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Miss strangeworth character analysis
Clues in the possibility of evil by shirley jackson the personality of mrs strangeworth
Clues in the possibility of evil by shirley jackson the personality of mrs strangeworth
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Are They as Sweet as You Think Every neighborhood has that one old lady that looks so sweet but really isn’t. The lady in Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Possibility of Evil”, is a perfect example. Miss Strangeworth looks like a sweet old lady, but she has a side that nobody knows about. 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. First Miss strangeworth is seen by people as haughty, or that is how I see her. She thinks that the town belongs to her because of her heritage. For example, “Miss strangeworth would frown a little and sound stern, ‘....There wouldn’t have been a town at all if it hadn’t been for my grandfather …show more content…
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. 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
First, Miss Strangeworth’s character can be analyzed by considering what she does. Miss Strangeworth is a very passionate person. She is very passionate about her grandfather, because he built the house Miss Strangeworth lives in, and also a large percentage of the town. In the story, she says this, “My grandfather built the first house on Pleasant Street”, she would
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 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
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 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
The unfortunate death of John Wright was a mystery to all. A team of individuals consisting of the sheriff, county attorney, Mr. Hale, and Mrs. Peters were on a mission to find the purpose of the murderer. At this point, Mrs. Wright is the primary suspect. Mrs. Hale was asked to join the party in order to give Mrs. Peters, the sheriff s wife, some companionship. In the story, Mrs. Hale leaves cues of guilty feelings. As an example, the narrator states, Martha Hale had a moment of feeling that she could not cross that threshold. The reason being given that she had been too busy to come by but now she could come (Glaspell 2). Another instance to be noted is a conversation between her and the young attorney. During this conversation, he asked if they were friends since they were neighbors. Her answer was sympathetic, I’ve seen little enough of her late years. I ve not been it this house-it s been morethan a year. Then she goes on to explain, I liked her well enough. Farmers wives have their hands full, it never seemed a very cheerful place (Glaspell 6). At this point, Mrs. Hale s empathy toward Mrs. Wright is apparent.
In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, O’Connor introduces the reader to a family representative of the old and new Southern culture. The grandmother represents the old South by the way in which she focuses on her appearnace, manners, and gentile ladylike behavior. O’Connor writes “her collars and cuffs were organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady”(O’Connor 118). In this short story, “the wild diproportion of the terms, the vapid composure that summons up the ultimate violence only to treat it as a rare social opportuinty, and the cool irony with which O’Connor presents the sentence makes it both fearful and ludicrous”(Asals 132). The irony that O’Connor uses points out the appalling characteristics of the grandmother’s self-deception that her clothes make her a lady and turns it into a comic matter. Flannery O’Connor goes to great length to give the reader insight into the characters by describing their clothes and attitudes. The fact that the grandmother took so much time in preparing herself for the trip exemplifies the old Southern tradition of self-presentation and self-pride. The grandmother takes pride in the way she presents herself because she wants everyone to know that she is a “lady”.
The coldness felt in the house as the sheriff and court attorney entered the house symbolized the same coldness brought about by Mr. Wright. For the house to be cold and gloomy and everything else outside the total opposite, was much more than just coincidence. It was as if when you entered the house a cadaver, cold and clammy, had embraced you in its arms. “ I don’t think a place’d be any cheerfuller for John Wright’s being in it”, Mrs. Hale told the court attorney (11). Mrs. Hale knew perfectly well what kind of personality Mr. Wright had, which is why she specified that she wished that she had gone to visit Mrs. Wright when only she was there. “There’s a great deal of work to be done on a farm”, says Mrs. Hale, yet they are seen as mere trifles because it is the women who take on these tasks.
Jane spends her first 10 years of her life at Gateshead Hall, a lavish mansion. She lived with her Aunt, Mrs Reed, and three cousins, Eliza, Georgina and John. During her time in the mansion she wouldn't dare argue with the mistress, and fulfilled every duty. Jane is deprived of love, joy and acceptance. She is very much unwanted and isolated.
Beginning with Mrs. Hopewell, the title of the story comes from what she likes to call the poorer and less fortunate people that live off the land and work their whole lives just to hang on to some scrap of a life. This is how she views these people. She believes that they are good country people not a bad seed among them, that they are all eager to help out and bow in humility to the upper class. The gullible nature of Mrs. Hopewell betrays her true vision of a situation. She is one of those people who are all goody-goody to people who they view as less fortunate. She’s a person that commends or speaks for the people she knows nothing about. Altogether this is her true weakness that is taken advantage of by Manley Pointer. One of ...
Shirley Jackson’s stories often had a woman as the central character who was in search of a more important life other than the conventional wife and mother. These characters however were often chastised for their refusal to conform to a woman’s traditional way of life. Much like her characters, throughout Shirley Jackson’s life, she also rejected the idea of fitting into society's perception of a woman's role.
This feeling intensifies when Mr. Brocklehurst arrives to take Jane away to Lowood School. Her aunt is pleased to see her go, but manages to influence Jane's life even after Jane is settled in at the charity school, by informing Mr.
In fact, when Mrs. Hale comments that Mrs. Wright was not one for housekeeping, Mrs. Peters replies by saying “Well, I don’t know as Wright had either.” (748). The disheveled state that the house is in, as well as the fact that Mr. Wright is characterized as a hard man who is unwilling to share his part expresses the idea that their marriage was unhappy, and in turn, Mrs. Wright could have motive to harm him. Likewise, when the men leave the women to find clothes for Mrs. Wright, the two discover more possible evidence that the men will shrug off. For example, Mrs. Hale examines some quilt work that Mrs. Wright was working on, and notices that the most recent square is very sloppy compared to the rest of the work on the quilt. Moreover, the fact that they believe she crafted it by knotting is very significant (750). This correlation times closely with Mr. Wright’s time of death, and could indicate as a stressor, which the women can pick up on. Since the men laugh at their seemingly trivial observation, they are close to solving the crime on their
Beginning the story of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the readers are introduced to an elderly woman and
At the beginning of the book, Jane was living with her aunt Mrs. Reed and her children. Although Jane is treated cruelly and is abused constantly, she still displays passion and spirit by fighting back at John and finally standing up to Mrs Reed. Even Bessie ‘knew it was always in her’. Mrs. Reed accuses Jane of lying and being a troublesome person when Mr. Brocklehurst of Lowood School visited Gateshead. Jane is hurt, as she knows she was not deceitful so she defends herself as she defended herself to John Reed when he abused her, as she said “Wicked and cruel boy! You are like a murderer – you are like a slave driver – you are like the Roman emperors!” to John Reed instead of staying silent and taking in the abuse, which would damage her self-confidence and self-worth. With the anger she had gotten from being treated cruelly, she was able to gain ...