“The Possibility of Evil” is a critique of mid-20th-century WASP (white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant) culture, which outwardly projected an image of perfection while obscuring its unsavory elements. Jackson plays up the utopic lens through which WASPs saw their world to the point of parody. For instance, the street Miss Strangeworth lives on is named Pleasant Street and it is suffused by the smell of roses. Similarly, everyone in town cannot help but remark upon what a lovely day it is, and it seems as though the sun never stops shining. Everything on the surface looks picture perfect, but underneath evil still lurks.
Miss Strangeworth is the most obvious culprit in the story, as she regularly sends out her nasty letters that disrupt the lives of others. However, she is not the only person whom Jackson critiques in the story. There is also Linda Stewart, who cynically asks, “Why do anyone a favour?” as well as Don Crane, who presumably destroys Miss Strangeworth’s roses. All of the characters in the story project an appearance of innocence, but almost all of them have darkness lurking underneath. The only exception to this rule is Dave Harris, who decides to deliver Miss Strangeworth’s letter out of the goodness of his heart—a decision that ironically backfires and results in the Cranes’ anger and the destruction of the roses. Speaking of the roses, they are the perfect symbol to represent this theme: from far away they are beautiful and fragrant, but close up, one begins to see their thorns. Therefore, the destruction of the roses is not just a one-off act of rage, but rather a metaphor for the idea that the “utopia” of mid-20th-century WASP culture is actually an illusion.
Related Themes from Other Texts
The Illusion of Utopia ThemeTracker
The Illusion of Utopia Quotes in The Possibility of Evil
Miss Adela Strangeworth stepped daintily along Main Street on her way to the grocery. The sun was shining, the air was fresh and clear after the night’s heavy rain, and everything in Miss Strangeworth’s little town looked washed and bright. Miss Strangeworth took deep breaths and thought that there was nothing in the world like a fragrant summer day.
She knew everyone in town, of course; she was fond of telling strangers—tourists who sometimes passed through the town and stopped to admire Miss Strangeworth’s roses—that she had never spent more than a day outside this town in all her long life.
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. Miss Chandler, the librarian, and Linda Stewart’s parents would have gone unsuspectingly ahead with their lives, never aware of the possible evil lurking nearby, if Miss Strangeworth had not sent letters to open their eyes.
There was so much evil in people. Even in a charming little town like this one, there was still so much evil in people.
“Catch old lady Strangeworth sending anybody a check,” Linda said. “Throw it in the post office. Why do anyone a favor?” She sniffed. “Doesn’t seem to me anybody around here cares about us,” she said. “Why should we care about them?”
“I’ll take it over, anyway,” the Harris boy said. “Maybe it’s good news for them. Maybe they need something happy tonight, too. Like us.”
Miss Strangeworth awakened the next morning with a feeling of intense happiness and, for a minute, wondered why, and then remembered that this morning three people would open her letters. Harsh, perhaps, at first, but wickedness was never easily banished, and a clean heart was a scoured heart.
Miss Strangeworth was a Strangeworth of Pleasant Street. Her hand did not shake as she opened the envelope and unfolded the sheet of green paper inside. 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.
