The Possibility of Evil

“The Possibility of Evil” is a domestic horror short story by Shirley Jackson. Originally published in The Saturday Evening Post in December 1968, it later appeared in the collection Just an Ordinary Day, posthumously published in 1996. Jackson's other well-know works include the short story "The Lottery" (1948) and The Haunting of Hill House (1959).

The story is written in the third-person perspective of protagonist Miss Adela Strangeworth. Miss Adela Strangeworth is a wealthy old woman who lives alone in an unnamed small town; she lives in the same grand house where her mother and her grandmother once lived, and takes great pride in her rose garden and in what she sees as her elevated social status and her place in the town’s history. Tourists (as opposed to townspeople) often exclaim over her rose garden, and she explains to them that her grandfather “built the first house on Pleasant Street” and that her family has lived here for “better than a hundred years” (419).

The story follows Miss Strangeworth as she goes about her daily routine. She first goes grocery shopping at the local store run by Mr.