The sound of the quotation from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" is best described as "discovery." At the same time as explaining the vision, the narrator expresses his thoughts about seeing it. He has no idea what these emotions are or what "sinking, sickening of the heart" means to him. "What was it (...) what was it that so unnerved me in reflection of the House of Usher?" he wonders. He concludes that it is a mystery, and that a different arrangement of the items in the scene and the specifics in the painting may change the picture's somber tone.
The conflict revolves around the use of the monkey's paw and the results of the wishes. Fate and chance are themes in the story, along with the flaws of man who place a too high value on material possessions. The point of view of the story is Omniscient Objective, where the reader is left to draw his own conclusions
