Discuss the elements of horror and suspense in monkey's paw
Answers
As ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ was published in September, 1902, by the author, WW Jacobs. Jacobs creates a sense of horror, suspense and tension very effectively in ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ by using variety of literary techniques. It firmly abides by the Gothic Horror genre which can be defined as a theme which combines elements of both Horror and Romance. A ghost story is a story determined to scare the reader it usually builds up gradually with tension and suspense, in ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ Jacobs has used a lot of intense, exaggerated words to build tension and suspense in many elements of the story. Jacobs creates the story scary in ways that are very different to modern Horror films and books. It shows the reader that the story was written in the early twentieth century as it contains many details that would have been common in Victorian literature. There are numerous features which are obvious from ‘The Monkeys Paw’ which strikes to show the reader that the story was written over a century ago, as a result of this the old fashioned language which Jacobs uses. The old fashioned language used throughout the whole story contains words such as ‘visage’ and ‘rubicund’, these are not words that are commonly being used today. The story contains many details that would have been common in Victorian literature this tells that the story was written in the early twentieth century. Moreover the fact that £200 was considered to be a lot of money this clearly reflects that the story was from a long time ago as £200 is not seen as a large amount of money in the modern world.