Adela Strangeworth is the main character in The Possibility of Evil written by Shirley Jackson. Protagonist character Strangeworth is a genuine, kind elderly lady until her neighbors and friends find out who she truly is, a bitter and rude. Shirley Jackson’s, Miss Strangeworth is a seventy-one elderly lady that the whole town knew. Built by her grandfather is the house she lives in, it was also the same house her parents lived. Rose is one of the main things Miss Strangeworth is known besides being kind, proper, neat women. Her roses were her greatest possession to her because they were the same roses her grandmother planted and the ones that her mother tended to. Moreover, she devoted her life to taking care of the roses and not letting anyone touch or pick them. …show more content…
However, Miss Strangeworth did not think the letters she was writing were hurtful, she thought she was helping the people of her town. When she was writing her letter she never put her name on the paper because she believe her name was honored in the town for so bounteous years, and it did not belong on trash. Able to hide her identity Miss Strangeworth took the letter to the post office at night. One night while delivering her letters one fell on the ground and the Harris boy picked the letter up and gave it to Don Crane . Consequently, by giving the letter in person and saying who it was from is how Miss Strangeworth is caught. In return Don Crane and all the others that received letter went to Miss Strangeworth’s house and destroyed her roses while she was sleeping. In conclusion Adela Strangeworth was an elderly woman who was well-known throughout her little town as a kind, proper, neat women that thought she was helping others. Not knowing that by writing the letter that was mean and hurtful she caused more pain than being helpful to the people she cared
In the short story “The Possibility of Evil,” Shirley Jackson uses several symbols to tell the story about Miss Strangeworth. One symbol she uses consist of the roses that Miss Strangeworth treasures. The roses represent the love and perfection of Miss Strangeworth. As we know, Miss Strangeworth believes that the world is horrible and unclean and that she is the only perfect person. She loves her roses dearly which emphasizes her needs for everything to be perfect just like her. She values her roses so much because only she takes care of them making them a symbol of perfection and becomes one of the items that Miss Strangeworth loves and sees as superior to other roses. Another symbol Jackson uses compose of Pleasant Street, the street that
Miss Strangeworth is quite a scornful person. She tends to notice the negative things about a person, and is judgemental. Here are two quotes from the story in which Miss Strangeworth is scornful. “Miss Strangeworth wondered, glancing at her quickly, if she had been taking proper care of herself. Martha Harper wasn’t as young as she used to be, Miss Strangeworth thought. She could probably use a good strong tonic. “Martha”, she said, “you don’t look well.” Miss Strangeworth came into a grocery, and saw an old friend. Though the first thing she notices is how unkept she is. Another time Miss Strangeworth judges someone negatively is when she was walking past the library and saw one of the staff she knew. “Miss Chandler seemed absent minded and very much as though she was thinking about something else. Miss Strangeworth noticed that Miss Chandler has not taken much trouble with her hair that morning, and sighed. Miss Strangeworth hated sloppiness.” In that quote, there was obvious negativity coming from Miss Strangeworth and Miss Chandler. Clearly, she didn’t take time to assume that she may have had a rough morning; she just stated how she hated sloppiness and walked
In the short story “The Possibility Of Evil “ by Shirley Jackson was several symbols to tell her story about Miss Strangeworth. One symbol she uses is her name Strangeworth. She was a strange women but everyone thought she was normal and nice, but in reality she was mean and strange, she thought she was better than everyone else. Another symbol she uses is the letter Miss.Strangeworth sent to people. They mean more than just letters because they show how she really is, she is showing her true colors. Finally another symbol was her flowers, the flowers meant that she was better than anyone else. The flowers were fancy, Miss. Strangeworth thought she was elegant and polite . Certain symbols have certain meaning in today's culture because they
In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," Miss Emily Grierson is a lonely old woman, living a life void of all love and affection; although the rose only directly appears in the title, the rose surfaces throughout the story as a symbol. In contemporary times, the rose also symbolizes emotions like love and friendship. The rose symbolizes dreams of romances and lovers. These dreams belong to women, who like Emily Grierson, have yet to experience true love for themselves.
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.
In Mary Wollstonecraft’s letter, she makes her rage clear to the man that provoked her that she will not condone his plans for marriage to another man, and wishes to never be acquainted with each other much longer. The way she achieves this position is through a combination of carefully placed pauses that add weight to each claim she has for the man’s wrongdoings, through the usage of long sentences to go in further explain her judgement, and a passionate use of wording to effectively express her emotion to the recipient. She directs all of this to the man, making clear of the denial she has for his intentions of an indirect proposal.
Another factor that clearly brings out the theme is the fact that she claims that orderliness of family roses is her pride. However she may not necessarily be that orderly as depicted in the development of that story. The author of the story Shirley Jackson uses the author and her ambiguous cha...
For a seemingly sweet elderly lady, the readers would not have imagined her to be a bully or even a slight bit of rude for that matter. However, little did anyone know that Miss Strangeworth was hiding an unbearable secret. The cruel letters she writes to people in her town, the way she goes about them, and her love for writing them proves that she is very much a bully. Miss Strangeworth is one of the reasons why people should watch out for who they
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
Like any good character, Mrs. Strangeworth has understandable desires. The possibility of evil the story entails is from Miss Strangeworth ideology of what she sees is the truth. In turn, she writes deagroitive letter to her townspeople, feeling that a solid plan for stopping the evil in the town she's lives in. For her, writing these letters let herself feel a sense of pride for the town she deeply love. “The sun was shining, the air was fresh and clear after the night’s heavy rain, and everything in Miss Strangeworth’s little town looked washed and bright.” (Shirley 1) If her desire wasn’t to make a better town, she would have never written such letters. Mrs. Strangeworth has desire like any other character with well intentioned, but with ability to take it to the extreme makes stand out from the crowd.
Rose Mary is a selfish woman and decides not to go to school some mornings because she does not feel up to it. Jeannette takes the initiative in making sure that her mother is prepared for school each morning because she knows how much her family needs money. Even though Rose Mary starts to go to school every day, she does not do her job properly and thus the family suffers financially again. When Maureen’s birthday approaches, Jeannette takes it upon herself to find a gift for her because she does not think their parents will be able to provide her with one. Jeannette says, “at times I felt like I was failing Maureen, like I wasn’t keeping my promise that I’d protect her - the promise I’d made to her when I held her on the way home from the hospital after she’d been born. I couldn’t get her what she needed most- hot
Along with being arrogant and outgoing, she is also a very meddlesome person. After Miss Strangeworth ran into Miss Linda at the market, her actions afterwards demonstrate to us how she is meddlesome. To demonstrate, on page 367 it states, “Looking after her, Miss Strangeworth shook her head slightly. Martha definitely did not look well.” She’s meddlesome in the sense of her snooping around where she isn’t needed. It’s not her job to determine whether there was something wrong with Martha. Likewise, on page 366 the text states, “Mr. Lewis looked worried, she thought, and for a minute she hesitated, but then she decided that he surely could not be worried over the strawberries. He looked very tired indeed.” This quote also shows us that Miss Strangeworth continues to involve herself in other people’s business. Mr. Lewis may be worried about something larger than strawberries, but it isn’t necessary for her to find it normal to involve herself. Her character in this sequence of events is basically the definition of being meddlesome.
The rose, the rose-color bridal chambers of Miss Emily, signify the little details that come full circle. In that moment, there comes a consciousness that death trumps all that. It is a reality that cannot be avoided. What once was a bridal chamber has now become that of death and decay, still with the same hint of rose-colored innocence it once had all over its
Mrs. Strangeworth is an elderly woman that lives on Pleasant Street. She is a very nice woman and likes to talk to the residents of the town. She is also very popular throughout her town. She cherishes her roses at her house. She tells someone
The letters that follow this one are from Clarissa to Anna and they explain what had happened. The trouble begins when Mr. Lovelace begins to visit the Harlowe home; it is believed that he is there to court the eldest daughter. However, this does not work out and he then decides the he would like to date the younger daughter, who is Clarissa. This is not well liked by her brother because Mr. Lovelace was his enemy all through college and there is now a grudge between the two. As a result, Clarissa's brother and Mr. Lovelace get into a fight and Clarissa's brother is injured. It is because of this that no one else in the family cares for him anymore either. However, this does not stop him from pursuing Clarissa.