In the short story “The Possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson, the author guides us to discover Mrs. Strangeworth, an old lady’s true personality that no one expects. As we keep reading the mystery of this work of literature we can observe how this character changes to a whole different kind of person while evaluating her strange action toward her town in the depth of this ironic story. Mrs. Strangeworth is a traditional old lady who is known extremely well in the town due to her family that lived there since the beginning. As the habitants in her town see Mrs. Strangeworth as a defenseless and polite senior person that loves to greet anyone with kindness they don’t expect her to do evil activities which became Mrs. Strangeworth greatest advantage in the town. She was very unpredictable because she has a specific schedule to do everything the same every day, while ironically, she writes nasty letters that she sends to everyone as her hobby really similar to cyber bullying.
Many people in the town had been a victim or made fun of her on a daily basis. Mrs. Strangeworth enjoyed what she was doing; she kept infiltrating other’s person’s privacy just to write more embarrassing stuff about them. She thinks that there was nothing wrong in writing this kind of letters to people because according to her it was her duty to do so. She writes this letter to inform people of their misdeeds or warn them about the rumors that bad things can happen to them that may not be true. Her letters cause stress and chaos in the town, making people become aware of them and panicky for nothing.
One day, as she kept sending a number of letters, there was a person that suspected her to do this kind of stuff. That person knew it was Mrs. Strangeworth because she’s one of the people who don’t have anything to do in with life but to commit this activity. Later on, Mrs. Strangeworth receives a counter attack, a nasty letter that she curiously opens and reads it “Now there is no flowers, outdoor your house” The Author has been known as the master of Ironic and mystery short stories, which every of her story we read would be the opposite on what we think about it as we keep reading the story little by little, this story shows the unexpected evils from this old lady that cause a grave damage in her own town, making me think that she still a old lady that was doing this because was getting to old and she needed attention.
