Looks Can Be Deceiving Looks can be deceiving. You cannot always tell what is going on inside a person from the outside. In the story “The Possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson, Miss. Strangeworth feels that it is her job to protect the town from evil. She often appears to be kind and understanding, but really she is using the information and their weaknesses against them. She does this by writing them anonymous letters, telling them untrue statements about their lives. This causes the residents of the town to reconsider Miss. Strangeworth’s assumptions. What she does not realize is that her actions are wrong, not everyone else’s and that in the end she will get a taste of her own medicine. Ultimately, Shirley Jackson uses the characters and …show more content…
Strangeworth interacts with the town and the way her possessions look persuades the town into assuming their true intentions. Miss. Strangeworth meets many people on her walks around town. She “[stops] every minute […] to say good morning to someone or to ask after someone’s health” (Jackson 250). This causes people to think that she is a friendly old lady, when really she is finding information to use against them. She also makes people believe she can be trusted. When Helen Crane is concerned about her baby’s development, she asks Miss. Strangeworth if she “[thinks [the baby] [should] move around more” (251). This happens because Helen thinks Miss. Strangeworth will give her, her honest opinion but really she just tells her what she wants to hear and uses it as a weakness. The letters also mislead people into thinking they are not going to be bad because they are on the paper “used for odd, informal notes and shopping lists” (252). In addition, the letters are written with “a dull stub of [a] pencil […] and she printed in a childish block print”, causing people to believe it was a note from a child (252). Clearly these fake assumptions on Miss. Strangeworth and her letters cause a lot of
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.
Mildred Pierce, by James M. Cain, begins in pre-Depression California, and ends during World War II times, also in California. The main character, Mildred Pierce, is a very attractive housewife of 29, raising two daughters, Ray and Veda. Although Mildred loves both her daughters, Veda is a particular obsession with Mildred. She constantly slaves away throughout the novel to do whatever she can to make Veda happy, despite the constant abuse and deception Veda inflicts upon Mildred. After a divorce from her first husband, Bert, in the opening pages of the novel, Mildred is forced to sacrifice her pride and become a waitress in order to support her family. If Veda were ever to find out, she would be appalled; a constantly recurring theme throughout this story is Veda’s pride and arrogance, and her condemnation of jobs she deems to be menial. Mildred’s main goal is to nurture Veda’s musical talents, and manages to pay for expensive music lessons from her meager salaries as a waitress and pie baker. However, Mildred’s luck is soon to change, as she takes up with an attorney and former partner of Bert, Wally. Mildred is able to use Wally’s business and real estate savvy to build a restaurant out of a deserted model home, and from there create a thriving chain of three food businesses. After becoming bored with Wally, however, Mildred craves a relationship with another man, a prestigious local man named Monty. Veda highly approves of her mother’s choice, as this makes her feel as if she too were more prestigious and affluent, despite having misgivings about her mother still being so low as to have an average, pedestrian job. All seems to be going well; even through Veda’s constant demands and tantrums, she still gets everything she wants, and Mildred and Monty are happy. Monty, however, falls on hard times with the coming of the Great Depression, and he constantly mooches off of Mildred’s affluence, making it a struggle for Mildred to cater to Veda’s every whim. Mildred soon dumps Monty to focus on making Veda a musical prodigy; this fails, however, when Veda is told that her piano is not up to par from a local famous music teacher. After Veda recovers from this shock, she explores the opportunities offered by an acting career, and begins to spin more webs of deception and selfishness. After Veda forces money out of a local rich family, lying and claiming their son got her pregnant, Mildred and Veda have a major argument, and Veda disowns her mother.
There are many norms associated with being a woman and being a man, especially during the time period of which Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers was written in. These include, but are not limited to, the following (feminine and masculine counters are separated by a / ): one must always obey males because they are the superior sex/one must not allow women to hold any form of power because they are the weaker sex, one must obey her husband/one must not let his wife do whatever she pleases, and one must not live with another of the opposite sex unless they are relatives or married. Despite these norms being set in place for most of the characters in Strong Poison, there are a few exceptions for on both the feminine and masculine side.
At the end Miss Strangeworth writes anonymous letters to people. The letters express her assuming things about other people and giving her opinion. An example of her being cruel is, She writes a letter to Mrs. Harper and her baby and says, “Didn’t you ever see an idiot child before? Some people just shouldn’t have children should they?” She writes this because she bases her letters on assuming things instead of going to the person and getting the facts. Another example of Miss Strangeworth being cruel is, She writes another letter to Mrs. Harper and says, “Have you found out yet what they were all laughing about after you left the bridge club on Thursday? Or is the wife really the last one to know?” Miss Strangeworth writes this because she doesn’t seem to care how anyone else feels except for her. This proves that my topic sentence is true by giving details at the end of the story, it finally shows her true colors and shows how really mean she can be.
Keeping a mouth shut doesn't hold the world shut out, it opens up new doors to things that would never be expected. In To Kill A Mockingbird written by Harper Lee, there is are two character that is are an eternal mystery for the readers. Boo Radley, though the reader nor Scout and Jem know anything about the character all they want is to learn about him. Boo becomes a mysterious figure that many see as creepy, ghostly, but also reasonably wise. The one-time Boo appears the readers learn he is a sagacious, powerful man. Little do Scout and Jem know is that their father is also a rational being as well. The two crucial character in the story helps support the
This story revolves around a character known as Miss Adela Strangeworth whose ancestral home is Pleasant Street which also happens to be the setup used to develop the story. However she is from the initial stages of the story portrayed as an old lady that is relatively calm and harmless especially with regards to the lives of her neigbours. She is portrayed in the story with the author as a proud lady who believes in the fact that she owns her town perhaps a factor that is evidenced by the way she interacts with the members of her community. Her constant conversations with the members of the community perhaps paint her as a relatively calm, loving and caring lady to the members of the community.
The audience experiences Roger Chillingworth in a dramatic yet critical way to justify change and retribution in one character as the consequence of cloaking deep sin and secrets. When first introduced in the story, the narrator refers to Chillingworth as “known as a man of skill” (97) through the point of view of the people in the Puritan town of Salem. He is brought into the story when the town was in a time of need of a physician to help the sickly Reverend Dimmesdale; his arrival is described as an “opportune arrival” because God sent a “providential hand” to save the Reverend. Society views Chillingworth as though as “heaven had wrought an absolute miracle” (97). The narrator feels when Chillingworth arrives in Salem he is good and has no intention of harm of others. Perhaps if the crime of the story had not been committed he would have less sin and fewer devils like features. Although this view of Chillingworth changes quickly, it presents the thought of how Chillingworth is before sin destroys him. Quickly after Chillingworth discovers Dimmesdale’s secret, his features and his character begin to change. The narrator’s attitude changes drastically towards the character from altering his ideas of the kind and intelligent persona to an evil being by using phrases such as “haunted by Satan himself” (101). The narrator portrays the people of the town believing Chillingworth is taking over the ministers soul in the statement “the gloom and terror in the depths of the poor minister’s eyes” (102). Throughout the book, Chillingworth ages exceedingly and rapidly. At the very end of the story, the narrator reveals another change in Chillingworth’s character; he searches for redemption by leaving Pearl a fortune a “very considerable amount of property” (203). By doing this, it shows
The beginning of the story displays the theme by showing that Miss.Strangeworth seems innocent in her public life, but later shows that she lies about what she thinks to people. When she told Mrs. Crane “All babies are different. Some of them develop much more quickly than others", in response to her worrying about her child, she
Mr.Strangeworth fits that description and then some with her desire for a better town all a while writing cruel letters filled with falsehoods to the people in her town that ended up making more problems. “Miss Strangeworth never concerned herself with facts; her letters all dealt with the more negotiable stuff of suspicion.” (Shirley 4) For someone like a seventy one year old women to be so nice and caring in public only to become sinister in the privacy of her house. This setup of a character rarely seen so for this to happen truly shows different she is from the
Holling was a very interesting and very relatable person. He’s this pre-teen thats in middle school. He has a dad that only cares about work, his mom works around the house and his sister she work for Bobby Kennedy and she is a flower child. Holling is the only student in his classrooms on wednesday afternoons with Mrs. Baker. Half of his class is catholic, and half is lutheran, and they leave early on wednesdays to go to church.
The author George Elliot once said “don’t judge a book by its cover.” Appearance can be very misleading, and you shouldn't prejudge the worth or value of something by its outward appearance alone. This philosophical idea has been included in many works of literature, including the timeless classic To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee. The novel takes place in the town of Maycomb, Alabama during the 1930s. Many citizens of Maycomb tend to make judgements based on outward appearances alone. In the novel, Lee uses minor characters such as Boo Radley, Mrs. Dubose, and Tom Robinson to convey the book’s theme of prejudice.
Miss. Strangeworth interacts with Helen Crane and Helen is worried about her child. Miss. Strangeworth however says the baby is fine ¨all babies are different. Some develop more quickly than others. (3) In person, she comforts Mrs. Crane. However, when she is by herself Miss Strangeworth writes a letter anonymously and states “Didn’t you ever see an idiot child before? Some people just shouldn’t have children, should they?” (4). When she is with people she a nice person. When she is by herself she is a cruel and evil person. The author shows that she can be
Would you risk your life to save a lonely friend who was about to die on account of malicious gossip? In the Witch of Blackbird Pond the setting is New England along it's bleak shores. The main character Katherine is from Barbados because her grandpa had just died and she was traveling to America to live with her Uncle and Aunt who did not even know she she was coming. When she arrived her Aunt whose name was Rachel received her with open arms but her Uncle was not as open and wanted her to earn her keep. There was another character who was unmentioned for a while, her name was Hannah Tupper. Kits initial reaction to Hannah was anxiety and fear But she then softened up to Hannah. Her first interaction with Hannah was a helpful one in her time of need and self pity. The view and opinion of Hannah changed through the book from a kind old lady to admiration and unconditional love.
This is what she does, what the narrator says about her, and how other characters interact with her. These are just three of the many characteristics about Miss Strangeworth that most people don’t know about her. So do you really know all you think you know about the old people down the road from you of in your
anonymous letters in block lettering like a child would, and then mail her opinion to the person. Compared to another person in one of the short stories like The Interlopers were Ulrich von Gradwitz and Georg Znaeym. The two men wanted to kill each other just because of an old family feud. When they both had been trapped under tree and they started to talk to each other they became friends, but then a few minutes later were eaten by wolves. Miss. Strangeworth however just writes to people she has spoken to and puts them down. Meanwhile there are also other characters better than her.