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The Possibility Of Evil 'And The Catbird Seat'

414 Words2 Pages

Short Story Essay Two short stories that are intriguing are “The Possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson, and “The Catbird Seat” by James Thurber. These stories may seem different in many ways, but they both have one main idea in common. This is the fact that in both stories the theme is sometimes a fear of change can cloud our judgment of what is moral and what isn’t. In “The possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson, it represents many reasons to why fear of change can cloud judgement of people. This is true because Miss Strangeworth sent a letter to Linda Stewart’s parent and they would have continued their life “if Miss Strangeworth had not opened their eyes” (Jackson 4). Moreover, it is significant because it shows that Miss Strangeworth simply thinks she is being gracious and opening people’s eyes to the possibility of evil in their town. …show more content…

Additionally, it displays that Mr. Martin doesn’t mind the changes at first, but then she was “swinging at the foundation stones with a pickaxe” (Thurber 2). This also represents that even if Mr. Martin didn’t mind the changes at first, he starts to get really annoyed when Mrs. Barrows tries to change the whole system. When Mrs. Barrows starts to point out “Do you really need all these filing cabinets?” it starts to annoy Mr. Martin (Thurber 2). Consequently, it makes him so agitated and annoyed he wants to kill her, but he instead frames her. Both of these reasons are vital because it indicates that the judgment of people can cloud easy, and change their point of view. Conclusively, fear of change can sometimes be essential to people, and causes them to do abnormal actions. When fear of change comes into play, it can always block people’s view of something like whether or not something is moral. Sometimes all it takes as a reason to do something conniving or evil can be something so

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