“Haven’t you ever seen an idiot child before? Some people just shouldn’t have children should they?” (Jackson, 1941, p. 169) These horrible words written by the most adored and looked up to woman in town; the deceptive perfectionist herself, Miss Adela Strangeworth. Strangeworth lives a simple life on Pleasant Street. She knows everyone in town, is friendly and nice, and grows the most beautiful roses, but every so often she sees what looks to her like a great injustice, and takes up the task of ‘righting the wrong’. She is of course wrong and is just being a terrible person, but in her delusions she is fixing everything wrong in the world. Miss Strangeworth is a delusional perfectionist with a god complex. Throughout the story she manipulates
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
...’ family is in deep alcoholism, depriving children the benefits of a proper upbringing. The Johnsons are also chaotic and tyrannical. Jimmie and his ilk of brawling youths epitomize the violence that rocked the society. In the middle of this violence is pursuit of vanity. Children are fighting viciously to establish the superior one. Adults are watching on indifferently. Maggie gets into prostitution because of pursuing an elegant life. She lacks appreciation of her beauty and persona. In the end, the question to ponder is whether human beings have the capacity to make personal choices in midst of immense social circumstances. Regrettably, Johnsons share the blame for the kind of person that their children turned out. The society too has remained passive in the midst of great social trepidation. Maggie and Jimmie share the blame for pursuit of vainglorious vanity.
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.
Marie had just traveled from her hometown of Ville Rose, where discarding your child made you wicked, to the city of Port-Au-Prince, where children are commonly left on the street. Marie finds a child that she thinks could not be more beautiful, “I thought she was a gift from Heaven when I saw her on the dusty curb, wrapped in a small pink blanket, a few inches away from a sewer as open as a hungry child’s yawn” (79). Marie has suffered many miscarriages, so she takes this child as if it were her own, “I swayed her in my arms like she was and had always been mine” (82). Marie’s hope for a child has paid off, or so it seems. Later, it is revealed that the child is, in fact, dead, and Marie fabricated a story to sanction her hopes and distract her from the harsh reality of her life, “I knew I had to act with her because she was attracting flies and I was keeping her spirit from moving on… She smelled so bad that I couldn’t even bring myself to kiss her without choking on my breath” (85). Her life is thrown back into despair as her cheating husband accuses her of killing children for evil purposes and sends her to
In “The Possibility of Evil,” Miss Strangeworth, the main character, is an insane person because of her ego and how highly she thinks of herself, her malicious intents that were dont with no remorse to the townspeople, and her unfathomable denial of her wrongdoing. Miss Strangeworth considers her duty to the town is to nitpick and judge everyone in it simply because she values herself so highly as the only Strangeworth of Pleasant Street. While looking around in "her" town, she notices the absent-minded librarian, Miss Chandler. Miss Strangeworth takes in her appearance and deduces that "she had not taken much trouble with her hair that morning" (Jackson 208). Being her egocentric self, Miss Strangeworth sighs at the lack of effort that Miss Chandler had when around her. No matter how small a
In her final letter to her mother, Eliza admits her wrong doings. She tells her mother she ignored all the things she was told. All their advice fell on her deaf ears. She explains that she had fallen victim to her own indiscretion. She had become the latest conquest of “a designing libertine,” (Foster 894). She knew about Sanford’s reputation, she knew his intentions, and she knew that he was married, yet she still started a relationship with him. And her blatant disregard for facts and common sense caused her unwed pregnancy and premature demise. Eliza Wharton had nobody to blame for her situation but herself. She ignored warnings, advice, common sense, and other options available to her. She chose her ill fated path and had to suffer the consequences.
As society changes around us, we spot things we never noticed before: high divorce rates, murder rates, and drug use just to name a few. James Riddley-Scott and Mary Shelley noticed and had a fear of child abandonment. In Frankenstein, Shelley explores this subject through the viewpoint of a man, Victor, who creates a child so hideous that he cannot bear to look at it, and consequently deserts it. In Blade Runner, Scott explores this matter through a businessman, Tyrell, who makes replicants of humans, the Nexus 6, gives them only four years to live, and sells them as slaves. The children of these creators turn out to be smarter and more human than expected, and revolt against the way society treats them, giving us all a lesson in parenting and child development.
Miss. Strangeworth is the worst character from the other six short stories read. Throughout the story The Possibility of Evil Miss. Adela Strangeworth would write mean and
Torey Hayden’s novel One Child is a heartwarming personal account of how even the smallest amounts of love can change someone. One Child revolves around a Special Education teacher, Tory Hayden, as well as her class and helpers. The main child that Hayden speaks of is Sheila, who was placed with Hayden after she had lured a young boy into the forest, tied him to a tree, and burned him almost to death. Hayden describes Sheila as having “matted hair, hostile eyes and a very bad smell” upon their first meeting (Hayden 16). Sheila lives in a dilapidated house with her father who abuses, belittles, and isolates her. Her past is maimed by a mother who abandoned her when she was four, leaving her in the care of a neglectful father. These circumstances cause her to lash out at any one she comes into contact with. Hayden provides a seemingly innocuous environment that Sheila flourishes in with the help of the love that her teacher provides. The main idea of Hayden’s novel, presented through her use of rhetorical strategies, is that even by offering comfort to an individual for a short amount...
Miss Strangeworth’s character can be analyzed by considering what she does. Miss Strangeworth is a selfish person. In the story it quotes,”Miss Strangeworth told the tourist with a pretty little dimple showing off her lip, she sometimes caught herself thinking the town belonged to her.” The other selfish is in the story as well. It quotes,”When tourist would ask about the roses, she wouldn’t give them away.” In other words her selfish side is she is mean to people or thinks everything belongs to her.
7. We need to believe in the possibility of evil just like miss strangeworth because there is always going to be evil in this world. The narrator wanted to show the difference between making mistakes and true evil so we know not to make the same evil decisions that Miss Strangeworth made or any other decisions that are being pressured on us.
First of all, as the story began we met Maggie, a shy girl who lived her life in the darkness of her sister Dee’s shadow. Their mother was hardworking and spent her days on the farm working to offer a better life for her daughters. Raising children alone is a backbreaking task. Although they lived a modest life her children never went without. She gave them a home and food to eat, everything from killing hogs to breaking ice was done for her children. There lies the dedication seen in a good parent.
It is not without a hint of irony that the nation’s Socialist-Left does not care about children before they are born. Never the less, soon after they become a precious commodity that must be protected at all costs – including everyone’s fundamental human rights. Those who are merely a cluster of cells or some other humanity denying pejorative in
...“the hen became the queen of the house… everyone knew it except the hen.” (Lispector, 49) Having children is both expected from a woman and praised by the society. But maybe Lispector never realized the appraisal of the society towards her work and that she was continuing life as her existentialist mindset only allowed her to think negatively.
In an age when many love claiming that “racism doesn’t exist,” it’s important to examine the internal consequences of current and past acts of racism, of perpetuating ideals of a blonde haired, blue-eyed girl. The Bluest Eye shows the tragic consequences of girls taught to hate themselves. It shows what happens when a man is powerless to hate the white men causing him harm, and turns his anger on his own wife and family instead. Of a man, who takes the label of a crazy supernatural to make his living, demonized by white society and taking their projection and becoming the monster that they fear he is. But it also offers a bit of hope. In the direst of circumstances, it is the children, the children that make the novel so great, who have the power for change. Frieda and her sister give up their hard earned money to try and save Pecola and her baby. They don’t understand why she is so shunned; they only know of basic human love and dignity. It is Pecola, on her heart-breaking quest for the very bluest eyes, who compels Soaphead Church to write a striking letter to God. The outcasts of the outcasts, like Pecola’s prostitute friends, are willing to come together as well. Often, change works its way up from the bottom. Unfortunately, change never comes quickly enough in the life of Pecola, or in the lives of many of the other characters. The novel stays starkly honest. It didn’t get better in Frieda or Pecola’s lifetimes. But it’s