The Monkey's Paw Foreshadowing

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What would you do if u found a magical object that granted you 3 wishes? In the following book “The Monkey's paw” a man finds a monkey's paw that grants him 3 wishes. W.W Jacobs likes to use foreshadowing to keep the reader on the edge of their seats. I believe foreshadowing is a good way to make a story more interesting. The story gives us a lot of hints on what's going to happen next. It creates suspense because we're anxious as to what is going to happen next. My first example of foreshadowing is when sergeant warns the white family about the monkey's paw. He tells them that when something bad happens not to blame him because he warned them about the paw. That foreshadows that something bad is going to happen. During that discussion herbert …show more content…

The man makes risky moves and puts his king in peril which foreshadows that he may not make good decisions with the monkey's paw. The man wishes for 200 pounds to pay his debt but something bad happens to his son and he dies. The man and the woman get 200 pounds because their son died. Another one of his wishes is for his son to come back from the dead. At that point the son wasn't even human anymore he was just like a zombie. My third example of foreshadowing is that the last guy who used the monkey's paw wished for death. That foreshadows that mr white's third and final wish was going to be death. Mr. White didn't wish death upon himself but he wished that his son was dead once again. Like I said in the previous paragraph Mr. White's second wish was to bring his son back from the dead out of despair and sadness, but then he later came to his senses and realized that his son would no longer look like his son. He would look like a corpse, so that's when he wished for death. Foreshadowing is a good way to make the story more interesting but when you use too much of it, it becomes repetitive and it makes the story bad. I believe W.W. Jacobs used the perfect amount of foreshadowing, and in doing so he made the story very interesting. W.W. Jacobs created tension, suspense and anticipation. He knew how to keep the reader on the edge of his seats, waiting on what was going to happen

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