The Red Room Study

A good short story has to be exciting from the beginning as the writer does not have a lot of time to present his ideas.

If the writer can do this from the start he will make the reader want to read on and if this is not done the reader may get board of the short story and not read on. It is important to create tension in the story as well because if he does not do this he may not have time to do it at the end of the story and it may be ruined. It is also important to create suspense as the writer needs to keep the reader reading.We see good use of tension in "the Monkey's Paw" from the outset as the description of the surroundings are very depressing, "Without, the night was cold and wet..

. " this already creates tension and gives the impression it is a supernatural story. The writer, W. W.

Jacobs, dose not waste time going into detailed descriptions of the characters but still gives us enough description to get a representation of the characters mentality. At the first mention of the monkey's paw the sergeant major hastily replies "nothing... eastways nothing worth hearing" this again creates tension as we do not know what it is and makes the reader want to read on.As the reader reads on and we advance through the story we find the Monkey's Paw is "just a bit of what you might call magic" this makes the story very exciting as more tension is created.

It is essential to note the family has to get the sergeant major drunk before he will even consider talking about the monkey's paw but when thy do this and he starts talking about it he describes it just enough so it creates even more tension and suspense and we are left thinking what are the consequences of the paw and will Mr. White take it off the sergeant and even more so will the sergeant give him it?Tension is created because we do not know weather the sergeant does want to keep it or in actual fact does he want to give it away and is the sergeant trying to trick Mr. White into tacking the monkeys paw. More tension is created when the sergeant starts to talk about the paw and he is describing what it does and clarifying what it acutely does and more importantly who has used it before because as we see ".

.. the third was for death. " This creates a sense of both tension and suspense.

We see the sense of tension because we do not know how he died and if it was because of the monkeys paw. A sense of suspense is created because we still do not know if Mr. White will take the paw and if he does what will his consequences be? When we finally see Mr. White has taken the paw we do not know what will happen, we know there will be consequences but what they will be we do not know.

This makes the reader want to read on because of the suspense created.The first wish Mr. White makes is "'I wish for two hundred pounds..

. " this is not a lot of money today but we see Herbert Mr. Whites son said "'if you only cleared the house, you'd be quite happy, wouldn't you'" this gives us the impression it will pay off the mortgage on the house so it must have been a lot of money. We see the consequences when the man calls form Maw and Meggins at first we don't think it is that bad because the man said "'..

. but he is not in any pain. '" But as we progress we find he has died, this creates a lot of tension in the house and form this point Mrs. White does not speak for a wile.When in bed one night she decides she has had too much and wants her son back so she screams "'the paw! '" he husband refuses to do it but she insisted he used it to get her son back.

When Mr. White agrees to bring him back it creates tension because we do not know if Herbert will look the same and if he does come back will he be alive or will he be in a zombie like state? When Mr. White wishes we hear a knock on the door and it continues to knock, but Mr. White does not want his wife go to the door because he is in fear of what his son will look like and in fear of what his wife will feel.Eventually Mrs.

White gets to leave the room and go to the door. This is were the most tension and suspense is created because we think she is going to open the door and get the impression 'it' will not look the same and will look so bad it will upset her. This is important to have in a story because the end is the most important part of it. The suspense it then carried on after the story because we are given the impression Mr. White has used the paw to cease the knocking but are not told this.

This makes good suspense as it keep us thinking.