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The Monkey's Paw Foreshadowing Essay

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The night is crisp and black as the moon lets off an eerie glow, leaves rustle and fall somewhere in the distance. A silhouette dwarfs the blackberry bush in the corner as one’s footsteps refrain, they move closer; you run. Suspense is a state of tension and anxiety which was used in the sentence above and is common in books and short stories. In the short story “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W Jacobs suspense is created in a variety of ways. Jacobs demonstrates this by using foreshadowing, conflict and surprise endings. Sergeant Major Morris warns the White family of their dreadful fate, however they do not listen and it makes the story even more suspenseful for readers. The first example of foreshadowing is when Sergeant …show more content…

Therefore, the foreshadowing in the story creates suspense for both the characters and the readers. In the story, there are multiple examples of the conflicts in order to create suspense. An example of a conflict that is present in the story would be man versus fate; this includes all of the White’s Herbert, Mr. White and Mrs. White. This conflict represents the effects of the monkey’s paw and the theme that fate rules people’s life that Jacobs portrays. A worker from Maw and Meggins tells the White family on page 381 that Herbert is “badly hurt,but no longer in pain.” This explained Herbert’s death the day after the paw was wished on. This creates suspense because Herbert’s death also messed with Mr. and Mrs.White’s fate causing them to become sorrowful and slightly insane and the effects lasted for the rest of their life. Another example of conflict is Man versus Machine; this represents Herbert’s struggle against the work machinery.As readers know, Herbert is caught in the machinery at work and is torn apart to his death, which W.W Jacobs makes a gruesome concept to grasp what type of condition Herbert was in and how he looked. However, this creates suspense because when Herbert is wished alive again, readers can only assume along with Mr. White that he is mangled and looks terrifying and might even anticipate an exact description of how he looks. Lastly, the conflict man versus himself and woman versus

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