He tells them that their son Herbert has been killed in an accident at work, and while the company admits no liability, they would like to settle on the Whites a sum of 200 pounds, as compensation for Herbert’s death. A strange man appears at the Whites’ door the very next morning. Morris has also told them that “the things happened so naturally that you might if you so wished attribute to coincidence.” This is, in fact, what happens in the story. And so, in spite of the original warning of the fakir, the story of the first owner of the monkey’s paw, who wished for death at the end, and the warnings of their friend Morris, the Whites attempt to interfere with fate, with terrible consequences. White makes a rather modest wish for 200 pounds, so that he may pay off the mortgage on his family’s little house. Later that evening, Morris throws the paw on the fire, but Mr. The sergeant major will say nothing else of his own misfortunes, but he does tell the Whites that although he does not know what the first owner of the paw asked for in his first two wishes, “the third was for death.

“I did,’ said the sergeant-major, and his glass tapped against his strong teeth.” ‘”And did you really have the three wishes granted?’ asked Mrs. ‘”I have,’ he said, quietly, and his blotchy face whitened. First, the son, Herbert, asks Morris if he has made his three wishes, since he is in possession of the monkey’s paw. He put a spell on it so that three separate men could each have three wishes from it.”Īs the story unfolds, author Jacobs provides many hints that, indeed, the monkey’s paw does possess strange powers, and that tempting fate by making the three wishes is a grave mistake. Morris goes on to say that the fakir wanted to show that “fate ruled people’s lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow. This paw has had a spell put on it by a fakir (a holy man), he tells the Whites. In “The Monkey’s Paw,” Sergeant-Major Morris, an old family friend of the Whites, returns from India with tales of his exotic life and with a strange souvenir-a monkey’s paw.

The monkeys paw