never mind, dear” then “perhaps you’ll win the next one.” At the end of the story these rolls are reversed and “Mr. White” has to control his wife who has gone mad at the lose of her son. When “Mrs. White” asks for “Mr. White to wish their son alive her warns her that it would be “foolish and wicked” this is an odd thing to say about bringing ones son back from the dead but “Mr. White” has realised that which would knock on the door and how unlike his son it would be. He also knows that the sight of this would destroy his wife. “Mrs. White” has gone mad and will stop at nothing to got her son back. She commands her husband to “Wish!” which show her frustration and how desperate she is. This swap of character rolls is effective but only worked because we knew the characters and because the story never moved from them we could see it happening through the story. This is one of the things that makes a good mystery story.