Professional Documents
Culture Documents
by W. W. Jacobs
“Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it.”
The Monkey’s Paw
• Fairy Tale/Short Story Elements
• Plot
– Conflict
– Exposition
– Rising Action
– Climax
– Falling Action
– Resolution
The Monkey’s Paw
• Conflict is essential to the plot to add tension,
create depth for characters, and hold the
reader’s attention
• Plot Devices
– Foreshadowing adds tension and suspense
• Details that hint at upcoming events
– Flashback provides background information
• An interruption in the plot to describe a past event
The Monkey’s Paw
• Predictions
– Your logical ideas about what you think will
happen next in the story.
• To make predictions, people must:
– Pay attention to story details
– Use your prior knowledge and personal
experiences
The Monkey’s Paw
The use of a cyclical ending in a horror story (where the story
ends by returning to a scene or plot point from the beginning,
forming a closed loop) has several advantages:
• Reinforces Theme and Atmosphere
• Adds Depth to the Story
• Creates Unresolved Suspense
• Symbolic Significance
• Provides an Open-ended Conclusion
The Monkey’s Paw
• Text to Text
–We use knowledge of other stories
or novels with similar plots to help
us predict the outcome of the
story.
The Monkey’s Paw
• Text to Media
–Use cultural knowledge and
experiences with movies,
television, music, video games, and
other tangible media to help us
connect to the story.
The Monkey’s Paw
• Text to World
– Use knowledge of current events and
news in the political, social, economic,
and environmental world to help us
identify key issues in the story.
The Monkey’s Paw
• Text to Self
– Use knowledge of human nature and
our personal life experiences (as well
as those of our friends and family) to
help us predict how characters will
behave in the story.
The Monkey’s Paw
• Big Question: Is There a Difference Between Reality
and Truth?