Vocabulary & Context Clues
This word means “overconfident; disrespectfully bold.”
Answer: What is presumptuous?
Herbert jokingly suggests this wish, setting the tragedy in motion.
Answer: What is wishing for £200?
This line becomes devastatingly ironic after Herbert’s death: “How could two hundred pounds hurt you, father?”
Answer: What is dramatic irony?
Mr. White’s chess moves reveal this trait.
Answer: What is recklessness or risk-taking?
The story’s central theme warns that interfering with this leads to sorrow.
Answer: What is fate?
This term refers to “an object believed to hold magical powers.”
Answer: What is a talisman?
This is the reason the fakir enchanted the monkey’s paw.
Answer: What if fate rules people’s lives and that interference brings sorrow?
Seeing a “simian face” in the fire foreshadows this later event.
Answer: What is Herbert’s gruesome fate?
Mrs. White’s emotional intensity drives her to demand this wish.
Answer: What is wishing Herbert alive again?
This proverb summarizes the moral: “Be careful what you wish for…”
Answer: What is “…you may receive it”?
This word means “done with doubt or hesitation.”
Answer: What is dubiously?
This event fulfills the first wish “naturally,” according to Maw & Meggins.
Answer: What is Herbert’s death in the machinery accident?
The stormy, boggy road outside contrasts with the warm parlor, creating this literary effect.
Answer: What is mood?
Sergeant-Major Morris tries to do this to the paw before Mr. White retrieves it.
Answer: What is burn it?
This related theme shows how wanting “just a little more” can cause catastrophe.
Answer: What is greed or discontentment?
This word means “a rapid, overwhelming discharge or outpouring.”
Answer: What is fusillade?
This is the implied third wish Mr. White makes as his wife struggles with the bolt.
Answer: What is wishing Herbert dead again (or gone)?
This symbol represents Mr. White’s reckless decision-making and foreshadows danger.
Answer: What is the chess game?
Herbert treats the paw this way, which propels the plot forward.
Answer: What is joking about it / treating it lightly?
This is the terrible “price” paid for the Whites’ first wish.
Answer: What is Herbert’s life?
Daily Double
This word means “a total lack of interest or emotion.”
Answer: What is apathy?
This structural pattern explains why the paw allows three men to each make three wishes.
Answer: What is the Archetype of Three?
Daily Double
This symbol represents the temptation to alter destiny and the destructive consequences of interfering with fate.
Answer: What is the monkey’s paw?
Jacobs uses this point of view to objectively depict the Whites’ downfall.
Answer: What is third-person limited?
This concept explains why each wish “rearranges” life rather than creating something new.
Answer: What is fate’s literal interpretation of wishes?
This word describes someone who believes too easily without sufficient evidence.
Answer: What is credulity?
This wish reveals that even modest desires for financial security can carry disastrous consequences.
Answer: What is wishing for £200?
This moment foreshadows Herbert’s death when Morris warns that the first owner’s third wish “was for death.”
Answer: What is Morris’s warning?
This character’s grief becomes the emotional force behind the second wish, overriding logic and fear.
Answer: Who is Mrs. White?
This moral insight explains why the Whites end with less than they began with after making their wishes.
Answer: What is the idea that wishing adds nothing and always costs more than it’s worth?
This word means “ordinary, unimaginative, or commonplace,” often used to describe the Whites’ home before the paw disrupts their lives.
Answer: What is prosaic?
This escalation shows how emotional grief leads to unnatural resurrection and intensifies the danger.
Answer: What is the second wish for Herbert to live again?
This symbol represents destructive forces and horror, especially when Herbert sees a simian face in it.
Answer: What is the fire?
This moment shows Mr. White’s shift from curiosity to terror as he realizes the consequences of the second wish.
Answer: What is hearing the knocking at the door?
This theme is revealed when the Whites learn that every wish is granted “so naturally” that it could be mistaken for coincidence, yet always carries a terrible cost.
Answer: What is the danger of interfering with fate?
This word means “to express sympathy or sorrow,” as Mr. White does when speaking to Morris about the weather.
Answer: What is condole?
This moment completes the fate cycle by forcing Mr. White to choose reality over fantasy.
Answer: What is making the third wish to stop Herbert’s return?
This literary device appears when Herbert jokes that his father will find “something horrible squatting on top of the wardrobe,” hinting at future tragedy.
Answer: What is foreshadowing?
Daily Double
This character represents painful experience and ignored wisdom, having already suffered from his own three wishes.
Answer: Who is Sergeant-Major Morris?
This moral is demonstrated when the Whites receive exactly what they asked for, but only through horrifying consequences, proving that nothing can be gained without losing something greater.
Answer: What is “Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it”?
Daily Double
This word means “to offer something formally,” as Mr. White does when he offers Morris a seat by the fire.
Answer: What is proffer?
This event demonstrates how fate “rearranges” life rather than creating something new, fulfilling wishes through natural tragedy.
Answer: What is Herbert’s machinery accident fulfilling the first wish?
This symbol represents the temptation to alter destiny and the destructive consequences of trying to control fate.
Answer: What is the monkey’s paw?
This character’s earlier admission — “I’ve got all I want” — reveals his contentment, making his decision to wish anyway a key moment of characterization.
Answer: Who is Mr. White?
This idea is shown when Mr. White admits he “has all he wants,” yet still reaches for more, revealing how even small acts of wanting “just a little more” can trigger catastrophe.
Answer: What is the theme of discontentment or subtle greed?
This word means “danger or risk,” especially relevant when Mr. White places his king in jeopardy during the chess game.
Answer: What is peril?
Daily Double
This pattern explains why each wish becomes progressively more dangerous, reflecting the archetype’s escalating structure.
Answer: What is the increasing cost of each wish in the Archetype of Three?
This symbol mirrors the isolation and vulnerability of domestic life when external danger intrudes.
Answer: What is the isolated road?
This moment shows how Mrs. White’s desperation blinds her to the physical reality of Herbert’s condition, revealing her emotional motivation.
Answer: What is her frantic attempt to unbolt the door after the second wish?
Double Jeopardy
This final insight is revealed when the Whites end with less than they began with, proving that wishing adds nothing to a life — it only rearranges one, and the rearrangement always costs more than the wish was worth.
Answer: What is the moral that wishing always costs more than it’s worth? Or: Everything requires work. Nothing comes without a cost.