What is the main idea of the story "The Monkey's Paw"?

   Father
and son were at chess, the former, [possessing] ideas about the game involving radical
changes, putting his king into such sharp and unnecessary perils that it even provoked
comment from the white-haired old lady knitting placidly by the
fire.

One chilling main idea
is expressed in the opening lines, quoted above, and is symbolized by Father putting his
king into "peril," or danger, by "radical" and risky
behavior.

Father and son and mother are placidly
at home with nothing greater to complain about (and that only out of a temper tantrum
from having recklessly lost at chess) than the muddy condition of the roads in a storm:
"of all the beastly, slushy, out-of-the-way places ... the road's a torrent. ...
[B]ecause only two houses in the road are let, [people] think it doesn't matter."
Suddenly, as the result of a seemingly benevolent visit from a childhood friend of
Father's, "[when] he went away he was a slip of a youth...," a malevolent force enters
their lives rendering those lives like the beastly torrent visible in the symbolically
important road outside their door.

An important
thematic question to consider is: How much actual and moral responsibility does
Sergeant-Major Morris bear for what transpires? He seems both fascinated by the monkey's
paw and repelled by it; he starts to talk about it, stops, shrugs it off but can't
resist calling it "a bit of what you might call magic." Does he attempt to discourage or
does he attempt to lure though he knows the truth to be unspeakable even while he feels
impelled to speak of it:

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   "To look at," said the sergeant-major,
fumbling in his pocket, "it's just an ordinary little paw, dried to a
mummy."
   He took something out of his pocket and proffered it. ... "It had a
spell put on it by an old
fakir...."

Sergeant-Major
Morris tells the story of the shriveled monkey's paw, "dried to a mummy," in tones "so
grave that a hush fell upon the group." Then, after Morris left "just in time for him to
catch the last train," and though warned against making wishes (warned in words but
perhaps invited by deeds), Father takes up the monkey's foot and wishes for the "two
hundred pounds" needed to "clear" the mortgage on their house at the end of the muddy,
beastly road: "If you only cleared the house, you'd be quite happy, wouldn't you? ...
[W]ish for two hundred pounds, then; that'll just do
it."

Unwittingly, Father unleashes terrors upon
his credulous, guileless, happy family, terrors that end with the death, and then the
loss, of their beloved son, who seemingly appears at their door from the bowels of the
grave, driving Father to use the third wish to send him back to
oblivion.

Fate entered their house as a
malevolent force. Fate drove the actions that took their happiness and their son. Was it
fate or was it the compulsion not to stand alone in horror, such as the compulsion that
was overpowering Sergeant-Major Morris? Author W. W. Jacobs raises chilling questions
about the power of an impersonal fate; about the assumed benevolence of friends; about
the nature of "holy" men ("It had a spell put on it by ... a very holy man"); about the
danger of credulity and
naivete.

• Does fate's
  retribution walk in as a tempter on the feet of
  friends?


• Does fate's retribution get a stranglehold
  through the "credulity" and naivete of fools?


• Does fate's
  retribution play us against each other even as our own horror turns against us,
  compelling us to tell of the terrors we've
  seen?

The main idea of
"The Monkey's Paw," on one level, is to be prepared to pay a price for your foolish,
credulous behavior: Father was "smiling shamefacedly at his own credulity." The main
idea on another level is to be wary of a malevolent, punishing fate that will turn its
destructive face toward you, without warning and to your sorrow if tempted by your
interference, on any metaphorically stormy, torrential, beastly night. For according to
the fakir, fate rules and fate will not be interfered with without repaying interference
with devastating sorrow. [There is also an underlying theme relating to the virtue of
Indian culture since India is where the monkey's paw originated and where the "old
fakir" put a spell on it to illustrate the power of fate in ruling everyone's lives, but
the cultural aspects of the story are generally passed over because of the change in
viewpoint as a result of post-colonial reevaluations of "otherness" and
"diversity."]

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"It had a spell put on it by an old fakir," said
the sergeant-major, "a very holy man. He wanted to show that fate ruled people's lives,
and that those who interfered with it did so to their
sorrow."