Miss Strangeworth's Actions

The Influence of Actions
People can be influenced by many different things. Being influenced by something or someone can cause a person to act in a certain way, good or bad. In “The Possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson and “A Bolt of White Cloth” by Leon Rooke, the characters demonstrate that a person’s actions are heavily influenced by their surroundings. The characters are influenced by the people around them, the things that are most precious to them and by what they desire.
In both these stories, the characters are being influenced by the people around them. In A Possibility of Evil, Miss Strangeworth’s actions are being influenced by the people on Pleasant Street by the actions of certain characters. Jackson writes,
“Mr.Lewis would

have never imagined for a minute that his grandson might be lifting petty cash from the store register if he had not had one of Miss Strangeworth’s letters. Miss Chandler, the librarian, and Linda Stewart’s parents would have gone unsuspectingly ahead with their lives, never aware of possible evil lurking nearby, if Miss Strangeworth had not sent letters opening up their eyes” (Jackson,4).
The actions of the people on Pleasantview street act like many small inciting incidents for Miss Strangeworth; Without their “lustful and evil and degraded” actions (Jackson,5), as Miss Strangeworth would say, Miss Strangeworth would not have to write those notes to almost everyone on her street.

In “A Bolt of White Cloth”, the actions of the husband are being influenced by the mysterious man who shows up at his door and offers their family free cloth. Rooke writes, “”Now look,” I said to him, “what’s wrong with this cloth? Is it going to rot inside a week? Tomorrow is some other stranger going to knock on our door saying we owe him a hundred or five hundred dollars?”” (Rooke,5). Because the mysterious man appears out of nowhere offering his valuable cloth just for the price of love, he jumps to conclusions and accuses the man of scamming them. Because of everything the mysterious man appears to be, the husband’s actions towards him are nasty even though the man is generous towards

them.
Things that are precious and hold value seems to influence the characters actions in the stories.

In The Possibility of Evil, Miss Strangeworth’s roses influence her actions and the way she acts towards tourists on Pleasant Street. Jackson writes, “Miss Strangeworth never gave away any of her roses, although the tourists often asked her. The roses belonged on Pleasant Street and it bothered Miss Strangeworth to think of people wanting to carry them away,” (Jackson, 1). Miss Strangeworth is shown as a cordial and very generous person, especially towards tourists, but when it comes to her roses, she has no desire to give them away to anyone because of the meaning they hold within her family and within her. Because they are so important to her, it causes her be selfish and greedy with them even though she is not perceived as being selfish or greedy. In “A Bolt of White Cloth”, the mystery man’s actions are influenced by what seems to be most important to him: love. Rooke writes, “”You can only buy my cloth with love”... “Should you ever stop loving,” he said, “you shall lose this cloth and all else. You shall wake up one morning and all else will no longer be where you left it” (Rooke,6). The mystery man talks a lot about how important love is to him in the story and by observing his actions in the story we can see that love is very important to him. Because love is so precious to him he is selling his cloth based on how much love a person has due to his belief of love having

more value than money.
The desires of the characters is a strong influence on them. In The Possibility of Evil, Miss Strangeworth is being influenced by her desire for Pleasant Street to be perfect. Jackson writes, ”but as long as evil existed unchecked in the world, it was Miss Strangeworth’s duty to keep her town alert to it…The town where she lived had to be kept clean and sweet, but people everywhere were lustful and evil and degraded” (Jackson, 5). Miss Strangeworth writes those notes thinking she is helping these people out by allowing them to be aware of situations that might not even be true. Miss Strangeworth believes that by writing those notes to people, it is cleansing Pleasant Street of the evil lurking around, which is what she wants. In “A Bolt of White Cloth”, the actions of the wife are influenced by her desire for the cloth. When the mystery man first appears, the wife appears cold towards him. However after he gives her the cloth, her actions toward him become different. Rooke writes,
“Here’s a nice drink of cool water. You need it on a day like this.”…”You could stay on for supper”…”There’s plenty to spare.”…“My wife is not normally a demonstrative woman, not in public. Certainly not with strangers. You could have knocked me over with a feather when she up and kissed him full on the mouth, with a nice hug to the boot. “There’s payment,” she said, “if our money’s no good”(Rooke,6).
Even though she is mean to the mysterious man in the beginning, after he gives her the cloth for the price of love, her actions of being cold towards him changes and she begins treating him kindly.
What a person is surrounded by can make an impact on their life and decisions they may have to face. These two stories show readers how the influence of people, cherished objects or people, and what one desires affect what a person does in their life. Though these stories seem to be very different from each other in terms of situations that occur, their characters show that they actually are not that different from each other because of how the characters react to the different situations.