Preview

Adela Strangewroth Character Sketch

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
337 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Adela Strangewroth Character Sketch
A Possibility of Evil Character Sketch – Adela Strangeworth

She is portrayed as an old lady who has too much pride and wants to be in the know of every tiny piece of gossip in town. In the beginning of the story, it gives the readers the impression that she was a sweet old lady who takes much pride in her rose bush and enjoys the town gossip too much. Ms. Strangeworth comes off as prideful, intrusive and blunt. Ms. Strangeworth was portrayed as prideful throughout the story when she took so much pride in her rose bush which had been passed down to her by her family. She explained to everyone, including tourists who just pass through the town about how she inherited this magnificent rose bush and the first house ever built on Pleasant Street by her grandfather. She believed that she deserved much appreciation, honor and gratitude from the people of the small town because of her grandfather. Her when the town decided to put up a statue of Ethan Allen instead of her grandfather, she was disappointed and muttered “ but it should have been a statue of my grandfather. There wouldn’t be a town here at all if it hadn’t been for my grandfather and the lumber mill.” This shows the readers that she believed that the town was her’s and no one else’s. In the text, it claims that Ms. Strangeworth would not give out or share her flowers with anyone else because she believed that the roses belonged within her household. “.. it bothered Ms. Strangeworth to think of people wanting to carry them away, to take them into strange towns, and down strange streets.” Even when people requested for her beautiful roses for the town’s church, she would refuse. “When the new minister came, and the ladies were gathering flowers to decorate the church, Miss Strangeworth sent over a great basket of gladioli.” This tells us that she is very protective of her roses and would not even spare a

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    ROSE TOWN-Three days ago, an elderly woman was accused for her brutal actions; she will be facing two charges- libel and violation of the right to privacy. The accused, Ms.Strangeworth, a seventy-one year old resident of Pleasant Street, poison-pen lettered most of the families of the town which caused emotional harm to them.…

    • 572 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    | Flowers represent Miss Maudie because she is carefree and easygoing, she also enjoys taking care of all the flowers in her garden…

    • 325 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Depression in the 1800s

    • 1211 Words
    • 5 Pages

    One of the seductive factors of William Faulkner’s society in “A Rose for Emily” is the traditional and adamant mental attitude of the main character in the novel. Miss Emily Grierson was stern in her ways and refused to accept change. She was known to be a hereditary obligation to the town. When the next generation and modern ideas came into progress she creates dissatisfaction by not paying her taxes. For many years and through the time of her death she would receive a tax notice every December and it would be returned by the post office a week later unclaimed. When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily was opposed to the new idea. She herself did not allow them to fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mail box to it. She has no tolerance when it comes to modern ideas. Depression and anguish increased within her causing major conflicts after her father’s death. Being left alone and without any close family to seek support from, she dwelled in disbelief. As custom…

    • 1211 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Miss Adela Strangeworth

    • 628 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Shirley Jackson tells us about a very interesting character in the short story titled “The Possibility of Evil.” In the story Miss Strangeworth is an old lady who takes it as her duty too inform the town of evil, but one day one of her evil informing letters gets in the wrong hands and her favorite roses are cut. In this essay the character of Miss Strangeworth is described through her physical description, family, lifestyle and her hobbies.…

    • 628 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In “The Flowers,” a little girl is walking along in the woods behind her house like she had done many times before, but when she begins to “circle back to the house,” she steps into the head of a dead man. This man is the victim of a violent and tragic death. He has been beaten “he had had large, white teeth, all of them cracked or broken,” and has been hanged “It was the remains of a noose.” The little girl, until this…

    • 234 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    People said they were Mayella Ewell’s. ” Mayella Ewell symbolizes the geraniums in more ways than one. Geraniums can mean preference or gentility. Mayella prefers a more gentle lifestyle. She’s just a young girl that doesn’t know any better. Mayella wants more for her life and for herself. Geraniums can also mean stupidity. Mayella wasn’t necessarily stupid but she just wasn’t raised to know right from wrong. “I got somethin’ to say then I ain’t gonna say it no more. That nigger yonder took advantage of me an’ if you fine fancy gentlemen don’t wanta do nothin’ about it then you’re all yellow stinkin’ cowards, the lot of you. Your fancy airs don’t come to nothin’- your ma’amin and Miss Mayellerin don’t come to nothin’, Mr. Finch.” The Ewells lived behind a dump. Lee described their home as a playground for an insane child. Tending to those flowers as graciously as she does, Mayella is proving beauty can lie beneath the ugly. Mayella’s poor and unloved but there is something beautiful about…

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    character, Miss Adela Strangeworth, the setting and the general feeling of mystery , deceit and…

    • 1199 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    A Rose for Emily 16

    • 1220 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The story “A Rose for Emily” is told by an unknown narrator who lives in the town of Jefferson Mississippi. The reader is introduced to the protagonist Emily Grierson through the news of her death. Emily is the daughter of one of Jefferson's finest families, when Emily was young she was described as being one of the most beautiful ladies in Jefferson. The Grierson's as a family are very proud. The narrator gives an example of this in the following line, "People in our town…believed that the Griersons’ held themselves a little too high for what they really were" (Faulkner 3). According to Faulkner the Greisons’ home, in its heyday, was located on one of Jefferson’s “most select street” (Faulkner 1).…

    • 1220 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    She didn’t care, she thought it was her job to look after the people of this town. To demonstrate, while Miss Strangeworth was at the post office, delivering the letters, Linda Stewart came towards her crying saying, “I can’t tell you, I just can’t, it’s just nasty.” Miss Strangeworth obviously did something cruel, Linda just won’t tell her. Miss Strangeworth turned away and went to mail her letters. As she slid her letters into the slot two of them went in, and one of them fell outside onto the ground. She didn’t notice that she dropped one. Furthermore the next morning after Miss Strangeworth woke up she saw a green envelope lying on her floor. Miss Strangeworth opened the envelope. She began to cry silently for the wickedness of the world when she read the words: “Look out at what used to be your roses.” Clearly Miss Strangeworth’s cruel character came back to haunt her that morning. She had just made a huge…

    • 532 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    English

    • 374 Words
    • 1 Page

    The article began by saying how a ‘splendid but hugely expensive garden would be created in the grounds of Alnwick castle’. This gives us the impression that she is rich and is wasting her money away on some project that is costing 5 million pounds. It is until around line 70 when the readers get a bad impression of the Duchess as until then it says how ‘the locals’ ‘were less than impressed’ asking who ‘does she think she is’. This gives us the impression that the locals don’t think that she is a worthy Duchess and are not fond of her. It then goes on to say how the ‘duke and duchess believed they just had to click their fingers and everyone else would come running’. This gives the impression that they think they can do what they want and they think they are so powerful that everyone will come running to them and do whatever they please. By line 70 however, the readers start to see a different side of her when Rachel Cooke’s actually goes to see her when she realises that she’s not actually a bad person. The Duchess goes on to say how she ‘should try to win the critics round’ but she cannot be bothered. This gives the impression that she doesn’t care about impressing the locals and if they don’t like her then she will deal with it and not chase after them persuading them to like her. When she speaks she then says how she never expected to be Duchess and how it was ‘difficult for [her] to leave the farmhouse’. This gives us the impression that she’s actually a normal person and her background isn’t from royalty. Just because she is a duchess doesn’t mean that they have ‘unlimited cash’ she goes on saying. This gives us the impression that she feels that people instantly judge and think that she is very rich and doesn’t have any money problems but she has to ‘pay card bills’ just like anyone else. Furthermore it gives us the impression that she doesn’t feel like royalty she…

    • 374 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the short story “The Possibility of Evil” Shirley Jackson uses several symbols to tell her story about Miss Strangeworth.One symobol that Shirley Jackson uses are the roses that Miss Strangeworth holds dear in her heart.The roses are a symbol of what she loves in the story showing that she loves nothing else just her roses. Another symbol that Shirley Jackson gives is the letters that Miss Strangeworth writes to people about what she doesn't like about them.The letter represent the evil in Miss Strangeworth, and the hate in her heart throw out the story you will find out that she writes these to people in secret and talks bad of them and points out what she doesn't like. Shirley Jackson gives us another symbol and it's the lock door in…

    • 230 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Foremost, in the short story “The Possibility of Evil”, Miss Adela Strangeworth writes suspicious letters to several peers such as Don Crane about the possible evil lurking in her town, believing that “if one of [her people were] in trouble she ought to know about it” (Jackson 7), to which Don Crane replies, “LOOK OUT AT WHAT USED TO BE YOUR ROSES” (Jackson 8). As such, Miss Strangeworth and the people in her town have a totalitarian relationship, where her superiority lets her spiteful to other people, where a rebellious subject under her acts upon his instinct to overthrow her authority. Accordingly, when a character is out of line conforming to the author’s opinion about how humans should act around others, the character receives a form of punishment administered by the author. Furthermore, in the short story “Ambush”, a boy named Roger shoots an unsuspecting Joey Bacon with a water gun, and as a result, reacts violently by throwing a rock at his head; seven years later, an officer informs Joey’s mother that he had “died in an ambush near Khe Sanh” (Woodward 1). Whether this short story was biographical, as the protagonist and the author coincidentally have the same first name, the author incorporates this early rivalry between the two characters as a way to distance themselves, creating a conflict where Roger ultimately is not interested in Joey’s demise, believing it as poetic justice and revenge upon him as a result of his injuries. In the same way, within the realm of fiction, authors chasten characters who have done wrong doings against other characters like a physical wound, intentionally reflecting modern societal standards of how humans must treat each other on an equal basis, or else the author, representing an existential force, levels the ranks between them, delivering…

    • 1062 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The pull of approval from society is something that every person is motivated to achieve. Most people conduct themselves in a way that they think will be considered morally acceptable, in the story The Possibility of Evil however, miss Strangeworth thinks that her own opinions and feelings are the only ones important, and that nobody else’s are relevant. She believed that “People everywhere [in her town] were lustful and evil and degraded, and needed to be watched”(Jackson, 5). Her closed- minded way of thinking leads to members of her community being hurt and thus, her roses that she cares so much about are destroyed as revenge for her poorly thought through actions. If miss Strangeworth had kept her opinions and thoughts about others to herself, than she could have been content with her garden and its beautiful roses. The couple in Rookes story is portrayed as open minded and welcoming to everyone. When the man with “eyes… dark and brooding and hollowed out some.”(Rooke, 143) presents himself to the couple, they go against what most people in society would do and welcome the man to tell them about his cloth. The man does not only reward them with a beautiful piece of cloth for their kind actions, but also with their happiness. Without their open-minded perception of the man and his intentions, they would have been left with nothing.…

    • 791 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “The Possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson is a short story about an old woman that lives in a small town but has a big secret. Miss Strangeworth has stunning roses in her yard that have been passed down to her from generations; everyone in town comes to admire her roses. Even though Miss Strangeworth knows everyone and is nice to everyone, she anonymously sends letters to people. These letters contain things such as cheating, “accidental” deaths, and telling parents they aren’t fit to have children. I believe that Miss Strangeworth deserved what she got.…

    • 372 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Mary, a member of the younger generation and like every other resident of Garden Place, "did not talk to many old people any more" and owned a house that looked like the one beside and across it. Mary, knowing both sides, and has heard both Mrs. Fullerton and her neighbors' stories, is in a dilemma. She sacrifices being the topic of gossip at the next coffee party and asserts her position as one who does not care how things look and stands up for Mrs. Fullerton. Mary differs from every other resident of Garden Place by showing vulnerability while her discrete refusal to conform with the others imperceptibly bridges the division between the two…

    • 328 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays

Related Topics