ipl-logo

Character Analysis Of Miss Strangeworth In The Possibility Of Evil

430 Words2 Pages

The Stranger That Everyone Knows: A Character Analysis of Shirley Jackson’s Miss Strangeworth When you are taking care of roses you always need to watch out for the thorns, this is also true when you are dealing with people. Miss Strangeworth, a character in the short story “The Possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson, who is a complex character that is fond of taking care of her roses and helping people in the town. Because Miss Strangeworth is a deceptive, narrow minded lady with a God complex, her style of help is very strange. The Stranger That Everyone Knows: A Character Analysis of Shirley Jackson’s Miss Strangeworth When you are taking care of roses you always need to watch out for the thorns, this is also true when you are dealing with people. Miss Strangeworth, a character in the short story “The Possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson, who is a complex character that is fond of taking care of her roses and helping people in the to wn. Because Miss Strangeworth is a deceptive, narrow minded lady with a God complex, her style of help is very strange. …show more content…

While she writes the letters she “never concern[s] herself with facts; her letters all dealt with the more negotiable stuff of suspicion” (Jackson, 1965, p.169). While most people would mind their own business, Miss Strangeworth intervenes therefore writes untrue letters disguised as truth to all her neighbors. When writing these letters we find out that Miss Strangeworth might looks much the same as delicate rose, but she actually has sharp thorns, she is not what she

Show More
Related
141 Words | 1 Pages

Old, lonely ladies like Adela Strangeworth could suffer from boredom. One would also think that she would probably like to work in her yard. And one could even think of her living in a small town, where she would probably also know all of the people. If one visualizes all these clichés when an old lady was mentioned, one now has a pretty good picture of Miss Adela Strangeworth, the protagonist of the short story, “The Possibility of Evil’’ by Shirley Jackson. Miss Strangeworth is 71 years old and lives in a small town.

Read More
950 Words | 4 Pages

At the very beginning of the novel, when Maud Martha is a child, she perceives white faces to be “strange” (Brooks 9). The reader sees a strong shift from this to Maud Martha’s desire and strong

Read More
691 Words | 3 Pages

She acts in a caring manner to everyone’s face, but when she is alone, she becomes a heartless woman, determined to reveal what she knows. Miss Strangeworth is the one causing the distress in her community, yet she acts oblivious as to what is bothering everyone. She shows her extreme deceitfulness by attempting to ease Helen Crane’s concern about her child by saying “Nonsense… some of them develop… more quickly than others” (Jackson, 1941, p. 167). This is deceitful because she is aware that there is something different about the child and instead of voicing that, she consoles the mother, only to subsequently shatter her in an anonymous letter. Additionally, Miss Strangeworth cleverly utilizes the most common paper and envelops all townspeople use for her letters.

Read More
346 Words | 2 Pages

When you think of roses you think of romance, but Ms. Strangeworth was single and didn’t think of romance. The roses were her children she cared for them like a mother would do a child. They represented something bigger to her, we understand family inheritance is special but the

Read More
781 Words | 4 Pages

This quote also gives you an idea of how Miss Strangeworth enjoyed gossip or talking about someone behind their back. Miss Strangeworth was writing letters to “The town where she lived had to be kept clean and sweet” it's ironic how she could say this when in reality she was doing all the evil of the town. The way Miss

Read More
535 Words | 3 Pages

In the short story “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier, the theme of there is beauty in life for those who are willing to see it applies to Miss Lottie. Through many children’s eyes, including Lizabeth, the main character, they viewed Miss Lottie as a witch. In reality, she is merely a broken woman who tried to grasp onto the last ray of hope in the shanty town. The marigolds bring joy and love into her life. On page 223 of “Marigolds”, it states, “...only a broken woman who had dared to create beauty in the midst of ugliness and sterility.

Read More
1279 Words | 6 Pages

Lizabeth felt confused and angry with the beauty of the flowers because they were a beacon of beauty and hope. Miss Lottie’s ugly house and mean demeanor are a symbol of the ugliness of poverty and the world Lizabeth lived in. Subconsciously, Lizabeth did not want the flowers there because they showed joy and happiness in the mean old woman and Lizabeth’s world of hardship and poverty. Without the flowers, without knowing about the world she was missing out on, Lizabeth felt that she could be happier. So, she sought to destroy that beauty so that she could go back to her own life of innocence.

Read More
948 Words | 4 Pages

The rose bush grew just outside the prison doors and has been there for a very long time. It is seen as imperfect because, while it may look beautiful, each rose has its own thorns. Hawthorne explains, “It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow” (Hawthorne 46). This quote shows that the rose bush can be interpreted differently by every reader. It can be seen as good or bad because it is by the prison and has thorns, but it also has beauty.

Read More
1288 Words | 6 Pages

In the stories “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Cathedral”, Flannery O’Connor and Raymond Carver use unexpected figures and characters as a way to change the main character’s personality and thoughts. In both stories, the authors create characters that are introduced in order to change the main character’s thoughts. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”,

Read More
1852 Words | 8 Pages

Throughout human history, humans have been known to execute gruesome acts. Whether these acts are small and insignificant or massive and change history, humans are capable of performing horrific plots against one another. To make matters worse, most of the people who commit these terrible crimes are people who are entirely in a clear state of mind. Nevertheless, there are some cases in which the line between sanity and mental instability blurs. For example, there is an ongoing debate regarding the mental health of the main character in William Faulkner’s story “A Rose for Emily.”

Read More
1128 Words | 5 Pages

Miss Brill is lonely, has a completely messed up mind, and tries to hide her true self by trying to live other people’s lives. Miss Brill views each person at the garden differently. The people who are mostly like her are the ones she judges the most, “Miss Brill had often noticed-there was something funny about nearly all of them. They were odd, silent, nearly all old, and from the way they stared they looked as though they’d just come from dark little rooms or even-even cupboards!” (Mansfield 185).

Read More
1189 Words | 5 Pages

In William Faulkner’s short story, A Rose for Emily, Emily Grierson, a prominent member of her small town, dies alone in her home. Upon her death, curious townsfolk entered her home trying to learn her secrets. It was thought she was crazy. Emily Grierson was not crazy; she was isolated by her father, which led to her odd social tendencies and unique interactions with others. A Rose for Emily is a short story based in a small town.

Read More
1015 Words | 5 Pages

This can be seen from her perception and description of the man who shares her “special” seat as a “… fine old man” and the woman as “a big old woman” (101). Her Surname 2 remembrance of the previous Sunday’s patient Englishman and his nagging hard to please wife whom she wanted to shake also shows her envy for women with male companionship. In Faulkner’s story A Rose for Emily, Emily is seen as a person who suffers from isolation from her community, by tradition and by law. Her isolation from the community and love is what seems to perturb her most; she is unable to accept the idea that her father is dead and she remains in denial.

Read More
610 Words | 3 Pages

By all appearances, Miss Strangeworth is a sweet, old lady, living in a perfect, shiny, happy town. But appearances are not everything, especially in the case of Miss Adela Strangeworth of Pleasant Street. Miss Adela Strangeworth, a character in the short story “The Possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson, is a 71-year-old spinster living in a small town in the 1940’s. At the beginning, she seems like any normal old lady, but it is quickly realized that this is not the case and that she has a dark side. Of the many traits that Miss Strangeworth possesses, the most prominent are her deceptiveness, perfectionism, and the god complex that has developed.

Read More
900 Words | 4 Pages

“Miss Strangeworth is a familiar fixture in a small town where everyone knows everyone else. Little do the townsfolk suspect, though, that the dignified old woman leads another, secret life…”. A secret life can be evil or good, in Miss Strangeworth’s case it is suitable, but do others appreciate this secret life. In The Possibility of Evil Shirley Jackson illustrates inner thinking, revealing action, and symbolism to show how Miss Strangeworth tends the people like her roses, but truly state's them evil.

Read More

More about Character Analysis Of Miss Strangeworth In The Possibility Of Evil

Related Topics

Open Document