How is Miss Strangeworth characterized in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Miss Strangeworth is primarily characterized indirectly in this short story. This means that Jackson mostly shows us what she is like through her actions and thoughts rather than using an omniscient narrator to tell us what Miss Strangeworth is like.

Because of the indirect characterization, our awareness of who Miss Strangeworth is unfolds slowly. At first, she appears to be a kindly older woman who grows beautiful roses in her yard and is actively engaged in the life of her neighbors. As the story continues, however, we realize that Miss Strangeworth is the author of poison pen letters meant to hurt others in her community.

Miss Strangeworth feels superior to the other people in her town, who don't seem to meet her standards. For example, the librarian can be "sloppy" about her personal appearance, and the grocer is wrong not to instantly remember Miss Strangeworth's order.

As the self-appointed arbiter of good and evil in the town, Miss Strangeworth justifies her letters as a way to keep evil in check. However, she also, we are told, likes writing them.

Miss Strangeworth is a typical woman of her day who has been forced to stuff down her feelings behind a smiling facade of kindness and good will. Because she has never been able to acknowledge her aggressive or unpleasant feelings, as she has been taught they are "bad," they have been bottled up inside her and poisoned her. Now the poison is erupting as she spreads her long repressed malice throughout her community.

How is Miss Strangeworth characterized in "The Possibility of Evil"?

It would be fair to call Miss Strangeworth a reactionary. She is deeply averse to change or variation in the narrow existence in which she defines herself and her neighbors. Miss Strangeworth has extremely rigid notions about the unwritten rules of society and makes it her mission to try to correct what she sees as deviations from the norm through her anonymous letter-writing campaign.

Though she finds quite a lot to criticize in her neighbors, Miss Strangeworth is completely self-satisfied. She revels in her roses, her ritualized meals, and her schedule. When Miss Strangeworth is forced to confront the fact that she has been found out as the anonymous letter-writer, she fails to recognize her own evil and remains focused on the wrongdoings of others instead of considering that perhaps she has brought the destruction of her roses on herself.

How is Miss Strangeworth characterized in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Miss Strangeworth is a complex character. The entire story is actually about the difference between appearance and reality in this woman's character. On the surface she appears to be a kindly, harmless, uncomplicated little old lady with a small-town woman's interests and mentality. She prides herself on being the last surviving member of the town's oldest family and as such feels responsible for watching over the other citizens of the town. Then we find out that she has only recently acquired an obsession with writing anonymous letters in which she hints at the sinful behavior of one person to a person closely connected with him or her. In one other instance she writes poison-pen letters to the parents of a six-month-old baby girl in which she refers to the infant as an "idiot child."

Miss Strangeworth seems totally unaware that her letters are causing all kinds of trouble in her town. She thinks she is only doing her duty and is being helpful. We have to conclude that this old lady is losing her mind. She spends too much time alone. She writes her poison-pen letters in secret. It is apparent that the real motives behind all of her letters are envy, bitterness, loneliness, and jealousy. She unconsciously wants to destroy the happiness of people who have someone to love or someone to share their lives with. She is a pathetic person because she keeps herself busy with petty matters in order to keep from facing the truth about herself, which is that she is all alone, has never been loved, and nobody really cares about her. She resembles Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations and Miss Emily Grierson in William Faulkner's short story "A Rose for Emily." Her unhappiness makes her cruel. A good example is in the case of the young lovers Linda Stewart and Dave Harris. They are just enjoying an innocent high school romance, but their happiness with being in love and having someone else to fill their lives brings out the worst in Miss Strangeworth because she has always wanted this and has never had it.

In the end we feel pity for this pathetic old maid, in spite of the trouble she has caused. We also feel sorry for her when Don Crane destroys her precious rose bushes after he accidentally finds out that she is the author of the poison-pen letters he and his wife have received about the possible arrested mental development of their baby daughter. The "possibility of evil" that Miss Strangeworth sees all around her in this little town is really a projection of the evil inside herself.

What does Miss Strangeworth secretly do in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Miss Strangeworth has a dark secret. For the past year she has been writing anonymous letters to people in her town hinting that something bad may be happening in their lives which they are not aware of. She thinks that she is performing a public service and that, as the town's senior resident, it is her duty to issue these warnings. Instead, she is creating suspicion, anxiety, hostility, and other troubles.

On the day during which the story takes place, she writes three of her poison-pen letters. Her letter to Mrs. Harper suggests that the woman's husband is having an affair with another woman and that everybody knows about it but his wife. Her letter to Mrs. Foster suggests that the old woman's nephew might have bribed her surgeon to cause her to die on the table when she has her forthcoming operation. And her letter to Don Crane suggests that his six-months old baby girl is mentally retarded. The short note reads:

DIDN'T YOU EVER SEE AN IDIOT CHILD BEFORE? SOME PEOPLE JUST SHOULDN'T HAVE CHILDREN SHOULD THEY?

Miss Strangeworth prints all these letters and their envelopes in big block capital letters so that she cannot be identified by her normal handwriting. Quite by accident, Don Crane finds out that the letter he received had been written by this apparently sweet little old lady. He takes revenge by chopping up all her prized rose bushes and sending her his own anonymous letter in which he writes:

LOOK OUT AT WHAT USED TO BE YOUR ROSES

This is probably an evil thing for him to do, and it seems to prove Miss Strangeworth's belief that there are innumerable possibilities of evil in the citizens of her town. The story is somewhat reminiscent of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," in which the protagonist finds out that all his apparently god-fearing neighbors are secretly devil-worshippers, including his own wife. In Shirley Jackson's better-known short story "The Lottery" it turns out that everybody in the town has a vicious streak and enjoys stoning one of their neighbors to death, as long as they have escaped drawing the black spot themselves. Miss Strangeworth is effective in putting people on their guards, because there really is a "possibility of evil" in everybody. It is obvious in "The Lottery" that everybody in the crowd is enjoying the thrill of stoning poor Tessie Hutchinson to death, especially Old Man Warner, who takes the lead saying, "Come on, come on, everyone." Sweet little old Miss Strangeworth thinks she is the only one in the whole town who is incapable of doing anything evil, and yet her greatest pleasure is in her evil hobby of writing poison-pen letters. The evil she senses in other people is really a projection of the evil inside herself.

How do Miss Strangeworth's letters reveal her character in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Miss Strangeworth seems like a nice, simple little old lady in the opening part of the story. But she turns out to be a complicated character. The three letters she writes when she gets home have one thing in common. They betray the fact that she is unconsciously filled with envy at people who have something in their lives that has always been missing in hers. She tells herself that writing her letters is fulfilling a civic duty, warning people against the possibility of something bad happening to them if they are not watchful. But in each of the three letters we actually read, we can see that she has a motive she is not even aware of herself.

The letter she writes to Don Crane strongly suggests that she envies him and his wife for having a baby they both adore. She has never been married and may have always dreamt of having a baby of her own. Of course, it is too late now. So she warns Don against having any more babies. She writes: 

Didn’t you ever see an idiot child before? Some people just shouldn’t have children, should they?

Her letter to Mrs. Harper, which follows up on others she has previously mailed to her, suggests that Mr. Harper may be having an illicit affair with another woman who lives right in their town. Miss Strangeworth has never had a husband. She can at least try to poison the marriage of a woman who does. She writes:

Have you found out yet what they were all laughing about after you left the bridge club on Thursday? Or is the wife really the last one to know?

We do not see the letter Miss Strangeworth has written to Linda Stewart's parents, but we can see that Linda and Dave Harris might have been the target of her secret envy because they are so young and so in love.

The letter that goes to old Mrs. Foster seems intended to arouse fears about of her pending operation as well as to poison the relationship between Mrs. Foster and her nephew. Miss Strangeworth writes:

You never know about doctors. Remember they’re only human and need money like the rest of us. Suppose the knife slipped accidentally. Would Doctor Burns get his fee and a little extra from that nephew of yours?

This letter is subtle and complex. It suggests that Mrs. Foster must be financially well off, while at the same time it suggests that Miss Strangeworth is not. Miss Strangeworth has two reasons for envying this woman. Mrs. Foster is wealthy and has a nephew who cares about her and looks after her. Mrs. Strangeworth has nobody, and never had anybody.

Miss Strangeworth's anonymous letters are commonly called poison-pen letters. In all the cases mentioned in the story, her letters have the effect of poisoning someone's relationship with another person. In the case of Don and Helen Crane, the letter about their baby could easily hurt their relationship by making them afraid to have any more children. 

Miss Strangeworth is perhaps more to be pitied than censured. She is a lonely and unhappy old woman leading an empty life. She resembles Emily Grierson in William Faulkner's story "A Rose for Emily" and Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations.

Why does Miss Strangeworth write letters in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Miss Strangeworth sees the town as her town. Her grandfather built the first house on Pleasant Street, as she proudly tells tourists, and this gives her a sense of proprietorship over those who live in the town. As such, Adela feels entitled to wear the mantle of local moral guardian, which involves doing all she can to root out the least sign of what she regards as immorality.

That's why she writes poison pen letters to various people in the town. Although the letters are thoroughly nasty and detestable, Miss Strangeworth genuinely thinks it's necessary for her to write them in order to maintain a high moral climate in town. The irony here is inescapable; Miss Strangeworth engages in immoral actions for the good of morality.

This bizarre and delusional attitude ultimately stems from what we saw earlier: Miss Strangeworth's proprietorial attitude to the town and its inhabitants. So long as the old lady genuinely thinks that this is her town and that she therefore has the right to act as the guardian of its moral climate, then she will continue to write such horrible letters.

Even when Adela gets a taste of her own medicine, she shows no regret for her actions. Instead, she cries silently for the wickedness of the world. In other words, she's not wicked; other people are. In her own mind, at least, she's still the paragon of virtue.

Why does Miss Strangeworth write letters in "The Possibility of Evil"?

It might seem like a facetious answer to say that Miss Strangeworth writes letters to others because there would be little point in writing them to herself. However, the story shows that Miss Strangeworth focuses on the flaws of others partly because she lacks the gift of introspection. She regards herself, her house, her roses, and everything she owns as the height of perfection. Mistakes are only made by other people. Even when buying her groceries from Mr. Lewis at the beginning of the story, she reproaches him for failing to remind her to purchase some tea, rather than assuming, as most people would, that it is her own responsibility to remember what groceries she needs. Throughout the story, she sees everyone's flaws except her own.

This minor incident at the beginning of the story demonstrates another characteristic of Miss Strangeworth's which leads her to write the letters. She enjoys power, control, manipulation, and the sense that she is sitting in judgment over lesser mortals. She has not forgotten to buy tea from Mr. Lewis; she merely wants to train him to follow her whims. Jackson says that Miss Strangeworth "sometimes found herself thinking that the town belonged to her." She has a strongly territorial attitude, constantly emphasizing the contributions her family have made to the town, and is resentful that others are insufficiently impressed by her importance. Writing her poison pen letters is a way of exercising power over those around her without engaging in open conflict.

Why does Miss Strangeworth write letters in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Miss Strangeworth writes poison pen letters to others because she has not developed healthy strategies to help her deal with her anger and aggression. She represses her feelings in order to keep up the appearance of sweetness and goodness that is so important to her ego and self-perception.

But as Freud wrote, what is repressed always comes back in other forms. Miss Strangeworth's aggressive feelings towards her neighbors come out in the form of her destructive, spiteful letters, meant to wound and cause pain. She writes what she cannot allow herself to say, or even fully acknowledge to herself, outside of the letters.

The letters show projection, a psychological defense mechanism in which people assign feelings and desires they find unacceptable onto others. Miss Strangeworth can't accept that the "evil" she finds "unchecked in the world" resides in her. She projects her feelings of self-loathing and her secret wishes onto others. It is most likely she who feels people are laughing at her or who wants to steal the petty cash from the grocer's register. But because her ego is fragile and because she works extremely hard to keep up the illusion that she is pure and superior to her neighbors, she can't accept these ideas might be her own and so accuses others of them.

At seventy-one, Miss Strangeworth has a host of unresolved psychological problems and repressions and might benefit from a good therapist to help her sort them out.

Why does Miss Strangeworth write letters in "The Possibility of Evil"?

In Shirley Jackson's short story "The Possibility of Evil," Miss Strangeworth is an elderly lady of the town who feels a moral obligation to warn other people of the potential evils that may befall them in life. She writes anonymous letters to people in order to "open their eyes" to "possible evil lurking nearby." The paragraph of the story that explains her motive for writing the letters also says that Miss Strangeworth "never concerned herself with facts" in the letters since she felt it was important to raise people's level of suspicion. We are told that Miss Strangeworth's opinion on the matter is that "as long as evil existed unchecked in the world, it was Miss Strangeworth's duty to keep her town alert to it."

Some of the "evils" that she has forced people to consider are of the more mundane sort, such as adultery and the birth of a child with retardation. Other imagined evils are more elaborate, such as the idea that someone's nephew might bribe a surgeon to fatally botch that person's upcoming surgery in order for the nephew to maybe receive his inheritance sooner. She has been ruining people's relationships and sense of security for an entire year with this letter-writing hobby. Unfortunately for Miss Strangeworth, the vigilance that she has been trying to teach to her neighbors is ultimately turned against her. When one letter recipient discovers that she is the author of the rude letters that have been received all over town, Miss Strangeworth's beloved rose garden is vengefully destroyed.

Why does Miss Strangeworth write letters in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Miss Strangeworth has developed some very distorted thinking and an unhealthy proprietary interest in a place "she had never spent more than a day outside." She believes that "there wouldn't have been a town here at all if it hadn't been for my grandfather and the lumber mill."

Because her entire life of seventy-one years has been spent in the same place, her range of experience is quite narrow. She is a reactionary who believes that the values she has embraced all her life must continue, and her letter-writing campaign is a pathological exercise in attempting to force her beliefs on others. The rigidity of her habits is demonstrated when she goes to Mr. Lewis's grocery and chides him for "forgetting that I always buy my tea on Tuesday." She is so self-absorbed that she doesn't stop to consider that Mr. Lewis has responsibilities beyond catering to her rituals—or that others have the right to live their lives as they see fit.

The hateful letters that Miss Strangeworth writes are an outward manifestation of her self-righteousness. It cannot be reasonably said that her letters are meant as constructive criticism. Instead, they are deliberately hurtful and do not recommend any corrective action. Because Miss Strangeworth's life is empty, it allows her plenty of time to observe and sit in judgment of others.

Why does Miss Strangeworth write letters in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Miss Strangeworth has been writing her anonymous poison-pen letters for about one year and is getting a lot of enjoyment out of her new hobby. It would seem that she does not understand her true motives for writing these letters or how much anxiety and discord she is causing in her little community. She tells herself that it is her civic duty because she is the oldest surviving member of the town's founding family. This seems like a rationalization. This sweet little old lady has a strong desire to be important. 

Yes, we all crave attention. We want to be important, immortal. We want to do things that will make people exclaim, “Isn’t he wonderful?”

The urge to be outstanding is a fundamental necessity in our lives. All of us, at all times, crave attention. Self-consciousness, even reclusiveness, springs from the desire to be important.   
--Lajos Egri 

Etiam sapientibus cupido gloriae novissima exuitur.
“The thirst for fame is the last thing of all to be laid aside by wise men.”
--Tacitus 

I now perceive an immense omission in my psychology: the deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
--William James 

To be a human being means to possess a feeling of inferiority, which constantly presses towards its own conquest....The greater the feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more powerful is the urge for conquest and the more violent the emotional agitation.
--Alfred Adler

It can also be seen from the letters and the people to whom they are addressed that Miss Strangeworth is filled with envy and jealousy. She is an old maid who has never been loved and never had her dream of being a mother fulfilled. She is really a pitiful case, in spite of the fact that she is a busybody and a troublemaker. She has written several letters to Helen Crane hinting that the six-month-old daughter who is the light of her life may be mentally retarded. On the day of the story she is writing a similar letter to Don Crane, Helen's husband. Why pick on these people? Because they are in love and are thrilled to have a new baby. Her letters will spoil things for them. They will be afraid to make love and conceive another child. They will feel less pleased with the baby they already have. And there is probably not a thing wrong with their baby--only a "possibility."

Miss Strangeworth has caused serious problems for Linda Stewart and Dave Harris, a couple of teenagers who are in love and probably intend to get married some day. Why pick on these kids? They love each other and are happy together. Miss Strangeworth has never experienced these things. She has written to Linda's parents suggesting the possibility that the two kids have gone beyond the usual teenage necking and that Linda might get pregnant. 

Some people will try to spoil things for others out of envy and jealousy. It is not to hard to recognize such people by little things they say and little questions they ask. If you feel worse after having talked to them, it is a good sign that you should stay away from them. Oddly enough, the children seem to sense that Miss Strangeworth is not the nice little old lady she appears to be.

Most of the children stood back respectfully as Miss Strangeworth passed, silenced briefly in her presence, and some of the older children greeted her; saying soberly, "Hello, Miss Strangeworth."

In every one of the cases recorded in the story it can be seen that Miss Strangeworth is unconsciously attempting to create discord between others who have relationships she lacks. Eris, the Goddess of Discord, is said to have caused the Trojan War because she was, understandably. not invited to a banquet held for all the other divinities. The ancient Greeks, who derived their gods and goddesses from human characteristics, must have recognized that creating discord was a significant human trait and that it was motivated by bitterness at feeling left out.

Why does Miss Strangeworth write letters in "The Possibility of Evil"?

It would appear that Miss Strangeworth does not understand her own motive or motives for writing her anonymous letters. She rationalizes that it is her civic duty to keep the citizens of her town alerted to the possibilities of evil threatening them personally. She is the last surviving member of the town's founding family and is exceptionally proud of that distinction—although it means little to anybody else. She is just a lonely old maid who has nothing to do with her time and has to make up activities to fill her days. A good example of this is the way she goes grocery-shopping practically every day and buys in very small quantities so that she will have to keep coming back and have at least one thing to do. She thinks she is so important as a person and as a customer that the store-owner Mr. Lewis should remember that she always buys a small quantity of tea on Tuesdays.

"Imagine your forgetting that I always buy my tea on Tuesday," Miss Strangeworth said gently. "A quarter pound of tea, please, Mr. Lewis."

There is no reason why she couldn't buy a full pound of tea once a month, but this gives her an excuse to keep coming back. Time weighs heavily on her hands. She has only discovered the pleasure of writing her poison-pen letters in the past year. They give her something to do, and she can tell herself that she is contributing to the welfare of the community. She cannot realize that she is a busybody and a troublemaker. Her letters are doing no good, only harm. Much of the evil she suspects in others is a projection of the evil inside herself. This is reminiscent of the biblical injunction:

1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.

2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

                                      Matthew 7:1-5 King James Version

So the alleged purpose of the letters is to guard the morals of her neighbors, while the real purpose is to give Miss Strangeworth something to do and to make her feel important. Why are the letters anonymous? Perhaps she senses somewhere deep in her unconscious that she is causing harm and that she could get in serious trouble for making what amount to false accusations. She can be more creative if her identity as the author is unknown. It is only by accident that her identity becomes known to one person, Don Crane, because she dropped his pink letter accidentally at the post office. But Don Crane probably will not tell anybody except his wife Helen who sent him that letter. He can't tell other people because then people will know who chopped up the old lady's rose bushes. Her secret is still safe for a while.

Why does Miss Strangeworth write letters in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Miss Strangeworth apparently does not understand how much trouble she is causing with her anonymous letters, nor does she seem to be aware of the real reason she is writing them. She tells herself she is doing her civic duty as the oldest person in the community and as the only surviving member of the family that founded the town. It would appear, from what we know of the people to whom she has been sending her letters, that she is motivated by envy, jealousy, and bitterness. She is a lonely old maid, and she feels embittered when she sees anyone who has another person to love. Her letters invariably damage human relationships. Perhaps, like Miss Emily Grierson in William Faulkner's story "A Rose for Emily," Miss Strangeworth has never in her entire life had anyone to love and to love her.

A good example of people victimized by Miss Strangeworth's unconscious jealousy is the high-school kids Linda Stewart and Dave Harris, who are very much in love. Miss Strangeworth has poisoned their innocent romance by writing an anonymous letter to Linda's parents hinting that Dave is carrying the relationship far beyond the usual hugging and kissing of kids their age.

Miss Strangeworth is probably jealous of Martha Harper because she has a husband. The letter to Mrs. Harper plants seeds of suspicion by hinting that everybody knows her husband is having an affair with another women in the town. Mrs. Harper is apparently a prime target. When Miss Strangeworth is writing her letters that day, we learn that she has written poison-pen letters to this woman before.

After thinking for a minute, she decided that she would like to write another letter, perhaps to go to Mrs. Harper, to follow up the ones she had already mailed. She selected a green sheet this time and wrote quickly: Have you found out yet what they were all laughing about after you left the bridge club on Thursday? Or is the wife really the last one to know?

Don and Helen Crane are not only happily married but have a six-months-old daughter they adore. Miss Strangeworth tries to increase their worries about their baby's development by sending a letter reading:

Didn't you ever see an idiot child before? Some people just shouldn't have children, should they?

This is intended to poison the Cranes' marital relations and prevent them from having any more children. 

Old Mrs. Foster has a nephew who is probably very important to her because he is apparently her only living relative. Miss Strangeworth sends her an anonymous letter reading:

You never know about doctors. Remember they're only human and need money like the rest of us. Suppose the knife slipped accidentally. Would Doctor Burns get his fee and a little extra from that nephew of yours?

This will make the old woman mistrustful of both her nephew and her doctor. Mrs. Foster is probably already sufficiently worried about undergoing a major operation at her age and may decide to cancel it. 

Mr. Lewis the grocer has a grandson who helps out in the store. 

Mr. Lewis would never have imagined for a minute that his grandson might be lifting petty cash from the store register if he had not had one of Miss Strangeworth’s letters.

We can feel sorry for Miss Strangeworth, as we do for Faulkner's Emily Grierson and for the lonely Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations. Miss Strangeworth is obviously unaware of the jealousy and bitterness that so many other people in her town cause her just by being happy in having someone to care for. She keeps her feelings hidden from herself until the very end of the story.

She began to cry silently for the wickedness of the world when she read the words: Look out at what used to be your roses.

She is not really crying for the wickedness of the world but crying for all her years of unrequited longing for love. Her roses were a poor substitute for love, but they were the only substitute she had. 

Why does Miss Strangeworth write letters in "The Possibility of Evil"?

We are never told exactly what motivates Miss Strangeworth to write her anonymous poison pen letters, but we are given several clues. In both of the quotes below, Miss Strangeworth dwells on the idea that the world is an evil place. She also repeats that she is the last Strangeworth left in the town. This suggests that the Strangeworths are the kind of people who have a history of being judgmental and seeing evil where none exists:

There were so many wicked people in the world and only one Strangeworth left in town. Besides, Miss Strangeworth liked writing her letters.

. . .

The town where she lived had to be kept clean and sweet, but people everywhere were lustful and evil and degraded, and needed to be watched; the world was so large, and there was only one Strangeworth left in it.

The quotes also give us some clues as to what might be going on beneath the surface of Miss Strangeworth. She is seeing evil lurking everywhere, and she believes she is the last of her family left to uphold morality by rooting out wickedness.

First, we learn that Miss Strangeworth likes writing the letters and that she perceives a divide between a town facade that is "clean and sweet" and the underlying (to her) reality that people are really "lustful and evil and degraded." It seems that Miss Strangeworth herself has felt forced to keep up too much of facade of sweetness and perhaps been trained to repress too many of her negative or aggressive emotions. They have welled up inside her as a poison, and she "likes" writing the letters because they help her express some of the anger and negativity she has been forced to hide. She is projecting her own evil onto others so she can continue to feel pure and good, and at same time, let some of her aggressions out.

Why does Miss Strangeworth write letters in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Miss Strangeworth has been sending her poison-pen letters to people in her town for a long time. Does she just enjoy making trouble? Or is there a reason why she targets certain people? She is called Miss Strangeworth because she is obviously an old maid. This might seem to put her in the same category as Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations and Emily Grierson in William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," both of whom are consumed with hatred. Miss Strangeworth may hate people who are happy because she has never been loved.

When she gets home she writes three of her letters. One of them goes to Don Crane. Miss Strangeworth had just been talking to his wife Helen, and she knows they are both worried about their six-month-old baby daughter's development. She may be motivated by jealousy of this young couple who love each other and now have a baby to love. So she writes:

Didn't you ever see an idiot child before? Some people just shouldn't have children, should they?

Her next letter is for Mrs. Harper. She may be jealous of her because she has a husband. She writes:

Have you found out yet what they were all laughing about after you left the bridge club on Thursday? Or is the wife really the last one to know?

She obviously would like to poison the long marital relationship between the couple by planting the suggestion that Mr. Harper is having an affair with another woman.

Miss Strangeworth's third and final letter is "to old Mrs. Foster, who was having an operation next month." She writes:

You never know about doctors. Remember they're only human and need money like the rest of us. Suppose the knife slipped accidentally. Would Doctor Burns get his fee and a little extra from that nephew of yours?

It could be surmised that Miss Strangeworth is jealous of Mrs. Burns because she has a lot of money and also because she has a nephew who loves her and looks after her.

Miss Strangeworth has created trouble for a couple of teenagers, Linda Stewart and Dave Harris. These two are going steady and are in love. This could easily make Miss Strangeworth sufficiently jealous to do what she did. She sent Linda's parents a letter suggesting that their fifteen-year-old daughter was having illicit relations with the Harris boy. She overhears the two youngsters talking when she gets to the post office to mail her three letters.

"I can't tell you, Dave," Linda was saying—so she was talking to the Harris boy, as Miss Strangeworth had supposed—"I just can't. It's just nasty."

"But why won't your father let me come around anymore? What on earth did I do?"

"I can't tell you. I just wouldn't tell you for anything. You've got to have a dirty, dirty mind for things like that." ....

It is a touch of irony that Dave Harris, who has no idea that Miss Strangeworth is the cause of his troubles with Linda's parents, tries to help the old lady out by hand-delivering her poison-pen letter to Don Crane and telling Don that Miss Strangeworth accidentally dropped it at the post office.

What is Miss Strangeworth suggesting in her letter to Mrs. Harper in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Miss Strangeworth and Mrs. Harper know each other fairly well. They belong to the same bridge club and call each other by their first names, as they do when they happen to meet in the grocery store earlier. Miss Strangeworth's first name is Adela and Mrs. Harper's first name is Martha. Adela Strangeworth has already sent several of her poison-pen letters to this poor woman who appears to be someone she has known for years. That day when Miss Strangeworth gets home she writes another.

After thinking for a minute, she decided that she would like to write another letter, perhaps to go to Mrs. Harper, to follow up the ones she had already mailed. She selected a green sheet this time and wrote quickly: Have you found out yet what they were all laughing about after you left the bridge club on Thursday? Or is the wife really the last one to know?

She is obviously suggesting that Martha Harper's husband has been having an affair with some women in the town and that everybody knows about it except his wife. This was probably more or less what Adela Strangeworth had hinted at in "the ones she had already mailed." Why is she doing this? She must be crazy. She doesn't realize that she is being cruel. From her point of view she is just warning Mrs. Harper of the "possibility" that her husband could be having an extramarital affair. When she runs into Martha Harper at the grocery store earlier, she notices that the woman seems different.

“Ran out of sugar for my cake frosting,” Mrs. Harper explained. Her hand shook slightly as she opened her pocketbook. Miss Strangeworth wondered, glancing at her quickly, if she had been taking proper care of herself. Martha Harper was not as young as she used to be, Miss Strangeworth thought. She probably could use a good, strong tonic… 

Miss Strangeworth is keenly observant. She takes an interest in all the people in "her town." Yet she doesn't realize that her anonymous letters to Martha Harper could be creating nervous problems that cause her hand to shake. Miss Strangeworth notices other people who seem troubled too: the grocer, for instance:

Mr. Lewis looked worried, she thought, and for a minute she hesitated, but then she decided that he surely could not be worried over the strawberries. He looked very tired indeed….

We learn later that she has sent him at least one anonymous letter in which she suggested that his grandson might be stealing money out of the cash register.

Many people seemed disturbed recently, Miss Strangeworth thought. Only yesterday the Stewarts’ fifteen-year-old Linda had run crying down her own front walk and all the way to school, not caring who saw her. People around town thought she might have had a fight with the Harris boy, but they showed up together at the soda shop after school as usual, both of them looking grim and bleak….

Linda Stewart and Dave Harris are two more victims of Miss Strangeworth's letters. She has written to Linda's parents hinting that the two young people have been going far beyond the usual hugging and kissing stage of adolescent romance. Miss Strangeworth does not understand her own motives. She seems to be a lonely spinster who is jealous of anybody who has anyone to love. This is apparently the case with Martha Harper and her husband. She is planting suspicions in Mrs. Harper's mind--not only of her husband but of all the women in the town with whom he could be having an illicit affair.

Miss Strangeworth never concerned herself with facts; her letters all dealt with the more negotiable stuff of suspicion.

This sweet little old lady does not realize the possibility of evil that exists in herself.

What is Miss Strangeworth suggesting in her letter to Mrs. Harper in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Shirley Jackson's "The Possibility of Evil" is a wonderful little short story that, like other works by Jackson, focuses on what happens when the idiosyncrasies of small town life go terribly wrong. Miss Strangeworth is a local gossip, but rather than share stories with others, she creates falsehoods and mails anonymous letters to those they concern, thus setting many in the town on edge and causing them to second-guess both themselves and those around them.

When Miss Strangeworth goes to the grocery store, she runs into Mrs. Harper, who seems somewhat nervous. Jackson writes:

Miss Strangeworth moved slightly to make room for Mrs. Harper at the counter.

“Morning, Adela,” Mrs. Harper said, and Miss Strangeworth said, “Good morning, Martha.” . . .

“Ran out of sugar for my cake frosting,” Mrs. Harper explained. Her hand shook slightly as she opened her pocketbook.

At this moment in the story, there is no explanation for Mrs. Harper's reaction, and so it's difficult to infer what is happening. However, toward the latter part of the story, Jackson allows the reader to witness Miss. Strangeworth's writing process. In doing so, she also presents more information regarding the potential reason for Mrs. Harper's nervousness:

After thinking for a minute, she decided that she would like to write another letter, perhaps to go to Mrs. Harper, to follow up the ones she had already mailed. She selected a green sheet this time and wrote quickly: Have you found out yet what they were all laughing about after you left the bridge club on Thursday? Or is the wife really the last one to know?

Clearly, Mrs. Harper has been a target of Miss. Strangeworth for a long time. The letter she is writing in this instance is a "follow up" to many that she has already written to Mrs. Harper. The subject matter of the letter itself makes it clear why Mrs. Harper reacted somewhat curtly and nervously: Mrs. Harper has been receiving anonymous letters suggesting that not only is her husband cheating on her, but everybody in town knows it and talks about it behind her back.

In case there were any doubt as to Miss. Strangeworth's horrid nature, Jackson goes on to state that "Miss Strangeworth never concerned herself with facts; her letters all dealt with the more negotiable stuff of suspicion." Clearly, she is terrible. Fortunately, by the end of the story, she slips up and is discovered. Unfortunately, though, the reader is never granted access to the fallout, beyond the suggestion that her roses have been destroyed.

What motivates Miss Strangeworth to write her letters in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Miss Strangeworth is obviously somewhat insane. This makes it hard to understand her motivation. She probably does not understand it herself. There are several plausible reasons why she writes her anonymous letters.

• It makes her feel important to be supervising the people in her town and to be offering suggestions, warnings, and advice. 
  

  I now perceive an immense omission in my psychology: the deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
  William James

  To be a human being means to possess a feeling of inferiority, which constantly presses towards its own conquest....The greater the feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more powerful is the urge for conquest and the more violent the emotional agitation.
  Alfred Adler

  The author Shirley Jackson shows that Miss Strangeworth attaches great importance to her social status. She feels responsible for the morality of the whole community. The problem is that she is really not important at all. She is just a little old lady who is sometimes a busybody and sometimes a nuisance. The way she demands special attention from Mr. Lewis the proprietor of the grocery store shows her need to feel important.
• She enjoys writing these letters. She enjoys picking out the colors of the sheets and envelopes. She enjoys creating just the right words and tones.
• She is envious and jealous because she has never been married, never had a baby, never felt loved. She is a little like Emily Grierson in William Faulkner's short story "A Rose for Emily." The victims of Miss Strangeworth's poison-pen letters always have someone to care about and to care about them. Don and Helen Crane have a six-months-old baby girl they adore. Linda Stewart and Dave Harris are high school kids in love. Mrs. Harper has a husband. Mr. Lewis has a grandson. And so on. Assuming Miss Strangeworth is insane, she must have a split personality. One part of her doesn't understand that her letters are causing troubles all over town, while there must be another part of her that knows why she is writing these letters but doesn't like to acknowledge her motives even to herself. The fact that she has to remain anonymous in her letters suggests that she knows she is doing something evil and has to keep her rancor a secret.

What is Miss Strangeworth trying to accomplish by sending out her letters? Does she succeed?

As an eccentric woman with an overstated sense of personal responsibility toward her townspeople, Mrs. Strangeworth believes that she has the ability to control the town that views her as a sort of matriarch due to the long family history of the woman.

Acting like some form of vigilante, Strangeworth erroneously concludes that, in order to keep the town in check, she should provoke situations by sending anonymous letters to neighbors. These letters put people at odds with each other, provoking the exact behaviors that she claims to want to avert: disdain, hatred, repudiation, lies, and much more. Strangeworth has a twisted mind in the sense that, while she has a good rationale in trying to avert "evil" in town, she is using the most crass methods possible, which lead to the opposite of what should be accomplished.

Mr. Lewis would never have imagined for a minute that his grandson might be lifting petty cash from the store register if he had not had one of Miss Strangeworth's letters.

 That is the ironic tragedy. Even when she is caught as the writer of the letters, and the people take vengeance by destroying her garden, she sees that act as the "really" bad thing, and not what she did to the others.

Miss Chandler, the librarian, and Linda Stewart's parents would have gone unsuspectingly ahead with their lives, never aware of possible evil lurking nearby, if Miss Strangeworth had not sent letters opening their eyes

We could argue that she succeeds at causing havoc in the lives of others, whether that is what she was doing in her mind or not.  She also succeeds at planting doubt and discord.

Yet, she also wanted to avoid all of that. She viewed her actions as necessary and did not measure the collateral damage that was being caused. In that sense, she did not succeed at averting the evil, but she did succeed at thinking that she may have.

What is Miss Strangeworth trying to accomplish by sending out her letters? Does she succeed?

Miss Strangeworth is of the opinion that it is her personal duty as a Strangeworth to watch over her town.  She sees evil where there is none; in her paranoid and misguided state, she imagines the worst in everyone.  By sending the letters, she is hoping to stop trouble before it begins, or combat the evil deeds committed in her town.

Since the only true evil apparent to the reader is her own, no, Miss Strangeworth does not succeed in making her town better.  She makes a lot of people nervous, frightened and sad.

Miss Strangeworth attacks the healthy intelligence of the Crane baby; she causes Linda Stewart's parents to suspect the worst behavior between Linda and Dave, when they have done nothing wrong; and, infers to Mrs. Harper that her husband is being unfaithful.  Other letters have driven wedges between people who genuinely care for each other, but Miss S. sees nothing wrong with what she does.

The book says Miss Strangeworth does not deal in facts, but in the possibility of evil.  The irony, of course, is that the only evil in the town comes from within herself.

What is the general opinion of Miss Strangeworth in "The Possibility of Evil"?

People in town generally think of Miss Strangeworth as a respected citizen. This is due to the reputation of Miss Strangeworth's family. At the beginning of the story, we learn that her grandfather built the first house on Pleasant Street. Her garden, tended by both her grandmother and mother before her, is famous for the trademark roses which have become a tourist attraction. People acknowledge Miss Strangeworth's presence and greet her when they see her. Even the young people in town address her respectfully.

Also, because of her age and respected position in her town's history, many people look to her for advice. In the story, we see Helen Crane asking Miss Strangeworth for advice about her baby. When Helen confesses her worries about her baby's developmental growth, Miss Strangeworth reassures her, arguing that all babies develop at their own pace. In short, the town generally thinks well of Miss Strangeworth, unaware that she is the culprit behind the troubling and judgmental letters many people have been receiving.

However, towards the end of the story, Shirley Jackson hints that Miss Strangeworth's anonymity may soon come to an end. When Miss Strangeworth receives what appears to be one of her own letters back, her shock is genuine when she reads of a threat to her roses. The tables have been turned, and Miss Strangeworth is horrified to fall victim to the same malice she has inflicted on others.

What is the general opinion of Miss Strangeworth in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Generally, people in the town are fond of Miss Strangeworth and we can see this from their interactions with her. When she goes to the grocery, for example, she is instantly acknowledged by other customers:

Half a dozen people turned away from the shelves and counters to wave at her or call out good morning.

Similarly, other members of the town value her opinion and experiences. Mrs Crane, for example, asks Miss Strangeworth for an opinion on child development:

Don' you think she ought to move around more? Try to sit up, for instance?

Miss Strangeworth is also well-respected by younger members of the community, as shown when she goes to the Post Office. Most of the children, for example, stand back "respectfully" and many of them greet her by saying hello.

Arguably, people like Miss Strangeworth because they have no idea that she is the mastermind behind the poison pen letters. On the surface, she appears to be a kind and friendly old lady but, in reality, she uses her anonymous letters to upset and wreak havoc on the lives of others. This idea demonstrates the notion that appearances can be deceptive and this is one of the story's central themes.

What is the general opinion of Miss Strangeworth in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Miss Strangeworth is proud of the fact that, in her seventy-one years of life, she has never been outside of this town for more than one day. She knows everyone in town and it follows that most people know her. When she goes to the store, many people stop to say hello: 

When she came into the grocery, half a dozen people turned away from the shelves and counters to wave at her or call out good morning. 

Outwardly, Miss Strangeworth is very polite and amiable with those she encounters. To everyone else, she is a nice, old woman who has been living in town for nearly a century. She exchanges pleasantries with Mr. Lewis and Mrs. Harper. It is only in her own mind that she expresses criticism of other people. Miss Strangeworth tells Helen Crane not to worry about her baby, but she will later compose a letter criticizing the Crane's for even having a baby. She writes anonymous letters criticizing all of these people. Given that she is always friendly and pleasant in person, no one in town suspects that she might be the one writing these letters. It is not until she drops a letter and the Harris boy delivers it to Don Crane that anyone in town knows that she is behind these letters. Miss Strangeworth looks for the "possibility of evil" in others. But when the Cranes discover she is the author of the letters, they finally discover the possibility of evil in her. 

Is Miss Strangeworth in "The Possibility of Evil" an evil person?

If evil is defined as engaging in behavior that is harmful and hurtful to other people and actively being deceptive, then Miss Strangeworth is evil. She writes poison-pen letters that spread false and malicious gossip that is painful to the recipients. In her letters, she accuses people of theft, of having affairs, and of being laughing stocks or unfit mothers with "idiot" babies. Not only the content but the language is ugly.

Miss Strangeworth sends the poison-pen letters secretly and anonymously, showing herself to be underhanded. She is deceptive because she presents a facade of sweetness and light. She lies, simply making up what she puts in her letters, dealing in "suspicion" rather than fact.

However, we could also see Miss Strangeworth as a mentally disturbed person whose mind has snapped (she only began writing the letters a year ago) because she has repressed her aggressive and negative feelings for so long. Because she feels she has to uphold her founding family's reputation and always show a facade of goodness and sweetness, the angry and hostile feelings every human being experiences have been denied an outlet. Freud argued that everything we repress will resurface in one form or another: in Miss Strangeworth's case, her anger and aggression resurface in the form of the poison-pen letters. Evidence that she is mentally ill shows in her complete disassociation from what she is doing. For example, she thinks that the letters she writes are "trash," unworthy of her signature. So although she may seem evil, a strong case could be made that Miss Strangeworth is badly in need of therapy.

What is Miss Strangeworth's view of human nature in The Possibility of Evil?

Miss Strangeworth's view of human nature is that people are evil, and she suspects the worst of their behavior.

So when Helen Crane, a new mother, wonders if her baby daughter is a little "slow," Miss Strangeworth jumps to the conclusion that the baby must an "idiot" and writes Mrs. Crane a poison pen letter to tell her that. She has no evidence but

Miss Strangeworth never concerned herself with facts; her letters all dealt with the more negotiable stuff of suspicion.

Miss Strangeworth also sends a poison pen letter suggesting that Linda Stewart is having an affair with the Harris boy. She doesn't even really believe the rumor herself, but as long as there is a possibility of evil she feels the need to alert people to it. This creates trouble and discord in the town.

We discover that Miss Strangeworth sends two or three poison pen letters a day because of her deep-seated idea that people are evil:

The town where she lived had to be kept clean and sweet, but people everywhere were lustful and evil and degraded, and needed to be watched ...

What is Miss Strangeworth's view of human nature in The Possibility of Evil?

Miss Strangeworth believes that human nature is essentially "evil." She sees herself as different from everyone else; she wishes to "live graciously," and so she is meticulous about her home's cleanliness, the beauty of the flowers in her garden, and her smug judgment of other people who behave in such "evil" ways. She feels that it is her responsibility, her duty as the last and only Strangeworth in town, to keep this evil in check and alert others to it. When she overhears two enamored teenagers speaking privately with one another, she "sighed and turned away. There was so much evil in people."

Of course, Miss Strangeworth is wrong in many ways. She herself displays a fair amount of evil when she writes and sends her nasty, anonymous letters containing mean rumors and snide insinuations to unsuspecting townspeople. It is she who is evil, or at least who does evil things to others, rather than those people she accuses of evil. Further, one of the people she unjustly accuses of wrongdoing, young Dave Harris, actually does a very kind thing, the very thing that ends up revealing Miss Strangeworth's identity as the anonymous nasty note writer. When she drops the note to the Cranes on the ground, Dave picks it up and hand delivers it to the Cranes, as a kindness, on his way home. Dave is clearly not evil at all, terribly misjudged by the nasty Miss Strangeworth, and so we can assume that many other people who are targeted by her are innocent of such a charge as well.

Does Miss Strangeworth seem like a reasonable person in "The Possibility of Evil"?

In Shirley Jackson’s story, the differences between appearance and reality form one important theme. Miss Strangeworth believes herself to be entirely reasonable. To the people of her hometown, where she was born and has lived her entire life, she generally seems like a reasonable person. In her daily interactions with the other residents, she epitomizes the qualities on which she prides herself. Although they understand that she is arrogant and rather out-of-touch with modern times, because it is a small town, the others tolerate her eccentricities. It seems to occur to no one that she is the source of the anonymous, ill-intentioned letters, because such behavior does not match their conception of her personality. However, Jackson makes it clear that appearances are often deceptive, and those who are both innocent and not suspicious of others’s bad behavior are often most likely to be targeted or victimized by it. When Miss Strangeworth’s own carelessness betrays her and she is proven to be anything but reasonable, retribution is swift and sure.

Does Miss Strangeworth seem like a reasonable person in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Miss Strangeworth must seem like a reasonable person to everybody in her town, but we readers know she is really insane. There are several indications that she is insane. One is that she makes accusations without having any evidence. She suggests that Mrs. Harper's husband is having an affair with another woman. She suggests to Mrs. Foster that her nephew might be bribing her surgeon to kill her on the operating table. She suggests that Don Crane's six-month-old infant girl is probably mentally retarded. She has already created serious trouble for Linda Stewart and her boyfriend Dave Harris by suggesting to Linda's parents that the two teenagers are engaging in sexual intercourse. Miss Strangeworth does not have even the slightest bit of evidence for her accusations. This is what makes her seem insane.

Miss Strangeworth never concerned herself with facts; her letters all dealt with the more negotiable stuff of suspicion. Mr. Lewis would never have imagined for a minute that his grandson might be lifting petty cash from the store register if he had not had one of Miss Strangeworth's letters.

Another indication of Miss Strangeworth's possible senile psychosis is that she does not realize she is causing so much trouble with her poison-pen letters. She notices that many people seem anxious or worried, but she has no idea that her letters have anything to do with their problems. Furthermore, she does not realize her own motives for writing these anonymous letters. She thinks she is doing her civic duty, when in fact she is probably motivated by envy and jealousy. She envies Mrs. Harper for having a husband when she has been an old maid all her life. She is jealous of Don and Helen Crane for having a beautiful baby, when she has never been able to have one herself because she has never even had a husband. There is a lot of secret anger and hatred concealed behind the mask of a sweet little old lady which she presents to the townsfolk.

Anybody who does what Miss Strangeworth has been doing for the past year--sending those poisonous letters to people she knows personally--cannot be considered "reasonable." Only Don Crane knows that Miss Strangeworth has a dark side to her character, but he may not tell anybody else what he knows because he would not want them to suspect him of chopping up her rose bushes. Furthermore, Don Crane doesn't know that other people have been receiving Miss Strangeworth's poison-pen letters. And she doesn't know that Don knows who sent him that letter in which she wrote:

DIDN'T YOU EVER SEE AN IDIOT CHILD BEFORE? SOME PEOPLE JUST SHOULDN'T HAVE CHILDREN SHOULD THEY?

So she may go on writing those letters for a long time until she has created utter chaos in the town she feels duty-bound to protect. 

Does Miss Strangeworth seem like a reasonable person in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Miss Adela Strangeworth is unaware of her own unreasonable thinking. Though she is pleasant to strangers and tourists, Miss Adela Strangeworth has “never spent more than a day outside the town” in all her seventy-one years. She thinks she has ownership or entitlement of the entire town because her grandfather built “the first house on Pleasant Street." More unreasonable thinking on her part is seen in the fact that Miss Strangeworth seems to think that strangers from strange towns are doing strange things with her roses. This is why she refuses to hand them out. When we read further into the story, we begin to see how Miss Strangeworth thinks of her own interactions by how she writes her letters. Her letters are short, harsh, very critical questions or thinly veiled threats that she does not say to people in person. It is also stated that Miss Strangeworth does not concern herself with facts but rather focuses on “stuff of suspicion.” She declares it her responsibility to keep the entire town in check, in case of any lurking evil, purely on the basis of her own suspicions. In all this letter-writing and suspicion, not once does Miss Strangeworth stop to think that what she is sending out to the town is unacceptable or hurtful.

Does Miss Strangeworth seem like a reasonable person in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Miss Strangeworth does not seem like a reasonable person in "The Possibility of Evil." We see evidence of this early in the story when it is noted that she will not give any of her roses to people who visit the town. The reasoning behind this decision is rather petty: she cannot bear the thought of her roses being taken to another town.

Later, her inability to be reasonable is further reinforced when she visits the grocery. Miss Strangeworth notes, for instance, that Mr Lewis looks "very tired indeed," yet she chastises him when he fails to remind her to order some tea.

Finally, the fact that Miss Strangeworth sends poison pen letters is another example of her unreasonable nature. This is because she chooses to intimidate people with her anonymous letters than talk to them about their problems.

Which quotes show Miss Strangeworth as an antagonist in "The Possibility of Evil"?

Miss Strangeworth's role as the story's antagonist is illustrated at several points in the story. It is first demonstrated, for example, when Miss Strangeworth talks with Miss Chandler, the librarian, and reflects on her personal appearance:

Miss Strangeworth noticed that Miss Chandler had not taken much trouble with her hair this morning, and sighed. Miss Strangeworth hated sloppiness.

We also find evidence of Miss Strangeworth's antagonism when she writes her poison pen letters. In a letter to Mrs Crane, for example, Miss Strangeworth plays on the new mother's insecurities:

Didn’t you ever see an idiot child before? Some people just shouldn’t have children, should they?

Next, Miss Strangeworth writes a follow-up letter to Mrs Harper, which provides another example of her need to create conflict:

Have you found out yet what they were all laughing about after you left the bridge club on Thursday? Or is the wife really the last one to know?

Finally, Miss Strangeworth's role as an antagonist is also reinforced through her thoughts about protecting the town from evil. In this quote, Miss Strangeworth demonstrates the purpose of her mission in cleansing the town from bad influences:

The town where she lived had to be kept clean and sweet, but people everywhere were lustful and evil and degraded, and needed to be watched.