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Shirley jackson writing style in the lottery
Shirley jackson writing style in the lottery
Shirley jackson writing style in the lottery
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As Paulo Coelho once stated, “suffering comes from desire, not from pain”, and in Shirley Jackson’s “The Possibility of Evil”, the main character’s desire leads to her suffering. In all stories, a protagonist ultimately goes through difficulties in order to grow as a character. These difficulties often times connect with character qualities, such as their contrasting traits, complexity, consistency, and how their desire ultimately leads to a change in character. In the beginning of Jackson’s story, Miss Strangeworth, the protagonist, is introduced as a kind old woman, “She knew everyone in town, of course; she was fond of telling strangers – tourists who sometimes passed through the town and stopped to admire Miss Strangeworth’s roses…” (Jackson 1). Although this may be true, later in the story we start to see a glimmer of her contrasting character trait, her judgementality, “Miss Strangeworth noticed that Miss Chandler had not taken much trouble with her hair this morning, and sighed” (3). After reading this, the reader begins to realize the complexity of the character, since her contrasting traits create her as a real life person, who is more than just a kind old woman. Throughout the story, these traits are consistent and when the reader learns about the letters that she …show more content…
writes, they are not surprised because they were prepared for it through her judgemental qualities presented in the story. All of the character’s contrasting traits and complexity ultimately happen because of the character’s desire.
Deep down, Miss Strangeworth wants to be kind and help the world through ridding it of the evil; however, she does not realize that her form of fixing the world is harmful and ineffective, “Miss Strangeworth would have been genuinely shocked if there had been anything between Linda Stewart and the Harris boy, but, as long as evil existed unchecked in the world, it was Miss Strangeworth’s duty to keep her town alert to it” (4). As noted, her desire creates all of her other character qualities, such as contrasting traits, because she must have them in order to get closer to her
desire. As another result of desire, Miss Strangeworth expresses her character change at the end. Once she received her own harmful letter, she realized how her letters were actually provoking wickedness, rather than ridding the world of it, “She began to cry silently for the wickedness of the world when she read the words: Look at what used to be your roses” (6). Ultimately, her desire led to her learning that she needs to go about changing the world in a different manner, and her approach is actually harmful to others, causing even more evil. To sum up, the protagonist’s desire leads to all of the character qualities present in all fiction. All of these qualities create growth and a genuine feel of a real life person. Without these qualities, characters would be boring, and no story would be worth reading.
Miss Hancock, her personality and beliefs were contrasted entirely by her character foil, Charlotte’s mother, “this civilized, this clean, this disciplined woman.” All through Charlotte’s life, her mother dictated her every move. A “small child [was] a terrible test to that cool and orderly spirit.” Her mother was “lovely to look at, with her dark-blond hair, her flawless figure, her smooth hands. She never acted frazzled or rushed or angry, and her forehead was unmarked by age lines or worry. Even her appearance differed greatly to Miss Hancock, who she described as,” overdone, too much enthusiasm. Flamboyant. Orange hair.” The discrepancy between the characters couldn’t escape Charlotte’s writing, her metaphors. Her seemingly perfect mother was “a flawless, modern building, created of glass and the smoothest of pale concrete. Inside are business offices furnished with beige carpets and gleaming chromium. In every room there are machines – computers, typewriters, intricate copiers. They are buzzing and clicking way, absorbing and spitting out information with the speed of sound. Downstairs, at ground level, people walk in and out, tracking mud and dirt over the steel-grey tiles, marring the cool perfection of the building. There are no comfortable chairs in the lobby.” By description, her mother is fully based on ideals and manners, aloof, running her life with “sure and perfect control.” Miss
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
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
As a result, Miss Strangeworth’s character was analyzed by considering what she does in the book, what the narrator said about her, and how she interacted with other characters. Overall, we were able to realize that she is arrogant, outgoing, and also meddlesome. She displays each of these characteristics in more ways than one throughout the story.
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.
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.
In many works of Literature, a character comes forth as a hero, only to die because of a character trait known as a tragic flaw; Hamlet from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Okonkwo from Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, and Winston Smith from Orwell’s 1984 all exhibit that single trait, which leads, in one way or another, to their deaths. These three tragic heroes are both similar and different in many ways: the way they die, their tragic flaws, and what they learn. All three characters strongly exhibit the traits needed to be classified as a tragic hero.
Heroes in literature and history, more often than not, meet tragic ends, unless they were created by Walt Disney. These particular people are often seen as someone who is apart from the masses in morals and attempt to accomplish a higher calling for the common good. The problem with this type of hero is that they are destined for suffering.Two such characters exist in classic literature, Winston Smith of George Orwell’s 1984 and Hamlet of William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.” Hamlet is the true classic tragic hero, though, because he is of noble birth, possesses high moral standards, completes the task he is given to better the world, and causes tragedy in both his life and the lives of others.
Despite its prevalence, suffering is always seen an intrusion, a personal attack on its victims. However, without its presence, there would never be anyway to differentiate between happiness and sadness, nor good and evil. It is encoded into the daily lives people lead, and cannot be avoided, much like the prophecies described in Antigone. Upon finding out that he’d murdered his father and married his mother,
For starters, imagine the most flawless and pristine character, and then multiply that by ten. Then and only then can you get the inerrant Cathy Ames. Well, Miss Ames is the ideal model of perfection, an angel fallen from heaven. She grew up in a really crappy town, not really knowing the difference between “good” and “evil”. Some children at a very young age understand that public nudity is very taboo, but she didn’t. In fact everything that the other children found wrong she found curious and intriguing. She started to experience a lot of things at a very young age, thus waking a kind of twisted way of thinking that couldn’t be overwritten even with the best of therapy. Her understanding of people’s emotions, carnal desires, and greed gave her the utmost advantage. Later, over the years of her youth she use those said advantages in her favor. In the middle of one night she had disappeared, that was the same night...
...ere are various examples of suffering in different characters due to their predicaments or the circumstances by which they are surrounded. Mary Shelley is trying to show that suffering in general emotion for many different types of people, she makes emphasis on the fact that suffering is a consequence due to the individual’s actions. Victor was suffering due to the ambitions of his ultimate challenge.
In the beginning, Miss Strangeworth presents herself as elder of the town, and furthermore, considered herself to be superior compared to the rest of her town. Yet despite this, Miss Strangeworth never intended to be a tyrant, but rather, a strong symbol of mannerism for her town (page 204, lines 9-14). After having confrontations with other townspeople, we later find out that, in the home of Miss Strangeworth, that she was the town’s blackmailer (page 210, lines 176-193). Yet her only intention was to inform her people to always be alert, and also, to keep their eyes open for the evils that may be lurking in the town. Although these could have prevented evil to arise in the town, the evil finally had met Miss Strangeworth in the end, leading to her roses’ demise (page 214, lines
When Jane is shunned by Mr. Brocklehurst in front of the entire Lowood population, Helen is the one person that does not immediately judge Jane. In fact, she makes her feel more comfortable in a place that is filled with punishment and hypocrisy. Though Lowood does not truly feel like home, Helen is able to provide Jane with not only all the compassion she needs as well as support and respect. This is one of the first loves Jane experiences on her journey and it allows her to become more open to the love she finds in her future endeavors.