Point of View

"The Possibility of Evil" is written from a third-person point of view with limited access to Miss Strangeworth's thoughts. The narrator remains, for the most part, relatively detached from the action of the story, simply reporting events as they come. This third-person perspective is crucial to developing the mystery of the story, as the narrator's lack of commentary on what is happening may confuse readers, especially early on in the story. Before readers become aware of Miss Strangeworth's malicious hobby, the plot of the story is rather mundane: she wakes up, goes to the grocery store, speaks amicably with a number of townspeople, and returns home. Without much indication from the narrator about what readers should be flagging or paying attention to, the direction the story is headed remains mostly obfuscated. As such, the third person narration helps foster the sense of mystery that pervades...