Miss Strangeworth's Letter Essay

Miss Strangeworth writes the letters because she feels the town is “her town”(35), and that it's her duty to preserve the perfection and order of the town. Furthermore, she writes them anonymously to preserve her family’s honor. From Miss. Strangeworth’s point of view, the town belongs to her family. She sees her grandfather as the founder because her “grandfather built the first house on Pleasant Street”(25). And, she believes that “There wouldn’t have been a town here at all if it hadn’t been for my grandfather and the lumber mill”(26). Which, is why she feels it’s her town. Since she sees her grandfather as the founder she see him as the owner and therefore sees the town as her inheritance, which is why the book even says “she sometimes found herself thinking that the town belonged to

In the book they describe Miss Strangeworth's house as “ the neat, the unbelievably trim lines of the house itself, with its slimness and its washed white look. Every window sparkled, every curtain hung stiff and straight”(30). They describe it as this neat perfect place, and Miss Strangeworth wants “her town”(35) to be the same way. So, because she feels there are “so many wicked people in the world and only one Strangeworth left in town” she considers it her duty as a Strangeworth, as the owner of this town, to take care of this evil and any imperfections she sees. So she writes the letters to preserve the town, she sees the letters as a way of “wiping out this potential badness”(36) that could ruin the perfection and order of “her town”(35). But, Ms. Strangeworth is always careful to not let people know she’s writing these letters, because Strangeworth is an honored name, and she knows these letters are “Harsh”(37) and would ruin her family’s honor. So, knowing these letters would cause people to think poorly of her family, she decides “Strangeworth, a name honored in the town for so many years did not belong on such