"The Monkey's Paw" (1902)

Proceeding now to the unassailable classics, spoilers blazing, this story by W.W. Jacobs is rightly considered one of the best horror short stories. It has been widely anthologized to the point where it is generally groaned over in places like Amazon reviews as an obvious choice when it shows up in another collection. The prolific Jacobs was more of a humorist by inclination, and perhaps even more a spinner of seagoing yarns. He only wrote a dozen or two horror stories and the others I've looked at are more rote, straining for effects they can't quite muster, or that other stories by other writers did much better. In a way, that makes Jacobs an example, for me anyway, of a writer who wrote only one spectacular story.

Among other things "The Monkey's Paw" is one of the best uses of the "three wishes" device, which dates back of course at least to the Arabian Nights into antiquity out of folk fairy tales. This story, in fact, is ridiculously simple in structure. It feels 19th-century in the language and the way it is divided into chapters—indeed, it's often compared to Dickens—but it's a model of compression compared to much 19th-century horror, which often prefers to pile detail teeteringly high in monolithic paragraphs (a mode that continued with H.P. Lovecraft and continues still). In many ways the publication date of "The Monkey's Paw" in the early 20th century feels auspicious.

The story includes a familiar figure of all eras of horror, the worried man of authority, in this case a British Army veteran who served in India, where he acquired the foul object of the story's title. Sergeant-Major Morris is paying a visit to the Whites, an elderly couple with a grown son, Herbert, who still lives with them. They are a ridiculously happy and complacent family. After a few drinks the grizzled veteran tells them the story of the monkey's paw, setting off one of the most artful pieces of the story. Everyone always talks about the knocking in this story, and we'll get to that, but I think this is the really important piece of it.



Jacobs relies on our knowledge of the "three wishes," knowing we have gamed it out even as children when we first encountered it ("my first wish would be for a hundred more wishes," etc.). The Sergeant-Major is fearful of something but reticent about specifics. "It had a spell put on it by an old fakir," he says of the monkey's paw, "a very holy man. He wanted to show that fate ruled people's lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow." He speaks of a former owner: "The first man had his three wishes. Yes.... I don't know what the first two were, but the third was death."

At this point, even we think he's laying it on thick, and the Whites find the whole thing amusing. They rescue the monkey's paw from the fire when the Sergeant-Major throws it there on an impulse, and later they want him to take money for it. Expectations thus set, we are now as curious as the Whites. We have to see what this is about, and Jacobs swiftly delivers. It's virtually the only wish on the monkey's paw where we get more or less the full details. The Whites are comfortable and secure but with 200 pounds can pay off what they owe on their home. So that's what the elder Mr. White, official owner of the three wishes, wishes for. Jacobs inserts a nice macabre detail there about the object writhing in his hand as he makes the wish.

The next day, Herbert dies in his job at a factory, caught up and mangled in the machinery in an accident. A man from the company is sent to tell them but he is maddeningly vague. Mr. and Mrs. White want to know if Herbert was hurt. "Badly hurt," says the man, "but he is not in any pain." He finally gets around to his message: "I was to say that Maw and Maggins disclaim all responsibility.... They admit no liability at all, but in consideration of your son's services, they wish to present you with a certain sum as compensation."

Not hard to guess the sum! It's the great stroke of this story, setting up the premise with overly ominous portents and following it with an example that fully pays off—a rare case of overpromise and over-deliver—and then it moves very quickly with the momentum. It really is the most shocking moment for me in this story. The elderly Whites are stunned and bereft, of course. Rereading the story you see what pains Jacobs is at to emphasize the happiness of the family circle, and later the condition of Herbert's body. When Mrs. White starts demanding Mr. White make a wish for Herbert's return he mentions things like, "He has been dead ten days, and besides he—I would not tell you else, but—I could only recognize him by his clothing."

But she cannot be dissuaded and he cannot resist her so the wish is made, and then, a few hours later, in the middle of the night, the knocking on the door starts. It really is just brilliantly effective. One of my favorite details during the knocking is Mrs. White saying, of the cemetery where Herbert was buried and the lateness of the hour, "I forgot it was two miles away." We never see beyond the door, which is the story's most famous shrewd move. Mr. White's third wish is for whatever it is to go away by the time Mrs. White can open the door.

I realize I may be slightly overheated about such a hoary old chestnut of horror—Stephen King talks it up in his Danse Macabre (and it could well be a germ of a source for King's Pet Sematary), and it ranks pretty high on this list of most-anthologized short stories—but I'm not sure I ever read it until recently and it's really great.

The Big Book of the Masters of Horror, Weird and Supernatural Short Stories, pub. Dark Chaos
Read story online.