The story begins with the lines, “Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly.” This establishes immediately that outside the family home, the world is unpleasant and cold, while inside, it is safe and cozy. Jacobs thereby suggests that white Britons’ anxiety over changing culture is rooted in imagined threats, not real ones. White opens the door to find an empty road rather than a sinister corpse knocking, it seems possible that he has been afraid over nothing. Jacobs, however, questions the basis of that fear. While imperialism offered Britain more land, natural resources, and monetary wealth, many white Britons feared seeing their familiar world change under the influence of foreign cultures, particularly if that meant changing racial demographics. Jacobs published “The Monkey’s Paw” at a time when his native Britain was drastically expanding its empire beyond its borders. As such, “The Monkey’s Paw” can be read as an allegory of British anxiety over their changing homeland, particularly addressing the xenophobia of white Britons. From the storm that rages outside the family’s home in the beginning of the story, to the supposedly cursed object Morris brings back from his travels abroad, to the knocking at the door (potentially by a reanimated corpse), all of the story’s dangerous elements come from outside to menace the safety of the home.
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