The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs

The Monkey’s Paw which includes supernatural events is a short story written by W.W. Jacobs in 1902. The writer points to the worst consequences and disadvantages of playing with fate in this story. Thus, the readers get the point that fate is unalterable, and they have to respect their destiny. I certainly think that the underlying point of this story is covetousness and I see that this greediness comes back to the person in an awful way. 

The first thing that I observed in Jacob’s story is the White Family’s excessive curiosity. Although the family has been warned about “what might happen” by the Sergeant-Major, the ambition for 3 wishes from the monkey’s paw does not stop them from getting 3 wishes. While reading this story, I feel that when ambition and extreme curiosity are combined, these two can lead people to unexpected consequences and troubles. This is the key point of the story. 

As a reality, we know that fate is written by God and people cannot interfere with their destiny in any way. As we see, people in this story play with their fate without thinking about the results of their wishes, and they have some misfortunes and troubles as a result of interfering with destiny. However, they later realize that this is wrong; “It was all over so quickly that at first they could hardly realize it…”. This point makes us need to be more careful about what we wish for. 

I see that the writer’s expression of the story is effective for readers to grasp the subject and plot. The events are depicted and narrated to strengthen the memorability of events. In my opinion, the writer uses effective and strong words and sentences to emphasize the seriousness of events so that we can be more affected by the story; “It is foolish and wicked,” he said weakly.”

In conclusion, I think “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs is an influential story that gives a good lesson to readers. The writer introduces his points of view in a clear way in the story. After catching this and understanding the main message of the story, this story can be more significant for us.