Charles Character Analysis

Shirley Jackson’ s delightful story, “Charles” about a troublesome sly young boy going through kindergarten. This story takes place with Laurie’s (the main character) his mom's point of view, Laurie was entering Kindergarten in the story, when he comes home the mom asks him about his day. Laurie answers by telling his mom instead, about a naughty boy who goes to his school. Each day Laurie comes home with terrible situations in which the bad boy “Charles” has done that day. The parent’s are very intrigued about the boy that Laurie comes home and talks about every day.

Charles did not come from a rich family. He had 6 siblings, and his family barely had enough money to afford a house with them. They never went without clothes, had to skip a meal, or live on the streets, but they certainly didn’t have much. Even so, his family loved him, and wasn’t abusive. Charles was a good child.

Shirley Jackson’s story, “Charles,” is a story about a young boy telling his father stories about a boy who is doing really mean and bad things and is always getting in trouble. The father becomes worried about the influences of Charles to his son Laurie and he wants to talk to Laurie’s kindergarten teacher and parents about Charles. After the first parent teacher conference they can’t find Charles’s parents, so the next teacher conference they find the teacher and ask about Charles, but turns out Laurie is Charles. All this time Laurie was telling her father about herself and how all the bad things “Charles” is doing Laurie was actually doing. Using dialogue and foreshadowing, Shirley creates a theme of how parents don’t know their child as much as they think they do.

In the first few weeks of school Laurie came home full of stories about Charles, the class rebel. Charles was rude to the teacher, hurt some of the other students, and yelled so loudly that it disrupted other classes in the school. He even hit the teacher, and kicked a presenter that came into their class. During those same weeks, Laurie’s behavior grew worse, mirroring Charles’ problems at school. He became loud and insolent,

Laurie and Charles are the same person! Shirley Jackson composed a short story titled “Charles”. Laurie is a new kindergarten student and newly older brother. This story took place in the 1950s and the various locations are Laurie’s home and school. Laurie did not adjust well to kindergarten. He suspired for attention from his parents. With the arrival of his new sibling, Laurie created difficulties with his classmates and teacher. Not receiving enough attention at home, Laurie desired attention at school.

Laurie, a young boy who was having trouble adjusting to recent changes in his life, took on the role of a non-existent boy called Charles to handle these arising adjustments. " Charles" was written by a woman named Shirley Jackson. Laurie may have posed as Charles since he was struggling to become familiar with having an infant sibling, as well as beginning kindergarten. He was a kindergartener who was stressed, due to new changes. The story takes place at Laurie's home and school during the 1950s.

Charles values his father's love greatly and loves his brother also but due to the fact that Cyrus appears to love Adam more, Charles develops a love/hate relationship with his brother. He is motivated by violence and tries to earn his fathers love. Charles, unlike Adam, assesses the idea that his father could in fact be a fraud, and as a result spends none of his father's money. He can also be manipulative like Cathy.

Laurie, at first, did not seem at all interested. But when Laurie’s father and I both said that we knew that he was Charles, he just stared at us. “Laurie, or should I say Charles,” said Laurie’s father, “Your mother and I are very upset at your behavior.” “Lying to us is never the right thing to do. Not to talk about all the other trouble you have caused. Kicking the teacher, yelling in the classroom, being fresh, and telling other kids to say swear words is absolutely not ok Laurie!” I could see that Laurie felt a sense of fear. “Laurie,” I said, “Your father and I are going to have to punish you for what you have done. But first, we need you to apologize to your teacher and all of the students for your behavior during the past couple weeks. Do you know what it means to apologize?” “It means to say sorry,” said Laurie. “Correct,” I said. “So when you go to school today, I will ask your teacher to give you a chance to have a word

Charles is wistful for youth, hating “not being able to run anymore, like [Will]” (131). He wishes he were younger and able to connect with and take part in the things Will is interested in. By the end of the book, the struggle with the carnival brought Will and Charles much closer than they were at the beginning of the book: “Oh, Dad, Dad, I don’t care how

To begin Laurie came home from the first day and was definitely frustrated. Charles came home and his” voice suddenly became raucous” (Jackson, 345). On the first day of school Laurie told his parents about a boy who received a spanking due to him not obeying the teacher. Charlie was extremely creative coming up with a whole new persona to tell his parents about.

Shawn Torrent was sitting in his math class at Palm beach k-12 school, he looked up from his work to see that his teacher, Mrs. Clarke, was no longer writing a problem on the board, or even in the classroom. Shawn looked around the room, as a few other students started to realize that she wasn’t there. Some of the kids from Shawn’s class, including his best friend Cody Mitchell, stood up and walked to the hallway. Shawn followed everyone into the hallway, where he noticed kids from other classes had done the same. He had asked multiple people what was going on, but got no response from anyone. Then Shawn looked down the hallway and saw Alana Morrison come out of her advanced algebra class. He had always liked Alana, but they had never really

Foreshadowing convinces us that Laurie is Charles. For example, Laurie has to think for a while before he tells his mom about the first day of Kindergarten. Laurie’s mom states, “Laurie thought. ‘It was Charles’...”(Jackson, pg. 11). He did this so he didn’t have to get in trouble right away with his parents. Laurie invents Charles, so he doesn’t have to get in all the trouble with his parents at first, and he also invents Charles so he doesn’t have to take all the blame. He can just blame it on Charles. In Kindergarten, Laurie’s teacher tells him multiple times to stop misbehaving, but Laurie(Charles) doesn’t listen. He tells a little girl to cuss twice, he bangs a see-saw on a little girl’s head and makes her bleed, he throws chalk, he hit

Justine said “Ryker, you need to listen and sit down with everyone else.” Ryker threw a salt and pepper shaker at Ms. Justine and ran around the classroom screaming. Ms. Alyssa started to read a book about insects. Ryker ran around the classroom and screamed at Ms. Justine running from her and climbing up on top of the heater. Ms. Alyssa spoke to the children and said “Friends, do you see how Ryker is behaving. What he is doing is not appropriate and we should not act like that.” Robert Thomas climbed up into my lap but, looked at Ryker. I leaned down and said “Our eyes should be on the teacher Robert Thomas.” Ryker screamed again. Manaf, Robert Thomas, Jett, and Lucas turned and looked at Ryker. Ms. Alyssa said “My friends how about I stop reading this book and read one you all know by heart called The Pigeon Needs A Bath!” Lucas, Lucy B., Lucy F. Manaf, Robert Thomas, and Jett said “Yes!” Ms. Alyssa opened the book to the first page and

Laurie from the story “Charles” the author uses irony to show how People judge others. Irony is shown in “Charles” when Laurie made up Charles. “‘Charles?’’’ she said.”We don’t have any Charles in the kindergarten”(Jackson pg.--). This quote shows how

At school, Charlie finds a friend and mentor in his English teacher, Bill. He also overcomes his chronic shyness and approaches a classmate, Patrick, and his stepsister Sam, become two of Charlie's BFFs. Charlie’s new found friends – Sam, Patrick, Mary Elizabeth and Bob - aren't exactly popular and are outcasts themselves. They are all seniors and often hang out at the Big Boy except Bob who doesn't go to school.