Adela Strangeworth In The Possibility Of Evil By Shirley Jackson

Albert Einstein, a theoretical physicist, once said, “The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” In society there are many bystanders of bullying. Many people say the bystanders are as harmful as the bullies. This is shown through the words of Shirley Jackson in the story “The Possibility of Evil”. The main character, Adela Strangeworth, tries to make the town she lives in the perfect place. She does this by telling everyone else what they are doing wrong and how their life is messed up. In twisted way, she is the bully; she tells everybody they are not doing anything right and how they are to live their lives. On the other hand, she is the one trying to fix all the evil in her society. She does everything out of a good nature, but in a degrading way. She is a woman with a goal in her mind, and this is to create a superb place where all can be …show more content…
Strangeworth’s desire to create a perfect town. Ms. Strangeworth had to keep the town, “clean and sweet, but people everywhere were lustful, evil, and degraded” (5). She felt it was her duty to write the letters to help everyone in her town grow as people. She would use the letters to tell the people what is going wrong in their lives without realizing the evil within them. Adela Strangeworth believed it was, “her town and [they] were her people; if one of them [were] in trouble, she would know.” (6). Ms. Strangeworth also did not want to see the people of her town in such an unacceptable manner. She desired to make the people of her town amorous and pleasant to be around. The day after she sent the letters, “Miss Strangeworth awakened with a feeling of intense happiness” (6) because she knew the victims would read the letters that day. Perhaps her desire to create a perfect place was too detrimental to others and the evil within them was not worth the pain for everyone