The short story, “The Possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson takes place in Great Britain during the late 1900’s or early 2000’s. It tells the story of Ms. Strangeworth, an old lady who is secretly evil, who wants to ruin people’s day by sending rude letters with vibrant colors. The letters usually state Ms. Strangeworth’s opinion and makes the reader sad and angry. It is ironic that Ms. Strangeworth made letters to rid the world of evil, when she was in fact evil herself. First, Ms. Strangeworth walks daintily over to the store where she buys her lunch and is angered at the store manager for not reminding her about buying tea. Then, Ms. Strangeworth comes across the Crane family and their baby. She states that the baby will be spoiled because of all the gifts and toys she has. The Crane couple denies this. After that, Ms. Strangeworth writes letters to the Crane family, anonymously saying that the baby will be an “idiot child”. Ms. Strangeworth writes many of these letters. Next, she sees Linda, who is a teenage girl, run away from her house with tears in her eyes. This is because Ms. Strangeworth sent a letter to her father stating that the Harris boy and Linda were doing bad things. The dad banned the Harris boy from their house. Finally, while Ms. Strangeworth is delivering more letters, one falls and the Harris boy picks it up. It was supposed to be given to Don Crane. So the Harris boy delivers the letter to Don Crane, personally. When he opens the letter, he is shocked to see all of the mean things Ms. Strangeworth wrote. As the story ends, Ms. Strangeworth wakes up to find a letter near her door. It says, “Look out at what used to be your roses”. This implies that Ms. Strangeworth’s flowers were cut. I liked the ending because Ms. Strangeworth got what she deserved. Nothing tastes better than sweet, sweet revenge.
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May 2017
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