Friday, October 12, 2007

Lola's Group for October 17 Work

Post answers here for questions chosen for "The Possibility of Evil." Group members: Claudia, Zahra and Andrew.
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4 comments:

andrew said...

About Theme: What image of mankind emerges from the story?

In "The Possibility of Evil" Shirley Jackson amazingly shows us a classic authoritative on appearance but weak inside character from which we could take a peep at the other side of the nature of humanity: wickedness. Miss Strangeworth is a seventy-one years old lady who has lived "the town in all her life" and treats herself as "thinking that the town belonged to her." Consequently she keeps using anonymous dirty letters as a weapon to attack those who she thinks are "lustful and evil and degraded" until one day people find out accidentally. The wickedness inside her eventually and inevitably hurts herself by a letter which says "Look out at what used to be your roses." from one of her victims. In my opinion her whole life is pathetic and meaningless due to the evil side of her humanity and for sure people like Miss Strangeworth would be abandoned by everyone in the society.

October 15, 2007 at 12:42 AM
zara said...

Q. Do the characters have speech mannerisms, gestures, or modes of dress that reveal their inner selves
Miss strangeworth is seventy-one year old woman who lives elegantly and proudly in whole her life in her heritage house. She is an organized and self disciplined person. Her house always neat and clean and her roses which is the emblem of her ability is unbelievably trimmed and organized like a museum. She doesn’t chat with people too much. She just by telling a hi or glance at people judges them that he/she looks “worry, weak, or sloppy” and then after her realization she prescribes a letter with some awkward words to the person to make them better citizen for her city. Miss strangeworth behavior was weird and unusual, maybe some people understand but it was a tradition to respect her because they believed she is the symbol of their city.

October 16, 2007 at 1:20 PM
Lola said...

Do the characters have speech mannerisms, gestures, or modes of dress that reveal their inner selves?
In “The Possibility of Evil,” Shirley Jackson gives lots of detail about Miss Strangworth’s habits to reveal her character indirectly and also tells the story vividly through flexible writing techniques. Miss Strangworth’s famous’ speeches such as “I have watched my town grow”; “It should have been a statue of my grandfather”, draw out a proud and conservative woman coming alive to readers. She “stops every minute” to say good morning to the people of “her town” when she walks down Main Street, shows us her inner longings-- she really believes that she has an important position in the town and deserves the respect of others. She used to “shake her old hand” when she finds something violating her principle, this gesture displays that she prefers to deny others because she is the only one judge in the town. In addition, her “rusting shirt,” “buttoned shoes,” and “the inherited hats” reveal a stubborn and thrift character. I don’t like Miss Strangworth, but I enjoy Jackson’s description to this character.

October 16, 2007 at 8:38 PM
Claudia said...

Q. Do the characters have speech mannerisms, gestures, or modes of dress that reveal their inner selves?
In “The Possibility of Evil” Jackson describes an indirect character of Miss Adela Strangeworth because of her particular behaviour of mannerisms and gestures. For example, Adela has a disguise personality when she is around people. Furthermore, she pretends to be a respectful lovely lady who is harmless to anyone in town. She loves to brag about her family, and she thinks “that the town belongs to her”. In the other hand, her inner selves reveals the real evil once she is alone at her dwell .Miss Strangeworth’s selfishness, won’t allow to “give away any of her roses “, so it remarks an unsympathetic person. In fact, she thinks “is her duty to keep her town”. In addition, When she sends anonymous letters to the citizens of her town; she imagines that will help to improve the life of others, but she ignores a huge malice done through her action. At the end, she wakes up one morning, and opens an envelope that reads “LOOK OUT AT WHAT USED TO BE YOUR ROSES”. Jackson reveals at inner selves of a person who feels solitary,and becomes wicked.

October 17, 2007 at 1:07 AM

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