The Monkey's Paw

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The Monkey's Paw is a short story by W. W. Jacobs, written in 1902.

The story is based on traditional stories in which three wishes are granted. In the story, the paw of a dead monkey is a talisman that grants its possessor three wishes, but the wishes come with an enormous price.

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story opens with the second owner of the monkey's paw, Sergeant Major Morris - who came into possession of it upon the death of its first owner - giving the talisman to Mr. White of Laburnum Villa. (Laburnum is a kind of poisonous plant.)

Heedless of the Sergeant's warnings about the cursed nature of the paw, Mr. White, encouraged by his wife, carelessly asks for £200. His wish is granted, but in a horrific manner: he receives a payment of £200 as the result of the death of his son Herbert, who is fatally crushed by industrial machines at his workplace. Jacobs does not describe the grim accident in the story, preferring to report the incident through a company representative, arguably increasing the incident's horrific qualities.

Following their son's funeral, the Whites settle into a dull, depressed existence. One night, Mrs. White, seized by a sudden idea, tries to convince her husband to wish their son back to life. At first he refuses, but once again allows himself to be swayed: he wishes his son back to life. Nothing happens, and the couple, crushed by the disappointment, prepare to retire to bed.

Later, they are shocked to hear a knocking at the door, whereupon the wife realises that Herbert had to journey from the cemetery where he was buried to their house, accounting for the delay. She rushes downstairs to open the door, nearly hysterical with joy. Mr. White, meanwhile, has been seized by terror, recognising the horrible creature that must wait upon their doorstep (he, unlike his wife, has seen the body prior to its burial, and was able to identify it only by the clothing).

Desperately groping for the cursed paw, he makes a third wish, and the knocking at the door ceases. The exact details of the third wish are not revealed, but, responding to his wife's cry of disappointment, he staggers downstairs to join her, looking out at the empty street outside their home.

The theme of the story resembles the Faust stories, in which there is no way to craft a wish finely enough to prevent the Devil from thwarting the wisher, and perhaps also the sorcerer's apprentice stories; a milder version is the many variants of the Three wishes joke.

[edit] In popular media

A one-act play based on the story was first performed in 1907 and is still performed and read in classrooms today.
The segment "Wish You Were Here" from the 1972 film Tales from the Crypt is an adaptation.
The story's theme was one of the inspirations for Stephen King's novel, Pet Sematary. The Jacobs story had previously been mentioned in his novel The Dead Zone and the novella Apt Pupil.
One of the stories from The Simpsons Halloween special, "Treehouse of Horror II", has the same name, and is a parody of this story.
The Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode "The Tale of the Twisted Claw" is based on the story, with the main characters being two school kids who receive a vulture's claw from a witch they pranked.
The story was the subject of a humorous song by the same name on Laurie Anderson's 1989 album Strange Angels.
In many rewritings of this story, the final wish typically has the person in possession of the paw wishing he had never found the paw, usually because it was unavailable or that a person they dislike had found the paw instead.
In the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, after the death of Buffy's mother due to a brain aneurysm, Dawn attempts to revive her with magic, the result being very similar to the ending of "The Monkey's Paw".
In an episode of The Monkees, fittingly titled "The Monkee's Paw", a nightclub magician sells the band a cursed monkey's paw in revenge after they unwittingly force him out of a job.
In an episode of Billy and Mandy, called "Wishbones", Billy and Mandy find a wishing skull, and all of the wishes go wrong in terrible ways.
In the manga xxxHolic, a teacher buys the monkey's paw from the character Yuuko, even though she is advised against it. The monkey's paw actually gives five wishes in this story arc, but all have negative effects, each one more serious than the last.
There is also an announced film adaptation, set to be released some time in 2008. ^[1]
Industrial/goth band the Electric Hellfire Club released a song called "The Monkey's Paw" on their album Witness.
In the South Park episode "Marjorine", the character Butters is wished back to life by his parents; when he knocks on the door, his parents regret it and refer to him as "it".
The X-Files episode "Je Souhaite" features a jinniyah (i.e., a female genie) who will grant three wishes to whomever possess a magic rug to which she is bound. The story is yet another take on "The Monkey's Paw" since the results of these wishes are mailicious at worst and, at best, ironic twists on the intent of the wish. For example, Fox Mulder's wish for "peace on earth" ends with Agent Mulder alone in a world devoid of all life.
In The Sims 2 for consoles, when a player selects Search Couch while sitting on a sofa, he can find a "Mysterious Zombie Monkey Paw".
The movie series Wishmaster is built on the premise that a wish can always be twisted for the worse. The first movie ends with the protagonist wishing away an event that allowed people to make the wishes in the first place.
The film Deathdream, by Canadian producer-director Bob Clark and writer Alan Ormsby, focuses on a couple distraught over the news that their son has been killed in Vietnam. The couple is relieved when their son appears suddenly at their door, but he is no longer the son they remember. The film offers a metaphor for the traumatic effect of the Vietnam War on many of those who survived it.
Anthony Horowitz wrote a short modern version of it for a collection of short horror stories.
In the MMORPG RuneScape,there is a quest called "Monkey Madness" in which you use an enchanted monkey talisman to solve many puzzles.
It is also referenced in the book The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, at the end of a chapter called "A Very Small Shoe", during the time when Henry DeTamble and Clare Abshire are trying to have a baby which continuously end in miscarriages.
The story also inspired an episode of Brandy & Mr. Whiskers.
Michael Scott directed and starred in a short film version, available on YouTube.