Miss Strangeworth In The Possibility Of Evil By Shirley Jackson

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Shirley Jackson's short story "The Possibility of Evil" is an old lady who looks really nice and is generous with her town people. Sometimes people just tell her their problems and she give them advice. When she gets home she started writing rude letters about people, and some even gave advice at. So, people are different from reality because in the story the woman seems so nice and then turns out to be different. So, people aren't always what they seem to be.

In the beginning of the story, Jackson makes Miss Strangeworth seem like a nice person.
She describes Miss Strangeworth: "She knew everyone in town; of course; she was fond of telling strangers - tourists who sometimes passed through the town and stopped to admire Miss Strangeworth's roses" (Jackson). In this quote she seems nice and so they admirer her, but in reality she isn't. It means that everyone know her and that everyone like her and even tourist or other people she doesn't know stop at her house to look at the roses. The significance of this quote is that they think of her really generous …show more content…

She describe her being nosey when it says, "Miss Strangeworth stood by the door, opening her black pocketbook to take out the letters, and heard a voice which she knew at once to be Linda Stewart's. Poor little Linda was crying again, and Miss Strangeworth listened carefully. This was, after all, her town, and these were her people; if one of them was in trouble she ought to know about it." (Jackson). In this quote, Miss Strangeworth is hearing other people's conversation because she thinks that she needs to keep her town safe from evil. This quote means that she always wants to know what's going on with other people lives and thinks that what she's doing is fine because she is protecting her town. The purpose of this quote is that Miss Strangeworth thinks that she's important in her town and that she must keep her town calm and make it