Daughtry's_Writing

Comparison and Contrast Essay In this essay two stories will be compared and contrasted. These stories are “The Monkey’s Paw” by W. W. Jacobs and “The Third Wish” by Joan Aiken. Although these stories have many elements we are going to discuss only three. They are the main characters, their three wishes and the consequences, and finally the lesson the readers should have learned throughout the stories. First of all “The Monkey’s Paw” had a main character named Mr. White. He seemed like a good person in the beginning, however when he received the monkey’s paw everything began to go wrong. In spite of the Sergeants’ warning of the paw, he still used his wishes. Even though his first wish for two hundred pounds seemed harmless it was not. As a result of his selfish and careless wishing his son was killed in a machine where he worked. They received the money, but only as a compensation for their only son’s life. In addition to the first wish he chooses to use a second one, when he wishes his son back to life. On the other hand Mr. White did not realize that his son would be coming back mangled as he was when he died. When he realizes what a huge mistake he has made, Mr. White simultaneously lunges for the monkey’s paw. As quickly as he can he uses his third and final wish. As far as we know he used his wish to send his son back to the grave. Furthermore this story leaves you wondering were the three wishes that Mr. White made and their consequences magic or coincidence. Lastly as you can see Mr. White did not wish very careful or wisely. The lesson this story should have taught the readers was to be careful what you wish for. To start off the main character in “The Third Wish” is Mr. Peters. The readers can tell that he has a love for animals and the forest. When he saves a swan that was tangled in a nearby thorn bush. Ironically the beautiful swan turned out to be the King of the Forest. As a result of saving the swan he is given three wishes, and Mr. Peters is warned that he will probably use his last two wishes to undo his first. His first wish was to have a wife as beautiful as the forest, but he did not know she would turn out to be a swan. She was very unhappy because she was separated from her sister, but said she would remain faithful to Mr. Peters. Although she said that, he did not want her to be unhappy so he chose to use his second wish to turn her into a swan again. Mr. Peters always stayed faithful to his wife even though she was a swan. He died peacefully in his bed, but in his hand was a swan’s feather that was from his wife and a leaf, which means Mr. Peters never used his third and final wish. A very valuable and true lesson was involved in this story. It was that when you truly love someone you put their interests before your own. Finally both of these stories are very interesting. The story I liked best was “The Third Wish” this is because it had a better ending, and it did not end without telling you what happened. Although I liked that story best “The Monkey’s Paw” was much more challenging. I thought this because at the end of the story it did not tell you what happened. It left the readers wondering, and they had to come to a conclusion without the book telling them. These stories are alike in ways, but are also different. They each teach a valuable lesson that the readers could learn from. Cassidy Strickland Mrs. Daughtry 5/6 Period 10/9/09