The 1902 short story The Monkey's Paw, by W.W. Jacobs, continued the fictional tradition that it's possible to get three wishes by possessing a special bottle or object...and how those wishes almost inevitably backfire. Mr. and Mrs. White live in a remote, boggy area with their farm and their son Herbert. A retired military man, Sergeant-Major Morris, is paying visit to their home one night after making Mr. White's acquaintance a few days before. The father directs the conversation to Morris's monkey paw, which the latter claims grants three wishes to three different people: he warns the family that a holy man had put a spell on it to show that fate ruled over desire. But he gives the monkey's paw to Mr. White, and the wishes ensue...along with their unintended consequences...
Most of us know the story of Aladdin, his magic lamp, and the three wishes. And there have been variations on this theme...on old Twilight Zone episode likewise featured a genie who granted wishes to an impoverished shopkeeper with dire results. The moral to these tales is almost always that there is no magical shortcut to the fulfillment of people's dreams...and bad things happen to people to try to bypass the natural order of things. The Monkey's Paw, which could be considered as a horror story, certainly fits this pattern. I've read it a number of times and you can as well by clicking on the following link to read it in PDF: [The Monkey's Paw]. After reading it, I wondered whether Stephen King might have gotten some of his inspiration for Pet Sematary here...after reading both, you'll know what I'm talking about. In any event, this story of W.W. Jacobs is a classic and worth reading, although some sensitive folks might suffer nightmares afterwards...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment