Like long stories and treasure maps, there’s always something mysterious to find out. Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Possibilities of Evil”, provides examples with how helping someone actually causes more pain to yourself than anyone else. Miss Strangeworth is an elderly who puts more weight on her shoulders than she believes she can handle. 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. Miss Strangeworth’s character can be analyzed by considering what she does. Throughout the story, readers learn what the old lady is like behind closed doors. Miss Strangeworth is sneaky with her identity though everyone on Pleasent Street knows her. For instance, “She had been writing letter -sometimes two or three a everyday …show more content…
For demonstration, “When she came into the grocery, half a dozen people turned away from the shelves and counters to wave or call out good morning.” This is an example showing that the town is naive by who the old lady is. They don’t suspect her to be one to write letters with no identity traced back; people do not know Miss Strangeworth writes the mysterious and disturbing letters. Because of that, people everyone respects their elders. Also, another example would be, “Miss Strangeworth had never had any self-consciousness before the children. She did not feel that any of them were staring at her unduly and longing to laugh at her; it would have been most reprehensive for their parents to permit their children to mock Miss Strangeworth of Pleasent Street.” Even though people are sweet to her because of their age gap, she thinks everyone already knows who is the boss and to bow down to her because of her family past. The citizens had courtesy and just took Miss Strangeworth as another person. Undoubtedly, the citizens treated her as anyone