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Criticism of Shirley Jackson
The life and works of Shirley Jackson
The life and works of Shirley Jackson
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Imagine a town of blissful relationships. While everyone seems to be happy, a dark truth lurks beneath the deceptive appearance of an old lady. This lady goes by the name of Miss Adela Strangeworth. Adela, a character in the short story “The Possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson, appears as a nice old lady but is truly evil behind closed doors. Throughout the beginning, Adela greets familiar faces with a delightful attitude, but as the story continues, it is known that she is not so delightful after all. Since Adela Strangeworth is a prideful, evil, and sneaky old lady, her dark secret is unveiled after one simple error.
The first aspect of Adela’s characteristics is that she is very proud of her family history, but in a negative way. She
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One example of her cruelty was when she had a friendly encounter with Don and Helen Crane. This sparked a nice conversation about the Crane baby. Although once Adela came home, she decided to write a letter to the Crane family. Contained in this letter was a rude comment about their baby. Adela wrote, “Didn’t you ever seen an idiot child before? Some people just shouldn’t have children should they?” (Jackson, 1941, p.169). This message shows what lengths Adela will go to, just to pursue her evil acts. Along with a rude letter to the Crane family came another disrespectful letter to Mrs. Harper. After the author mentioned that this letter was a follow up to the previous ones Adela already sent, it is assured that Adela is an atrocious person. These two letters further prove how Adela cruelly deceived the Crane family and Mrs. Harper into thinking she was a nice …show more content…
When writing to her friends, she always makes sure to be very secretive about her identity. To be sneaky, Adela “always used a dull stub of pencil when she wrote her letters, and she printed them in a childish block print” (Jackson, 1941, p.169). In addition to her writing style, she used assorted colored paper for her letters and mailed them late in the evening to not get caught. Through her sneaky ways of staying undetected, Adela was able to write letters for a whole year without being caught. Although, this came to an end. Adela’s efforts to stay anonymous were not successful after all. When she was going to mail her letters one evening, a letter had dropped at her feet without her noticing. The children at the post office noticed the letter and tried to tell her that it had dropped, but she still didn’t notice. This then led to Adela’s true identity to be uncovered once the recipient of the letter had figured out it was her who wrote it. Additionally, the recipient destroyed her roses the next morning. While Adela was quite sneaky for a whole year, she could not cover everything in the end. After deceiving her town into thinking that she is a nice person, Miss Adela Strangeworth is a prideful, evil, yet sneaky old lady. While she deserved to have her roses destroyed based on her cruel actions, could her actions have come from a mental illness? A possible course of action for the townspeople could
In Henry Slesar’s classic story “The Right Kind of House”, an old widow named Mrs. Grimes puts her tattered home up for sale with an asking price far more than it’s worth. Her real estate agent assumes she needs the money, living alone and all, but in reality, Mrs. Grimes has a complex plan to locate the man who murdered her son Michael, using the family house as bait. She then hopes to due justice to her son by ending the life of his assassin. Throughout this tale, Mrs. Grimes is best described as willing and clever, as she used her unconditional love for Michael and unsuspected intelligence as motivation to find and kill his murderer, putting herself in danger to succeed.
Sometimes the way people act around you isn’t the way they act around other people. A good example of this is Shirley Jackson’s, “The Possibility of Evil”. The main character, Miss Strangeworth, isn’t as nice as she may seem. Miss Strangeworth’s character can be analyzed by considering what she does, what the narrator says about her, and how other characters interact with her.
In this book, notwithstanding, you discover insidious where you would minimum discover it- - in Miss Strangeworth. The hero should be an upbeat, kind, sweet minimal old woman, yet that is the place the incongruity is uncovered. The per user gets shocked by the disclosure that Miss Strangeworth is composing all these terrible letters to the townspeople. She doesn't see the mischief the letters are doing. She is composing them for her own particular smugness. So in the event that she loves composing the letters, does this mean she prefers harming individuals? Provided that this is true, this implies she is genuinely detestable. She composes a letter that says "a few people just shouldn't have kids… .." (Jackson, 1941, p. 169). This is a showing of how Miss Strangeworth is genuinely insidious. The underhandedness in her was not in any manner
Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, is tale about a grandmother who unknowingly steers her family to a fatal meeting with a fugitive. The chance encounter with the murderous fugitive ultimately costs the grandmother and her family their lives. Sticking with the Southern Gothic genre, O’Connor takes odd characters and mixes in dark encounters to produce a story packed full of hidden meanings and foreshadowing (Language and Literature, 2). At first glance, it seems easy to identify the character that represents evil in the story, the murderous outlaw. However, things are not always, what they seem; a closer look will reveal that the murder might not be the evilest character in the story.
With the plot essentially focusing around a forgetful grandmother, the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O 'Connor has created a large number of debates over its controversial and open ended contents. The story is considered one of the more well known writings from the Southern Gothic genre. The genre, often characterized by grotesque storytelling about a damaged or delusional character, was popularized during the 1940s by Southern writers like O’Connor. Throughout the story, a small cluster of characters are introduced. Each character is unique and have been analyzed by scholars to discuss the role they play in the story. The grandmother, however, seems to be the one analyzed the most because of her actions throughout the
As I read Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, I find myself being completely consumed by the rich tale that the author weaves; a tragic and ironic tale that concisely and precisely utilizes irony and foreshadowing with expert skill. As the story progresses, it is readily apparent that the story will end in a tragic and predictable state due to the devices which O’Connor expertly employs and thusly, I find that I cannot stop reading it; the plot grows thicker with every sentence and by doing so, the characters within the story are infinitely real in my mind’s eye. As I consider these factors, the story focuses on two main characters; that of the grandmother, who comes across as self-centered and self-serving and The Misfit, a man, who quite ingeniously, also appears to be self-centered and self-serving. It is the story behind the grandmother, however, that evidence appears to demonstrate the extreme differences between her superficial self and the true character of her persona; as the story unfolds, and proof of my thought process becomes apparently clear.
The judge asked Elizabeth if John had cheated on her with Abagail Williams. It seemed like a simple answer, specially because honesty was Elizabeth’s best quality. She was as honest as the day is long. Elizabeth told the court that John had not cheated on her, this made John’s heart sink because he had told the truth about his affair with Abagail. Elizabeth’s lie stood up and roared. Her decision showed John that she would tell her first lie in order to protect him and not to lose him. Abagail, a sly fox, thought that by accusing Elizabeth of being a witch and sending her to court, she would brake up Elizabeth and John’s marriage and have John for herself. However, in the end, it only made them realize how much they loved each other and that their marriage was rock
The hidden secret of Miss Strangeworth leaves everyone speechless. Within the short story “The Possibility of Evil” written by Shirley Jackson, the main character, Miss Strangeworth, has a secret that no one would have expected for a seemingly nice elderly lady. In Miss Strangeworth’s down time, she secretly writes cruel and inconsiderate letters to people within her town. These actions would label Miss Strangeworth as a bully. The unbearable letters she writes, the way she goes about them, and her love and dedication for writing them proves that she is very much a bully.
... that he resembles the proverbial "poor cat" that wanted the fish but would not get its paws wet. she tells him that her own lack of pity would extend to murdering her own child as it suckled at her breast. With this one terrifying example, she confirms that "the milk of human kindness" is absent in her.
Aileen went through a lot during her childhood. How her grandfather sexually abused could be conside...
Adeline had a very rough childhood, but at least Aunt Baba helps her to get back up when she is knocked down by the people in her family who treat her as unwanted. For instance, one of the quotes in the book said “The truth is that as soon as I had heard Aunt Baba’s footsteps, I had started feeling better immediately. Knowing there was someone who cared for and believed in me had revived my spirit” (Yen Mah 79). This passage from the novel describes how Adeline knows how much Aunt Baba cares for her. Aunt Baba is a huge part of Adeline’s life and
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
Her social life was deprived at starting very young, which caused her to not know how to act. This social deprivation of a child left her with no friends and the inability to communicate. Her mind was corrupted simply because she was lost without her father.
The narrator wrestles with conflicting feelings of responsibility to the old man and feelings of ridding his life of the man's "Evil Eye" (34). Although afflicted with overriding fear and derangement, the narrator still acts with quasi-allegiance toward the old man; however, his kindness may stem more from protecting himself from suspicion of watching the old man every night than from genuine compassion for the old man.
tragedies that befell her. She is an example of a melancholic character that is not able to let go of her loss and therefore lets it t...