YMMV / The Monkey's Paw

• Fridge Horror: The wording of Mr. White's last wish isn't stated. If it was something along the lines of "I wish my son back to the grave" rather than wishing he was dead again, knowing the Literal Genie, his son is not only still horribly mutilated, but possibly buried alive.
  • Alternatively...we never learn if Herbert actually did come back as a horribly-mangled zombie. It's entirely possible the paw tricked Mr. White into effectively murdering his own son.
  • Imagine if Mr. White wished that Herbert would be dead again, and when he opened the door he saw that Herbert was lying there completely un-mutilated, looking almost like he was just asleep...
  • The suggestion of the story is that the Whites have effectively created their own final consequence - Mrs. White's mad grief is the consequence of the non-resurrection of Herbert.
  • It's also never confirmed that the knocking on the door was actually from the resurrected Herbert in the first place. If Mr. White's last wish was something like "I wish for the thing knocking on the door to go away", it could be that he actually just killed a random person.
  • Perhaps Sergeant-Major Morris only used two of his wishes before realising he needed to get rid of the paw. But, like a good supernatural MacGuffin, the paw kept coming back to him - until he wished to be rid of it and Mr White invited him for drinks...
• Memetic Mutation: The term "monkey's paw" has entered the public lexicon as a way to say Be Careful What You Wish For. "Finger on the Monkey's Paw curls up" can always be found somewhere on Tumblr or Twitter, usually in response to the same sort of "what I asked for, not what I wanted" situation as the book.
• Nightmare Fuel: Imagine seeing your son turning into a zombie because of your wish. Imagine seeing what he looked like, had they opened the door. He was caught in machinery and the accident was implied to be so bad that he was basically delicatessen fare at the end of it. And at this point he's been dead for ten days. Now think of that thing walking up to your door and knocking on it.

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