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Everyday Evil
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Although Miss Strangeworth describes her letter-writing process as a necessity to cleanse evil from her community, it is actually a way for her to release her own repressed thoughts and feelings. In particular, Miss Strangeworth is fixated on two things: money and sex. Miss Strangeworth is regularly critical of people who she thinks are flaunting their wealth. This includes Don and Helen Crane, who like to buy their child expensive garments, and Billy Moore, who drives around in his father’s fancy car. Though she is not subtle about her distaste for such actions even in person, she becomes especially vitriolic in her letters, as she calls the Crane child an “idiot”—meaning intellectually disabled—and tells the school board that Billy Moore’s father, a chemistry teacher, should not be able to afford his new car. Similarly, Miss Strangeworth assumes every relationship between a man and a woman to be sexual in nature and therefore evil. This is demonstrated in the letter Miss Strangeworth sends to Mrs. Harper pertaining to adultery and in the letters she sends to Linda Stewart’s parents, which imply a sexual relationship between Linda and Dave Harris.
Notably, all of Miss Strangeworth’s accounts are unfounded and therefore say much more about her than they do about their addressees. On the subject of wealth, Miss Strangeworth is shown to be hypocritical; she lives in a nice house with expensive objects and takes great pride in the roses that she doesn’t allow others to touch. Meanwhile, her obsession with sex can be interpreted to be a sign of jealousy. After all, Miss Strangeworth is single and has apparently always lived alone. Miss Strangeworth’s repressed feelings might explain the rage exhibited in her letters, as well as why she feels so energized the morning after sending them.
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Repression ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Repression appears in each chapter of The Possibility of Evil. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Repression Quotes in The Possibility of Evil
Below you will find the important quotes in The Possibility of Evil related to the theme of Repression.
The Possibility of Evil
Quotes
Carrying her little bag of groceries, Miss Strangeworth came out of the store into the bright sunlight and stopped to smile down on the Crane baby. Don and Helen Crane were really the two most infatuated young parents she had ever known, she thought indulgently, looking at the delicately embroidered baby cap and the lace-edged carriage cover.
“That little girl is going to grow up expecting luxury all her life,” she said to Helen Crane.
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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.
She had been writing her letters – sometimes two or three a day, sometimes no more than one in a month – for the past year. She never got any answers, of course, because she never signed her name. If she had been asked, she would have said that her name, Adela Strangeworth, a named honored in the town for so many years, did not belong on such trash.
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.
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