Suspense is created by Mr. White’s desperation to get his wife’s wish cancelled with his wish.
Suspense is excitement created by the reader knowing that something is going to happen. The author gives hints and uses foreshadowing to create interest in the story. It can also make the story scary.
This story is about a talisman that gives a person three wishes, but is cursed. The Whites use the first wish to ask for money, and they get it. However, the catch is that their son dies a horrible death. The knocking at the door is the White’s dead mangled son Herbert, brought back to life. Mrs. White brought him back to life with the second of her wishes, supposedly. Suspense is created by the fact that we never see what he looks like, and by Mr. White’s reaction to her wish.
The old man, with an unspeakable sense of relief at the failure of the talisman, crept back back to his bed, and a minute afterward the old woman came silently and apathetically beside him.
Mr. White’s comment that a rat passed him on the stairs, and his insistence that they not let “it” in both create suspense. His wife is shouting. It is scary and we feel like something terrible is about to happen.
Mr. White desperately tries to find the paw to make the third wish. He does not want his wife to see their son. He does not want to see him either. He knows that she will not see what she expects to see. She is sick with grief. Seeing him, whatever will be at the door, will kill her. He desperately wants to prevent that.
But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the floor in search of the paw. If only he could find it before the thing outside got in.
When Mr. White goes out to the street, it is empty. We are relieved that no one was there, and the third wish worked, presumably. Maybe the second wish didn’t work and the person knocking at the door just went away. Either way, Mrs. White never saw a mangled zombie Herbert. The suspense for the reader came from expecting to see one.
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