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Mr. White is an old man who is tempted to alter fate and who suffers dire consequences as a (possible) result. Jacobs characterizes Mr. White as a man who cannot accept his own fate, whether it’s a chess game he knows he is going to lose because of a reckless move or his quiet life in a remote part of Britain compared to his friend Morris’s exciting adventures in India. At the beginning of the story, Mr. White lives a cozy, domestic life with his wife, Mrs. White, and his son, Herbert, who amusedly accept his father’s frustrated outbursts over his fate. Mr. White appears drawn to the power of the monkey’s paw, even though his son teases him about believing in the paw’s magic and Morris warns him of the consequences. By the end of the story, a grief-stricken Mr. White has learned the consequences of trying to alter fate. Mr. White’s progression from a content, if somewhat restless, family man to a childless man apathetic to his wife, shows how one should accept fate and not try to alter it through reckless or treacherous means, unless they want to lose what they hold dear. By the climax of the story, Mr. White himself seems to fully learn the consequences of tempting fate, as he fears that after wishing his son back alive, a mangled corpse will come to their home. Yet Mr. White’s relationship to reality is dubious throughout the story. He claims he sees the paw move on its own, but no other character verifies this. The tragedies that befall him could be a direct result of his wishing on the paw, but they could also just be coincidences that he subscribes supernatural meaning to because of his belief in fate-altering magic. Mr. White’s opaque, shifting relationship to reality shows the troubled state of mind one enters when they attempt to change destiny through supernatural means.
Mr. White Quotes in The Monkey’s Paw
The The Monkey’s Paw quotes below are all either spoken by Mr. White or refer to Mr. White. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Part I
Quotes
Without the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly. Father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about the game involving radical changes.
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“I don’t know what to wish for, and that’s a fact…It seems to me I’ve got all I want.”
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Part II
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“Morris said the things happened so naturally…that you might if you so wished attribute it to coincidence.”
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Part III
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But the days passed, and expectation gave place to resignation–the hopeless resignation of the old, sometimes miscalled, apathy. Sometimes they hardly exchanged a word.
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“He has been dead ten days, and besides he–I would not tell you else, but–I could only recognize him by his clothing. If he was too terrible for you to see then, how now?”
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But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the floor in search of the paw. If he could only find it before the thing outside got in.
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A cold wind rushed up the staircase, and a long loud wail of disappointment and misery from his wife gave him courage to run down to her side…The street lamp flickering opposite shone on a quiet and deserted road.
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Mr. White Quotes in The Monkey’s Paw
The The Monkey’s Paw quotes below are all either spoken by Mr. White or refer to Mr. White. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part I
Quotes
Without the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly. Father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about the game involving radical changes.
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“I don’t know what to wish for, and that’s a fact…It seems to me I’ve got all I want.”
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Part II
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“Morris said the things happened so naturally…that you might if you so wished attribute it to coincidence.”
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Part III
Quotes
But the days passed, and expectation gave place to resignation–the hopeless resignation of the old, sometimes miscalled, apathy. Sometimes they hardly exchanged a word.
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“He has been dead ten days, and besides he–I would not tell you else, but–I could only recognize him by his clothing. If he was too terrible for you to see then, how now?”
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But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the floor in search of the paw. If he could only find it before the thing outside got in.
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A cold wind rushed up the staircase, and a long loud wail of disappointment and misery from his wife gave him courage to run down to her side…The street lamp flickering opposite shone on a quiet and deserted road.
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