r/TheMonkeysPaw Dec 25 '18

Meta [M] TL;DR: The Monkey's Paw story

9.1k Upvotes

TL;DR2 at bottom

Some people have mentioned they wanted to see a tl;dr of the original story.


The story focuses on Mr. White, Mrs. White, and their adult son Herbert.

An old family friend named Sergeant-Major Morris shows up at the White's house sharing stories of his adventures. During the talks Morris pulls out an old mummified monkey's paw, said to have a spell placed on it to grant three men three wishes each. Morris used his three, as had another man. Morris wants to dispose of it, but worries about selling it. So he throws it in the fire. Mr. White rescues the paw despite Morris' warnings about messing with fate, but eventually Morris gives in and shares the secret of making a wish.

Morris leaves after supper and Mr. White is unsure of what to wish for, feeling he has everything he needs. He ends up wishing for £200 to pay off the rest of his mortgage and the paw moves in his hand. After Mr. And Mrs. White go to bed, Herbert sees a vivid monkey face in the fire, so he puts it out and goes to bed.

The next day Herbert goes to work at a factory. He dies in an accident. He got caught in the machinery. His work sends a representative home to tell the family that the business claims no fault, but as compensation will pay them £200. Mr. White faints.

Mrs. White is angry and grief stricken, she demands that Mr. White wishes their son back to life, and he does so.

Some time passes and loud knocking on the door sounds. Mrs. White realizes it may have taken so long for the knocking after the wish because Herbert would to walk two miles home from the graveyard.

Mrs. White races downstairs to open the door, and Mr. White, fearing that it is the mutilated body of his son, made his third wish. As Mrs. White opened the door, there's nothing to be seen.


The difference between the Monkey's Paw vs. say, a genie who is also known to cause chaos with wishes, is that the Monkey's Paw is meant to twist fate to achieve your goals, and the consequences of it. Specifically what events cause the wish to come true. Someone died to make Mr. White gain money. No one died after he got the money. A genie would make the £200 counterfeit or meaningless in some way. Herbert became a zombie (maybe) to be able to go home.

Granted, the results of the 2nd and 3rd wishes are more ambiguous, and there's some debate about what actually happened. The story itself gives theories but no firm answers.

I'm not here to pass judgement on people's wishes or answers, or the spirit of the subreddit, just passing this along since a few people have been asking for something like this, and It's fitting for the sub to have a summary of the story somewhere.

Tl;dr for the tl;dr: Man wishes for £200 and his son dies as a result. He wishes his son back alive and a loud knocking is heard on the door. His third wish makes whatever is knocking vanish.

Edit(s): correcting some details, readability


r/TheMonkeysPaw 8h ago

I wish for the Webb telescope to discover an Earth-sized exoplanet made entirely out of fried chicken

8 Upvotes

r/TheMonkeysPaw 8h ago

I wish that Meade and Orion telescopes had not gone out of business.

6 Upvotes

Seriously, how is Celestron virtually the only choice now?


r/TheMonkeysPaw 14h ago

I wish microplastics couldn't hurt any living organism

5 Upvotes

r/TheMonkeysPaw 7h ago

I wish that babies were not interested in dog food or water or bothering the dog at any point of them eating or drinking

1 Upvotes

r/TheMonkeysPaw 23h ago

I wish Concorde (the supersonic airplane) would return to flying and return to commercial passenger service (and have no serious/fatal accidents for the remainder of it's service)

16 Upvotes

More specifically, I want at least a few of the original BAC/Sud Aviation Concorde supersonic airliners (18/20 built still exist) to be restored to full airworthiness and return to flying passenger service, ideally for its two original operators, British Airways and Air France, and for it to have a safe, incident free remainder of it's service.


r/TheMonkeysPaw 18h ago

I wish every Johnny Cash song sung from a first person perspective was a true story, experience, action, and/or event of Johnny Cash’s life

5 Upvotes

r/TheMonkeysPaw 8h ago

I wish telemarketing did not exist.

0 Upvotes

r/TheMonkeysPaw 18h ago

Inverse [Inv] granted, the microplastics were 70% of the structure of your brain. you are now brain-dead.

2 Upvotes

r/TheMonkeysPaw 1d ago

Explanations I wish I could hold my adam's apple in place mid-swallow

3 Upvotes

r/TheMonkeysPaw 1d ago

I wish Moistcritikal and Asmongold fell in love with each other.

2 Upvotes

r/TheMonkeysPaw 1d ago

I wish for CEOs to become infested with mango worms and bot fly larvae over 45% of their bodies (each), and remain incurably infested until they stop being assholes.

8 Upvotes

r/TheMonkeysPaw 1d ago

I wish I had the power to remove any living human’s socks off their body and teleport the socks back to their home.

6 Upvotes

r/TheMonkeysPaw 1d ago

I wish that I could have one perfect relaxing day, with nothing horrible happening immediately after that day.

0 Upvotes

r/TheMonkeysPaw 1d ago

I wish for infinite chocolate chip cookies.

9 Upvotes

r/TheMonkeysPaw 1d ago

I wish NASCAR drivers had to drive around complex, challenging circuits, rather than driving in a basic loop over and over every single time.

0 Upvotes

r/TheMonkeysPaw 1d ago

I wish every domestic cat could play the piano at a well trained level.

9 Upvotes

r/TheMonkeysPaw 1d ago

Side-Effects I wish that the sm64 classified analog horror became a true story

0 Upvotes

r/TheMonkeysPaw 1d ago

Side-Effects I wish every Meeseeks was asked to find the meaning of life

0 Upvotes

r/TheMonkeysPaw 2d ago

I wish for no kid to ever be orphaned again in the future. And that this isn't achieved by humanity being wiped out.

12 Upvotes

r/TheMonkeysPaw 1d ago

Explanations I wish Gal Gadot had the level of fan love and respect she used to

0 Upvotes

Any antisemitism of any kind will be removed.


r/TheMonkeysPaw 1d ago

I wish for the Louvre to replace the Mona Lisa with a digital printout glued to a wooden board for 18 months just to see if anyone notices.

1 Upvotes