The short story “The Monkey’s Paw” and the movie adapted from the text both have multiple similarities and differences; this includes the characters. There are four main characters in the short story, which include, Mr. White, Mrs. White, Herbert White, and Sergeant-Major Morris.
In the text Mr. White is depicted as an older man that believes the tale behind the monkey’s paw and falls in the path of its destruction. He seems to be quite slower at catching on to certain things compared to Mrs. White and tends to make dangerous decisions, as shown in the game of chess at the beginning of the short story. In the movie Mr. White wears glasses, which is not mentioned in the text. He is shown as a middle aged man in the movie, which is much younger
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White has white hair and is an older lady, but in the movie, she has blonde hair and seems to be in her middle age years. The story and the movie both present her as a character who does not believe in the magic and tale told by the Sergeant. Mrs. White is generally quite similar in both the text and movie, except for her physical features. The movie does a great job to show her as a hysterical character during the scene where she begs Mr. White to ask for the second wish. This is made possible in the movie because we are able to hear her voice as she screams at Mr. White. The movie gives her character the same temperament as in the text. The movie does the same for Herbert, for example, in both the text and movie Herbert is presented as a light-hearted character who does not believe in the monkey’s paw, but instead makes humourous jokes about the tales behind it. The movie does make his character seem a little older than what the text does, but his personality is the same as the text. Another character that is true to his role is Sergeant-Major Morris. His character in the text and movie is very dark and mysterious. He does stay true to his role in the movie because his personality is the same, and he is still the character that causes the trouble with the paw in the first place. However, his role does change a bit in the movie when it shows the scene where he is the one that gets the paw from the fakir; this does not occur in the