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Mr. White
Mrs. White is the wife of Mr. White and the mother of Herbert. She represents the happy domesticity present inside the house at the beginning of the story, as she knits by the cozy fire, soothes her husband’s temper, and enjoys spending time with her son. The appearance of the monkey’s paw disrupts this domesticity, because although Mrs. White teases Mr. White for giving credence to the paw, she also anxiously awaits the arrival of any visitor that might bring the wished-for money. However, the stranger who does bring the money also brings the news that her son is dead, thus shattering her once happy home life. Herbert’s death leaves Mrs. White feeling apathetic and surrounded by her grief. She is emotionally separated from her husband, as after the death of their son they speak little to each other. Her grief makes her frantic and argumentative, and she then comes to believe that she can bring her son back to life using the monkey’s paw. At the end of the story she experiences tragedy once again, as she opens the front door, expecting to see her son come back from the dead, and instead sees nothing. One could interpret her disappointment and misery at the end of the story either as a consequence of her attempts to alter fate by wishing on the paw or as a consequence of her belief that she could change fate, rather than accepting the loss of her son.
Mrs. White Quotes in The Monkey’s Paw
The The Monkey’s Paw quotes below are all either spoken by Mrs. White or refer to Mrs. 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 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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Mrs. White Quotes in The Monkey’s Paw
The The Monkey’s Paw quotes below are all either spoken by Mrs. White or refer to Mrs. 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 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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Explanation and Analysis:
“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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Explanation and Analysis:
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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