Symbolism In Shirley Jackson's The Possibility Of Evil

In Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Possibility of Evil” the literary movement, Southern Gothicism, is expressed through certain attributes that allow an easier way to further understand the story. Southern Gothicism became popular in American literature during the slave era to show the “evil” of the south that not all people could visibly see. Jackson selects characteristics for Adela to figuratively express specific elements that are directly linked to the Southern Gothicism movement.

Conflict is a big issue in the story The Possibility of Evil. The main conflict is person versus society and is between Miss Strangeworth and the whole town. Miss Strangeworth is a two faced character. Miss Strangeworth pretends to be a friend to all her so called friends and fellow town’s people, but secretly sends them disgusting and hurting messages in the mail unsigned. The author of the story really makes the reader want to figure out why a person that has lived in the town her whole life and knew everybody, [“She knew everyone in town, of course; [...] she had not spent more than a day outside this town in her long life [...] She was seventy-one” (249)] would do something terrible to that level to the only people she knows. At first when Miss Strangeworth’s actions are revealed to the reader, one may think that she is crazy, but as one reads on one starts to notice some other reasons. The

To conclude, Adela Strangeworth nothing at all if not disastrously deceptive, possessive, and harsh. She believes that the town is hers because of her grandfather ran the mill. This and her possessiveness grown from her roses and house resulted in her writing letters. These letter were both harsh and diminutive to the people who receive them. She writes these letters because in her eyes these people are evil doers and it is her duty to tell them off. Miss Adela Strangeworth is quite

She first starts out to be a nice, sweet lady but really, she is a meddlesome , mean woman. Namely to show her meddling, “As long as evil existed unchecked in the world, it was Miss Strangeworth’s duty to keep her town alert to it.” Miss Strangeworth was very nosy and listened in on everyone’s conversations so she could find something to write in her letters. This brought Miss Strangeworth joy. It made her happy to expose people’s secrets and bring trouble into her fellow towns members lives.

Miss Strangeworth’s Strange Character There are moments in every part of a normal human’s everyday life when they know they should not get into other people’s business. In the short story “The Possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson, Miss Adela Strangeworth, the main character, is the perfect opposite. Miss Strangeworth decides to put her nose in business that doesn’t involve her, and this allows her to have an interesting character. 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.

In the short story, “The Possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson the author uses several symbols to tell her story. One symbol are be the roses because it’s the love she has for her family and life. A second symbol is the possibility of evil because she can be harsh to someone and be nice to another person. A third symbol is the letter that she symbolizes her duty to inform people or evilness but doesn’t want to tell them who it is because she wants it to be anonymous. She doesn’t want to know who wrote the letters so they won’t complain to her.

Mr. Lewis would never have 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 their eyes. 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. It was far more sensible for Miss Chandler to wonder what Mr. Shelley's first wife had really died of than to take a chance on not knowing. There were so many wicked people in the world and only one Strangeworth left in the

In “The Possibility of Evil”, Shirley Jackson uses the unreliable narrator, Miss. Strangeworth, along with her use of suspenseful writing to create an intriguing story, that keeps the reader on edge. Miss. Strangeworth is an unreliable narrator due to Jackson’s way of characterizing her. Strangeworth is shown writing letters to everyone in the town, making sure to keep herself anonymous.

“The Possibility Of Evil” by Shirley Jackson is a short story about a woman referred to as Miss Strangeworth, who throughout the story is either writing letters or tending to her beloved roses. She is kind to others but also leads another secret life.“The Possibility Of Evil” by Shirley Jackson uses symbolism and tone to relate objects to real people.

Miss Adela Strangeworth, the protagonist of “The Possibility of Evil”, lives in a house that her family built two generations ago. She loves her house- “with its slimness and its washed white looks” (Jackson 3) and she especially loving and protective of her beautiful red and pink roses aligned in the front of her house. “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, to take them into strange towns and down

Achieving control is the main motive behind Adela Strangeworth and Emily Grierson’s subconscious’. Yet each woman sought control in extremely different ways. Adela sought to prevent her whole town from committing possible acts of evil. She disguised herself by writing letters anonymously, this gives her the freedom to be unknown, yet still maintain her control over her little town. Emily Grierson’s situation was different. She sought control over her own life, which her town had denied her of. They starved her of her only love, Homer Barron. The town felt that it was improper of noblesse oblige to be engaged to

Evil is judged on action and it is judged differently by other people. Society is the worst of all, everyone has their own opinions and everyone thinks that their opinion is the best but really the one of the worst types of evil is judgement, as the old saying goes don't judge a book by it's cover. This really works for the book the possibility of evil because at first Ms. Strangeworth seems like a nice little old lady with her rose garden and since she has been living in this town for so long that her evil was not thought of. What this story is trying to tell us is that evil is based off of situations and

Satisfaction can come in many different shapes and sizes, varying from each and every individual. Satisfaction is something, just about everyone craves. It is what most people work toward in their lives, it can also be known as someone’s “happiness”.The satisfaction of being accepted, the satisfaction of having the correct appearance in a society, and the satisfaction of doing all of the things that makes one happy. These are only a fraction of the many different appearances, satisfaction may show itself as. In Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Possibility of Evil,” the main character, “Miss Adela Strangeworth,” is shown to spend a lot of her time achieving, her own form of inner satisfaction in a number of various ways. To do this, she values

In the first few pages of the story,there was a lot of foreshadowing for what was to come, predominantly using Miss Strangeworth’s famous roses and the frequent use of Pleasant Street. On the very first page of the story there was a long description of

Buddha once stated, “it is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.” In “The Possibility of Evil,” Miss Strangeworth, a seemingly innocent elderly woman, sends cruel letters in order to rid her town of evil. When other townspeople discover her as the author of the letters, they destroy her prized roses. Shirley Jackson’s “The Possibility of Evil” not only reveals the deceitfulness of people, but also emphasizes the underlying evil of all humans and shows that evil remains insurmountable until fully accepted.