The Monkey

“The Monkey” is a short horror story by American writer Stephen King, who is often called “The Master of Horror.” It was first published in 1980 as a booklet in Gallery Magazine and later significantly revised and included as part of King’s 1985 short story collection, Skeleton Crew. King has written over 60 novels and 200 short stories, typically characterized by suspenseful plots, deep explorations of human anxieties, and intricate psychological characterization. As well as horror, he frequently writes in the genres of supernatural fiction and fantasy. “The Monkey” explores themes of The Loss of Childhood Innocence, The Importance of Family Relationships, and The Nature of Evil.

This guide refers to the story as it appears in the 2016 Simon and Schuster edition of King’s story collection Skeleton Crew.

Content Warning: This guide contains references to addiction and child abuse, as well as graphic descriptions of bodily injury.

The story opens with Hal Shelburn, his wife (Terry), and his two sons (Dennis and Petey) in Casco, Maine. While going through the attic of Hal’s aunt, Ida, who raised Hal after his mother’s death and who recently died of a stroke, Dennis comes across a cymbal-banging monkey toy. Hal responds with immediate horror and dismay, snapping at Dennis when the boy moves to turn the key in the monkey’s back and grabbing the toy from him.

The next day, Hal peers into the home’s well, where he threw the monkey after a childhood friend, Johnny, died falling out of a tree: The monkey is no longer in the well. When Hal spots Petey holding the monkey later, he harshly orders him to leave it alone, explaining that the toy is broken and that he plans to throw it out. Dennis, who frequently butts heads with his father, sarcastically questions Hal’s mental health, and Hal responds by grabbing him by his shirt and slamming him against a door. Dennis apologizes, and Terry afterward criticizes Hal’s violent outburst. Hal is dismissive and attributes any out-of-character behavior to “strain.”

Flashbacks interspersed throughout the story reveal Hal’s history with the toy. Hal’s father was a merchant mariner and disappeared when Hal and his older brother, Bill, were very young. The boys lived with their mother in Hartford, Connecticut, and would sometimes explore a closet crammed full of their father’s belongings. One day when Hal was four, he found the monkey among these items; although turning the key in its back did nothing, he nevertheless took it to his bedroom. That night, he woke up to the sound of the monkey clashing its cymbals, which frightened him. His terror only grew the following day, when he learned that his babysitter, Beulah, had been murdered at about the same time he heard the cymbals.

Hal experienced nightmares about the monkey and Beulah for some time afterward, but he had largely forgotten about the toy when Bill retrieved it from the closet more than a year later. Hal wanted to put the monkey back, but Bill instead took it to their shared bedroom, where it spent the next two years without incident. However, when Hal came home from school one day, he heard the cymbals clanging and ran into the bedroom. He knocked the monkey off its shelf and seemed to hear it threatening his own life and those of his family members. That day, Bill was late returning home from an after-school event; as he was walking home with a friend, a car swerved and struck the boy, killing him.

Hal once again returned the monkey to the closet, but one afternoon a year later, he returned from school to find it on his shelf. Despite his horror, he couldn’t stop himself from turning its key; that same day, his mother died of a brain embolism. Bill and Hal went to live with Aunt Ida and her husband, Will, but before they did, Hal gave the monkey to a rag-man. To his horror, however, he found the monkey three months later while searching for Christmas lights in his aunt’s attic. Before Johnny’s death prompted Hal to throw the monkey in the well, the monkey would also be associated with the deaths of his aunt’s cat and his uncle’s dog, the latter after Hal tried muffling the cymbals.

Back in the present, Hal wakes up to see the monkey poised on the windowsill of their hotel room. He asks Petey if he took the monkey out of the suitcase where Hal stowed it, but Petey says Terry moved it after she found Hal cradling the toy in his sleep. Repulsed, Hal listens as Petey explains that he both fears the toy and feels an overwhelming desire to wind its key.

Hal resolves to rid himself of the monkey once and for all. He instructs Petey to fetch a bag and some heavy rocks. As Petey collects the latter from the parking lot, he is nearly struck by a car; however, Hal manages to jam a toilet brush between the monkey’s cymbals at the last second, averting catastrophe. He and Petey place the toy in the weighted bag and drive toward Aunt Ida’s, where they head for the boathouse. Leaving Petey on the shore, Hal takes the bag out onto the lake in Uncle Will’s rowboat. As he paddles toward the deepest part of the lake, Hal notices Petey screaming and pointing; the water has grown rougher, and a cloud that resembles the monkey has amassed overhead. Just before he tosses the bag over the side, he hears the cymbals clashing. The boat begins to fall apart around him as he rows back toward shore, but he manages to make it to safety.

A newspaper article excerpt refers to the mysterious mass death of all of the fish in that part of the lake.