“The Monkey’s Paw”
•Literary Elements
Characterization
• Dynamic and static characters
• Each character
Irony
• Irony in the Monkey's Paw
Conflict
• Conflict in the Monkey's Paw
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing in the Monkey's Paw
Point of View
• We do not really know the personal
thoughts of any character.
• We know what everyone is saying, but not
what they are thinking and feeling inside.
• We don’t see Herbert die. We just know
what Mr. and Mrs. White find out at the
end (that Herbert is dead now).
• The story is has a third-person limited,
objective narrator
Theme
• Theme means message.
• Think to yourself: What is the author trying to say about
greed? Is it good? Bad? What will happen if we’re
greedy?
In “The Monkey’s Paw,” the theme, or message, seems
to be two fold:
1. Be careful what you wish for
2. Don’t allow greed to overtake you, it will lead to
unhappiness.
Setting and Mood
• Setting is when and where something happens, plus
what’s going on in the scene. Mood is the way the author
wants the reader to feel because of what’s happening in
the setting.
• There is a contrast at the beginning of the story between
the outside of the home: “the night was cold and wet”
and the inside “a fire burned brightly”
• When the outside is allowed into the house (Sgt. Major
Morris and the Monkey’s Paw, the mood changes)
• Time of day in this story affects the mood and
tone greatly.
Setting and Irony
• The story opens on a dark, stormy cold night.
This helps set the stage for the family to find out
about the monkey’s paw and to make their first
wish.
• The next day the sun is out and it is a beautiful
day. The reader thinks that all will be well. The
irony is that Herbert dies a terrible death on that
sunny, beautiful day. Irony is the opposite from
what you were expecting happening in a story.