Miss Strangeworth Character Analysis

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. Miss Strangeworth sometimes “[finds] herself thinking that the town belonged to her” (Jackson,1941,

Whether she means to be deceptive or not “[she] always used a dull stub of pencil when she wrote her letters, and she always printed them in a childish block print”(Jackson,1941, p.169) making it impossible to know who it came from. To further obscure her identity “...Miss Strangeworth used a pad of various coloured paper ...everyone in town bought...and used it for odd, informal notes…”(Jackson,1941, p.169). To deliver these letters, “[Miss Strangeworth] timed her evening walks so that she could reach the post office just as darkness was starting to dim the outlines of the trees and the shapes of people's faces”(Jackson,1941, p.172). Miss Strangeworth seems to be a sweet old lady but in reality, she writes nasty letters and judges everyone, perhaps because of her love for

She has several prominent routines, such as buying her tea on Tuesdays and always going for afternoon and evening walks.These routines lead one to believe that she may even have obsessive compulsive traits, in the story the author mentions that “[s]he was fond of doing things exactly right”(Jackson,1941, p.169). Immediately after every meal “...her plate and cup and saucer [are] washed and dried and put back where they [belong], and her silverware [is] put back in the mahogany silver chest…”(Jackson,1941, p.171) because “Miss Strangeworth never delayed when things had to be done”(Jackson,1941, p.169). Her perfectionism leads her to burn her letters immediately when she makes a mistake or “when the letters [are] not spaced nicely on the page” (Jackson,1941, p.169). These tendencies could be one of the reasons for her horrible letters. The notion that she owns the town, trying to perfect it, and being deceptive while doing it are all traits that will get Miss Strangeworth in trouble. These traits are all things that lead to the downfall of Miss Strangeworth's roses. Trying to perfect other people is generally not taken well by others, they feel judged, as they are. This story shows why a book should never be judged by the cover, because there are often secrets hiding in the