Question

At the beginning of the story, Miss Strangeworth is characterized as?

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At the beginning of the story Miss Strangeworth is characterized as a sweet, kindly little old lady who lives a very simple life in a small town and who takes an interest in the welfare and happiness of everybody in her town. She has a regular routine which she follows practically every day. She goes for a walk in the morning, stops by the grocery store to pick up a few items, goes home, eats lunch, takes a nap, and then goes for another walk late in the day. She knows everybody and frequently stops to chat with people. Her only hobby--as far as anyone knows--is caring for her beautiful rose bushes.

She knew everyone in town, of course; she was fond of telling...

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She knew everyone in town, of course; she was fond of telling strangers – tourists who sometimes passed through the town and stopped to admire Miss Strangeworth’s roses – that she had never spent more than a day outside this town in all her long life. She was seventy-one. My grandmother planted these roses, and my mother tended them, just as I do.”…

Later in the story, it comes as a big surprise to learn that this sweet, innocent, kindly little old lady has another hobby and that it is a sinister one. She likes to write anonymous letters to people in the town which create worry, suspicion, animosity and hostility. As readers, we are the only ones who know about this second hobby, which reveals a streak of cruelty and insanity even Miss Strangeworth is unaware of herself. She observes that many people seem troubled lately, but she has no idea that she is the cause of these troubles with her slanderous poison-pen letters. 
"The Possibility of Evil" might be compared with Shirley Jackson's better-known story "The Lottery." Both are about people in small towns. In "The Lottery" the author exposes the dark sides of all the seemingly wholesome, neighborly people in the small town. In "The Possibility of Evil," Jackson focuses on the dark side of one apparently benevolent and virtuous old lady--the last person in the whole town anyone would suspect of harboring evil thousand or intentions.

The Possibility of Evil

At the beginning of the story, Miss Strangeworth is characterized as?

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