Compare/Contrast: Interpreting Aggressive Disguise and Revision

Has a person ever wondered how a horror tale and folklore could ever possibly be akin each other? Look no further, here is the paper about horror and folklore being similar. “The Monkey’s Paw”, a horror novella written by W.W Jacobs, is about a small household of a son, a mother, and a father that acquire a mysterious artifact (A Monkey’s Paw) that can grant three wishes to three men. After making their first wish and seeing the outcome, they wonder if changing their destiny with their wishes was a good idea at all. “Aunty Misery”, by Judith Ortiz Cofer, is a short story about a woman who makes a wish for children to stop plucking the pears off from her pear tree. Though the …show more content…
One conflict in “The Monkey’s Paw” features the mother of the household, Mrs. White, who wants her son back from his recent death. How he died was due to their first wish. she forces her husband, Mr. White, to reanimate the corpse of her son as the second wish. The second wish is soon put to an abrupt end, since Mr. White does not want to see his darling wife’s reaction to her child’s mangled and decomposing body. As his third and final wish, he begs for the second wish to never have happened. On the other hand, the conflict in “Aunty Misery” is roughly similar to “The Monkey’s Paw”’s conflict. Death comes to La Tia Miseria’s door and tells her it is her time to pass into the next world. This idea does not make her very exhilarated. In the spur of the moment, she claims she wants some of her pears from her pear tree to remember the joy she had in this life, but she is too old to get them down. He does as he’s told, and climbs the pear tree, unfortunately getting stuck due to her wish - ‘The tree needs my [Aunty Miseria’s] permission before it releases anything’. The author writes, “And no matter how he cursed and threatened, Aunty Misery would not allow the tree to release Death” (Cofer 104). This quote has easily shown that Aunty Misery was tenacious to stay alive. She didn’t want to pass on, and wasn’t going down without a fight, either. The conflicts both have in common that they’re cheating …show more content…
They share the theme “Even if good things might come out of it, one does not mess with fate or death.” This is explaining that no matter what comes out of what a person asks for, it does not change their fate. Never should one try to attempt changing. In “The Monkey’s Paw” they do what they're not supposed to do - which is tempting fate. they buy this ‘monkey’s paw’ that grants three wishes for three men who decided it'd be a good idea to change your life. It falls into the White’s hands, who wishes for money. However, it ends up killing her only child. This brings pain on to the Father and Mother. Examining this, they have changed their fate which ended and suffering. On the other hand “Aunty Misery” is the same lesson but in a different way. Aunty Misery has a wish granted that only she can choose when she will release from a certain tree. Death comes for her one day, and she tricks him into going into the tree. She traps Death in, unfortunately, that particular tree. In this way, she cheats out of passing out of this world. And so, both “The Monkey’s Paw” and “Aunty Misery” are taught not to mess with fate or death unless they want to be dust under the