Mrs. Strangeworth In The Possibility Of Evil By Shirley Jackson

Possibility of Evil Theme
Miss. Strangeworth has a strange secret. Living on Pleasant Street by herself gives her a lot of time to do what she chooses, but what if she wasn’t the caring old lady people think she was? The Possibility of Evil by Shirley Jackson teaches us to treat others the way you want to be treated because Miss. Strangeworth wrote threatening letters and as a result received letters from the townspeople who also had vandalized her garden in an act of revenge.Some people might interrupt this story to be a karma based tale when it really is about treating people equally. Treat others the way you want to be treated.
On Pleasant Street lives Miss. Strangeworth who hides a secret. Miss. Strangeworth writes ill-mannered letters

In the story, The Possibility of Evil, gives us the character Miss. Strangeworth, the eloquent woman as she is not afraid to say what she thinks but often holds back as she knows too much. Her thoughts wrap around to the thought of evil when someone does something she doesn’t approve of. On page 2, “Don and Helen Crane, were really the two most infatuated young parents she had ever known, she thought indulgently, looking at the delicately embroidered baby cap and the lace edged carriage cover. ‘That little girl is going to grow up expecting luxury all her life,’ she said to Helen Crane. Helen laughed. ‘That’s the way we want her to feel,’ she said. ‘Like a princess.’ ‘A princess can see a lot of trouble sometimes,’ Miss. Strangeworth said dryly.” That quote proves my idea that Miss. Strangeworth doesn’t care if what she says results in undermining someone else’s self-esteem or their pride. She has her own opinion and has no intention to change it. On page 6, it reads “‘Not anymore Dave, not anymore. You’re not to come near my house again; my father said so. He said he’d horsewhip you. That’s all I can tell you: You’re not to come near our house anymore.’ ‘But I didn’t do anything.’ ‘Just the same, my father said…’ Miss Strangeworth sighed and turned away. There was so much evil in people. Even in a charming little town like this one, there was still so much evil in people.” Miss. Strangeworth disagreed with the way the Harris boy and Linda Stewart, two kids in the town, and her thoughts ran to claiming evil in the world, and she believes her letters are healing the town and cleansing it of its unrighteousness. Miss. Strangeworth has opinions and a patent point of view and embellished in the fact she is respected by all and believes her work, the letters, are what is right for her