An Analysis Of Miss Strangeworth's The Possibility Of Evil

There have been many cases in history of people justifying evil to further a greater cause, whether it be good or bad. It has been as extreme as Hitler’s genocide against Jewish people believing he was helping the German people. There have been some cases in recent history such as the NSA’s spying network and the government believes they are protecting its citizens by spying them. The justification of evil is also present in the story The Possibility of Evil. People can justify their evil by claiming to protect people from others evil.

In The Possibility of Evil, Miss Strangeworth’s idealistic evil keeps the townspeople from being happy. Miss Strangeworth’s idea of a utopian society requires that the townspeople are protected from the “possible evil lurking nearby” (Jackson 226), and she does this by writing dishonest letters to the townspeople believing that “the town where she lived hat to be kept clean and sweet” (Jackson 226). However, this causes the townspeople to be miserable because of Miss Strangeworth’s letters, and although people did not show their disdain for Miss Strangeworth at first, they do when they realize that she was the person

She realizes this implicitly by saying that people “would never have been aware of possible evil lurking nearby if Miss Strangeworth had not sent them a letter” (Jackson 226). She knows that she has to stave off evil and it was her “duty to keep her own town alert to it” (Jackson 226). This shows how she justifies her evil action, by claiming that she is protecting the townspeople from any evil that comes their way. Miss Strangeworth believes that if she does not write her letters to her fellow townspeople then the town will succumb to evil. Miss Strangeworth’s vision for her town is to be evil-less and the only way to accomplish this is if she writes letters to them even though the letters are hurtful and contain