The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg

After reading "The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg" and discussing it in class I can now answer the question, is the stranger an agent of moral destruction or rejuvenation?

I believe the stranger's goal was to be an agent of moral destruction, but the way Hadleyburg turns out in the end is more of a rejuvenated town than one that has been destroyed. The townspeople taught children from a young age to do what was right and never lie. They were never tempted to sway from these morals that were instilled early on; however, after the strangers trick the town welcomes people to try to sway their righteous ways and tempt them to do evil, because they now have the strength to resist it.

Although the stranger had a desire to gain revenge on the hypocritical town, he ended up bringing the town closer together and strengthened it during the only trial of morals the town had been through. I do believe that this story, like the "Eden myth", is a "fortunate fall" that ends up bettering the town because the stranger wanted to destroy them.

I thought the story was a little long winded and some of the details I would have liked to know while reading were left out, such as what made the stranger so upset when he traveled through Hadleyburg.