UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE ALAGOAS - UFAL

FACULDADE DE LETRAS - FALE

Discentes: Kadu Victor, Lincon França Disciplina: Literatura em Língua Inglesa 3
Docente: Felipe Benicio de Lima Data: 26/01/2022

INTRODUCTION
“The Monkey’s Paw” is a story full of mystery that depicts the White family. It
begins on a stormy and dark night, typical of a scary story. Mr. White and his son
were enjoying a chess match and Mrs. White was knitting near the fire when
Sergeant-Major Morris, a family friend, arrives for a visit in which they get a magic
monkey’s paw that has the power to grant three wishes.
The story was written by W.W. (WIlliam Wymark) Jacobs in 1902 and was first
published in his short-story collection The Lady of the Barge (1902). It is an
adaptation of the story made famous by the character Aladdin, “One Thousand and
One Nights” (a.k.a Arabian Nights) spread in the Disney version, another story with
three unsuccessful wishes. “The Monkey’s Paw” has been included in approximately
seventy collections, even to the New York Review of Books’ collection of classic
fiction. It has had a lot of versions, films and adaptations since its release.

CHARACTERS
In the chapter about the character, Mays (2015) shows a checklist about
“Evidence to consider in Analyzing a Character”, and that’s what we’ll guide for our
analysis. The first topic is the character’s name. But first, let’s see what her
perception of a character is. According to Mays, “A character is any personage in a
literary work who acts, appears or is referred to as playing a part. Though personage
usually means a human being, it doesn’t have to.”, and in this story there are six
characters: Mrs. and Mr. White, Herbert White (their son), Sergeant-Major Morris (a
soldier), and a Maw and Meggins’ servant, no name given, it’s also introduced the
fakir responsible for the paw and his reasons to do so. It could be counted seven if
you consider the Monkey, which appears in the story only by his powerful paw, and
when Herbert sees his face on the fire on page 6.
The second topic is the characters’ physical appearance. Mrs. White is called a
“white-haired old lady” (page 1), “old lady” (page 3), or “old woman” (page 6) many
times during the story, so we can tell that she probably is a common elderly, as it is
perceived about Mr. White, with a “thin grey beard” (page 1) and being called an “old
man” in almost every page of the story, we also presume that, as his wife, he is a
common depiction of an elder. There’s so few to talk about their son, Herbert White,
the only remnant of his appearance is when he’s dead, Mr. White says to Mrs. White
on page 9 that “he was too terrible for you to see” and, acting in the field of
possibilities, just as his parents were, he's a common man. There’s a lot of
information about the Sergeant-Major Morris, “the soldier regarded him in the way
that middle age is wont to regard presumptuous youth.” (page 3), and Mrs. White
said “he don’t look to have taken much harm”, referring to the time Morris spent in
the army, and other characteristics given by the narrator: “tall, burly man, beady of
eye and rubicund of visage” (page 1), “broad shoulders” (page 2), “blotchy face”, and
“strong teeth” (page 3) we get to imagine the complexion of sergeant-major Morris,
since he’s the one that’s most described of all. The Maw and Meggings’ servant is
described as “well dressed and wore a silk hat of glossy newness”, “who seemed ill
at ease” (page 6), the deliverer of bad news, and the 200 pounds. The
sergeant-major also talks about someone quite interesting, the maker of the object,
the artifact and talisman of which the history mostly turns around, the monkey's paw,
he talks about the fakir, but from him we don’t get a description of his appearance.
The third topic is about the places and objects associated with the characters, it’s
not shown a lot of objects, and places are even less. Talking about the places, for the
Whites, it’s mainly Laburnam Villa, their house and where the story is told, almost all
the characters visit and most objects are seen here. Laburnam Villa is a quiet and
remote place, of all the houses only two are populated and the road it is located on
isn't one of the best. We can see these description about their home in the very first
page of the short story, “That’s the worst of living so far out,” bawled Mr. White, with
sudden and unlooked-for violence; “of all the beastly, slushy, out-of-the-way places to
live in, this is the worst. Pathway’s a bog, and the road’s a torrent. I don’t know what
people are thinking about. I suppose because only two houses in the road are let,
they think it doesn’t matter.” Here we can have a view of the neighboring roads and
houses of Laburnam Villa, and how revolting it is for Mr. White that the place isn’t
cared for, and the roads aren’t maintained. It’s possible to infer in the second part of
the short story that the place is very modest, and we can see it when the messenger
from Maws & Meggins arrives with the bad omen in the air. Mrs white apologized for
the looks of the room, which makes us think that they live in a humble house, yet still
a comfortable house, having its own garden and pathway, being a 2-story house as
well. We can read clues about it at the sixth page where it’s said “Three times he
paused at the gate, and then walked on again. The fourth time he stood with his
hand upon it, and then with sudden resolution flung it open and walked up the path.
Mrs. White at the same moment placed her hands behind her, and hurriedly
unfastening the strings of her apron, put that useful article of apparel beneath the
cushion of her chair.” and also “He gazed at her furtively, and listened in a
preoccupied fashion as the old lady apologized for the appearance of the room, and
her husband’s coat, a garment which he usually reserved for the garden.”. Another
place mentioned in the story is the cemetery where Herbert was buried, the only
information of this place is that it is two miles away from their house. Another place is
Maw and Meggins, the company where Herbet used to work. The place is only
mentioned in the story, so there’s no much information more than to know it’s a
company that commercializes cotton, fact that we know because the messenger
draws out of his trousers a piece of cotton ““I — was asked to call,” he said at last,
and stooped and picked a piece of cotton from his trousers. “I come from ‘Maw and
Meggins.’””; a curious fact about this place is not knowing how Herbert died there, if
it was his fault, it the equipments weren’t safe or what else happened to cause his
death, this situation is important because it could be a reference to the working
conditions in the early 1900s. India is also mentioned in the story as the country that
Sergeant-Major Morris spent 21 years in the army, and Mr White wishes to visit: ““I’d
like to go to India myself,” said the old man, “just to look round a bit, you know.””
(page 2).

QUESTIONS ABOUT CHARACTER

The protagonists of this short story are Mrs. and Mr. White, they are present in the
story at every moment, and the plot happens among them. Their son, Herbert White,
although the lack of information about age and physical appearance, integrates the
three major characters of this story. Mays (2015) defines major or main character as
“those we see more of over time; we learn more about them, and we think of them as
more complex and, frequently, as more “realistic” than the minor characters, the
figures who fill out the story”. Sergeant-Major Morris and the man from Maw and
Meggins compose the minor characters, that doesn’t mean they’re less important
than the others, but they appear less, and as Mays mentions, they are “just as
indispensable to a story as major characters”.