Examples Of Irony In The Possibility Of Evil

Irony is a funny thing. In Shirley Jackson’s short story “Possibility of Evil”, Miss Strangeworth may not think she’s doing anything wrong, but oh how wrong she is. Miss Strangeworth is a selfish, organized, and curious old lady who thinks she is entitled to help people out. Miss Strangeworth’s character can be analyzed by what she does, what the narrator says about her, and how others react with her. Miss Strangeworth’s character can be analyzed by considering what she does. She is very selfish. For example, on her account of her roses, she said she never gave any of her roses to anyone. Not even any of the tourists that asked nicely. She said they belonged on her street, Pleasant Street. She also said she was disgusted to think of her roses anywhere else. Also in the story, Miss Strangeworth felt that there should’ve been a statue of her grandfather and not of Ethan Allen even though Ethan deserved the statue of himself in the town. She goes on to state that there wouldn’t be a town without her grandfather and the lumber mill. As a result, Ethan got the statue. …show more content…
She is organized. Miss Strangeworth is clean namely her organization. Such as when the narrator says that “Every window, sparkled, every curtain hung stiff and straight and even the stones of the front walk were swept and clean. The other example says the exact same thing,” She’s really organized”. In particular the narrator says Miss Strangeworth stopped at her own front gate, as she always did, and looked with deep pleasure at her house with the red and pink and white roses massed along the narrow lawn, and the rambler going up along the porch, and the neat unbelievably trim lines of the house itself, with its slimless and its washed white look. Therefore she is