In Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Possibility of Evil,” the author uses irony as a tool to tell her story. For example, when Mr. Lewis left high school and started working at the grocery store, the narrator explains, “Miss Strangeworth had stopped calling him Tommy and started calling him Mr. Lewis, and he had stopped calling her Addie and started calling her Miss Strangeworth” (334). This shows they weren’t as good friends as they were at school. Even though they do know each other, they don’t call them by their first names, making this situational irony. In addition, when Miss Strangeworth and Helen Crane talk about Helen’s baby, Miss Strangeworth says, “ ‘Nonsense. All babies are different. Some of them develop much more quickly than
