Letting Looks Deceive You Sometimes people overlook certain details, and qualities about a person, things such as how evil someone may be on the inside. Maybe these details are overlooked due to how innocent someone may appear to be. In the two short stories, “The Possibility Of Evil” by Shirley Jackson, and “Lamb To The Slaughter” by Roald Dahl, both of the main characters have appearances that are very misleading and far from the truth. In “The Possibility Of Evil”, Miss Strangeworth (the main character) looks like a nice old lady, but is actually sortof evil. In “Lamb To The Slaughter”, the main character, Mary Maloney appears to be loving and sweet, but she’s really a murdered. In these two stories, there is a common theme of; looks can be deceiving. …show more content…
But what the other members of her community aren't aware of is that she's actually a hateful, and nosey the instigator of many of the town's problems and concerns. She often wrote Anonymous letters to the townspeople, gossiping and criticizing about others problems. One example of this behavior is when she writes to Mrs. Crane, “Didn't you ever see an idiot child before? Some people just shouldn't have children, should they?” (Jackson 4) What she says makes people feel bad when they receive letters like this. She writes these because she thinks that she can fix the problems of others. And make “her” neighborhood a better place. She then goes on to write to Mrs. Harper, “Have you found out yet what they were all laughing about after you left the bridge club on Thursday?” (Jackson 4) This probably made Mrs. Harper worried or even upset. Maybe she's not aware of the pain she causes others, they're not even aware that it is Miss Strangeworth writing the letters. This shows the reader that one should it be read deceived by another's
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
Comparing Lamb to the Slaughter and Captain Murderer In this essay, I am going to compare and contrast the two short stories "Lamb to the Slaughter" and "Captain Murderer", picking out. techniques used by the authors which make it different to a typical murder mystery. When one thinks of a murder mystery, one usually thinks of images like a large, stately home, a cunning butler, and a bloodstained. candlestick, and an intelligent and observant detective with a comparatively incompetent sidekick of the game.
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.
It does not occur to the detectives that the leg of lamb is a club
Lamb to the Slaughter, by Roald Dahl, instantly grabs a reader’s attention with its grotesque title, ensuing someone’s downfall or failure. The saying “lamb to the slaughter,” usually refers to an innocent person who is ignorantly led to his or her failure. This particular short story describes a betrayal in which how a woman brutally kills her husband after he tells her that he wants a divorce. She then persuades the policemen who rush to the scene to consume the evidence. This action and Patrick’s actions show the theme of betrayal throughout the story which Roald Dahl portrays through the use of point of view, symbolism and black humor.
Miss Strangeworth’s character can be analyzed by considering what she does. For instance, she is conceited. In the story she says, “ I’ve watched ‘my’ town grow.” Emphasis on the ‘my’ part. It isn’t actually her town, but she likes to think of it that way. Also, later in the story she states, “but it should have been a statue of my grandfather.” It’s nice that she thinks that it should be her grandfather but that is disrespectful to the person who is the statue. She probably doesn’t mean for it to come off as cocky or conceited, but that is just how it seems. Lastly, I think she is envious that although her grandfather built the first house on her street,but the statue wasn’t him.
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.
In both “A Lamb to the Slaughter"” by Roald Dahl and “ Popular mechanics” by Raymond Carver the authors shows the readers that the couples have relationship problems. Telling the readers if you do not deal with your diffrences in a healthy way someone will get hurt. The central idea with these two stories is relationship problems.
First, Miss Strangeworth can be analyzed by considering what she does. She sets any examples of herself throughout the story. For instance, in the story it says, “She was seventy-one, Miss Strangeworth told the tourists, with a pretty little dimple showing by her lip, and sometimes found herself thinking that the town belonged to her.” Also, it states, “There wouldn’t have been a town here at all if it hadn’t been for my grandfather and the lumber mill.” Miss Strangeworth isn’t a considerate woman. She doesn’t consider that it was not only her grandfather that built that town; he had the help of the lumber mill, and it stated that in the example. She was also being a bit selfish. I say that because of her thoughts and actions.
The two texts are about murder cases where the only reliable evidence is interfered with. The Trifles is a play in which Mr. Hale and Sheriff Peters are investigating the cause of death of John Wright. Wright appears to have been strangled with a rope and the first suspect in the crime is his wife, Mrs. Wright. Her friends, Mrs. Hale and Peters are fascinated by the female stuff in the house. In their conversations, Glaspell (2014) notes,
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
When she speaks and converses with others, she is critical towards them. She only focuses on the negative in others, rather than seeing the goodness in them. This is visible when the story describes, “Miss Strangeworth sighed and turned away. There was so much evil in people. Even in a little town like this one, there was still so much evil.” This confirms that Miss Strangeworth was a judgemental woman, and she chose only to see the evil in the world. Another factor that reveals her character is how she react to the Crane baby. Helen Crane is a mother of a newborn baby, and she tells Miss Strangeworth that she is concerned that her baby hasn’t sat up on her own or crawled around. After this encounter, Miss Strangeworth goes home and writes an anonymous letter addressed to the Cranes. The text claims, “After thinking for a minute, although she had been phrasing the letter in the back of her mind all the way home, she wrote on a pink sheet: Didn’t you ever see an idiot child before? Some people just shouldn’t have children should they?”. This quote in the story reveals Miss Strangeworth’s true disposition. She is very condemnatory toward, not only the Crane baby, but also the parents. Her use of the words “idiot baby” show that she is not considerate of the family’s feelings. Without a doubt, her view’s of other characters and her
"Lamb to the Slaughter," by Roald Dahl, was published in September, 1953. and "The Lottery," by Shirley Jackson, was published June, 1948. Although these stories are very different, they both share one common theme. That theme would be violence. In "Lamb to the Slaughter," Mary Maloney kills her husband over the fear of him leaving her. Then she feeds the evidence to the police. In "The Lottery," the entire town participates every year to see who will get stoned to death. A difference in these short stories is the fact that in "Lamb to the Slaughter," she knows that killing her husband is wrong, but she still does it; while in "The Lottery," the whole town believes that it is alright to kill someone like this every year. Although, in both stories,
She has this sneaky side to her but nobody knows about it. When she wrote those letters she would write with a utensil that would not usually use and she would use a different script that wasn’t her normal. Thus, “Miss Strangeworth always uses a dull stub pencil when she wrote her letters, and she printed them in a childish block print.” She did this so nobody could tell that she was the one sending the letters since they were not encouraging or helpful letters. As well as them being to people in the town about their kids she wouldn’t want one of them to get mad and come for her or her precious flowers. She had to be really sneaky when she mailed the letters and she had her ways to sneak around the town and not get caught. Therefore, “....she had always made a point of mailing her letters varu secretly….she timed her walk so she could reach the post office just as darkness was starting to dim….” She would do so because she did not want her name of any of this foolishness and didn’t want to start stuff with the people of this town. Lastly this is another was that she is something that nobody knows about.
She does this by revealing Miss Strangeworth’s ironic actions of her destructive attitude and hypocritic ways. This statement shed lights when Miss Strangeworth is writing letters to Mrs. Harper and Helen, and she notices how the town is becoming more vile, “The town where she lived had to be kept clean and sweet, but people everywhere were lustful and evil and degraded, and need to be watched; the world was so large , and there was only one Strangeworth left in it,” (Jackson, pg. 253). Miss Strangeworth exemplifies arrogance and hypocrisy by stating that she is the solution to all evil, yet she is initiating evil by means of writing letters to people conveying her pernicious words and telling them that they are not good enough. She expresses how she dislikes evil, therefore she is contradicting herself with her actions since she continues to spread evil through her judgemental