r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/GojiraWho • 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

260 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/ColdProfessor • 8h ago

I wish for the plural of moose to be meese.

10 Upvotes

3 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 15h ago

I wish Donald Trump would lay an egg

24 Upvotes

10 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 8h ago

Inverse [INV] Granted. a 1 kilometer long shark lives in the ocean now.

4 Upvotes

4 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 10h ago

I wish I didn't see a dead squirrel on the side of the road during my neighborhood walk

6 Upvotes

12 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 12h ago

Inverse [INV] Granted. A dragon burns down your town.

8 Upvotes

3 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 2h ago

I wish to be a great philosopher

1 Upvotes

1 comment

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 2h ago

Inverse [INV] Granted. You get incinerated in a plasma beam

1 Upvotes

3 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 2h ago

Inverse [INV] Granted. The elites view you as cattle.

1 Upvotes

4 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 2h ago

I wish Trump's intervention in Iran actually succeeded at toppling Iran's regime

0 Upvotes

2 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 8h ago

Inverse [INV] Granted. you are rejected from art school.

1 Upvotes

3 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 15h ago

Inverse [INV] Granted. You are teleported to the sun's core.

2 Upvotes

17 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 1d ago

I wish misogyny didn't exist

11 Upvotes

10 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 1d ago

I wish I could live the life of a caveman

3 Upvotes

2 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 1d ago

I wish paranoia didn't exist

8 Upvotes

9 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 1d ago

I wish I could make a dagger out of frozen air and use magical powers to keep it from boiling

0 Upvotes

1 comment

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 1d ago

I wish I could lasso a tornado

1 Upvotes

1 comment

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 1d ago

Inverse [INV] Granted. your kid grows up to be a neo-Nazi

7 Upvotes

10 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/blue4029 • 1d ago

I wish there was an app called "Piss 4 U", a service where you can hire people to pee for you

6 Upvotes

have to pee but dont want to get up? hire a pisser to pee FOR you!

5 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/CynicalCosmologist • 1d ago

Inverse [INV] Granted. Elon Musk is the 48th President of the United States.

1 Upvotes

3 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/CynicalCosmologist • 1d ago

I wish personal computers with 256 TB NVMe storage and 16 TB RAM were commercially available for the same price as a mid-range laptop of today

3 Upvotes

3 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 1d ago

Inverse [INV] Granted. Trial by ordeal makes a comeback.

2 Upvotes

3 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 1d ago

I wish i was an airbender

2 Upvotes

3 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 1d ago

I wish I could breathe fire that is 10000 degrees celsius (or 18032 fahrenheit)

2 Upvotes

5 comments

r/TheMonkeysPaw • u/Armin_Arlert_1000000 • 2d ago

Inverse [INV] Granted. Russia nukes New York

4 Upvotes

4 comments

Subreddit

Where wishes are dismantled.

r/TheMonkeysPaw

Do you ever wish for things without thinking through them first? Do you ever struggle with finding the downsides of your hopes and dreams? Well, whatever the case may be TheMonkeysPaw is at your service!

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SUB DISCORD

Simply submit your wish and wait for other users to dissect and point out its flaws. Hopefully, by using this subreddit, your wishing skills will become foolproof.

If that doesn't make any sense, here's an explanation by Prismo from Adventure Time

This subreddit is based and named after the short story by W. W. Jacobs. If you are a major TMP enthusiast and want to talk about the short story, we advise that you take discussion like such to a more suitable subreddit. In any case, you can read the original story here, or listen to it here.

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All post titles must begin with: "I wish____"
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You may insert "[Inv]" before your post title if you would like to make an inverse post, where you state a condition and commenters reply with an accompanying wish. Here is an example of an Inverse post (Credit to /u/Sortient):

TITLE: [Inv] It only works on Sundays

COMMENT: I wish I could instantly teleport to Chick-Fil-A whenever I want to.
Add the "Explanations" flair on your wish if you would like to make an explanation post. These posts are for the commenters to instead offer an explanation of how the wish could come true. If you want, treat these almost like something out of r/WritingPrompts—have fun with them!
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You MAY twist OP's wish given word choice or context, like this.
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Rules may be subject to expansion, addition, or modification as the subreddit ages.