Charlie’s friendship with Jasper Jones, his parents, and witnessing the intolerance of Corrigan are the three biggest factors in Charlie's development from innocence to experience. Jasper Jones exposed him to fear and forced him to be brave and face his fears, the rampant intolerance in Corrigan, both racial and otherwise, exposed him to the injustices of the real world, and his relationship with his parents taught him to be diplomatic and control his
Charlie also learns love in a way to get him better and set him for life. When his mother makes him dig the hole and fill it back up, this is harsh love and will prepare Charlie for later life as it will teach him respect and manners. Charlie deep down knows this is what his mother is trying to teach him, but at the time he just wanted to believe that she was trying to punish, annoy and make him work. Charlie also discovers the love of peers. When Charlie is dragged into the drama of Laura by Jasper he didn’t know if to trust him. But when the truth came out and Jasper wasn’t a part of it, Charlie loved him for telling the truth and being a good friend. Also when Jasper asks Charlie to leave Corrigan with him when they are older, Charlie loves Jasper for the respect and friendship he is giving him. Charlie also sees the act of false love. This is seen by Charlie when he witnesses his mother cheating on his father in the backseat of a car. Charlie knew his parents relationship wasn’t going too well, but he didn’t expect this. He uses this to overcome his mothers power over him. But this example shows us how Charlie has learnt the difference between real love and false love, this will only help him later in life.
One of the themes that Silvey portrays in the book is 'morality vs ethics'. To begin with, it is shown that Charlie is a good person and has a clear mindset of what 'morality vs ethics' means to him, but this all changes when he gets to know the towns ‘bad boy.’ He learns that the community would address Jasper as a thief due to the fact that he steals which he admitted to Charlie but states he steals for survival and would have starved if he didn’t. When being asked by Jasper to assist him disposing of the body of deceased schoolmate Laura Wishart, he had to keep it from everyone in the town to help protect Jasper as the town would just denounce him without providing Jasper with a trial. This lead to Charlie really questioning if they were doing the right thing. He soon learns that before Laura died Jasper and she was good friends and Jasper would protect her at nothing. He kept all Laura's secrets which proved that Jasper is very trustful. Charlie also admitted
Well, his mom is very strict and treats Charlie unfairly. His father stays out of the conversations Charlie has with his mom, so he is no help. So Charlie went to the library to read, and his mom spazzed at him. “Before I can close the front door, my mother has slapped me. Hard and sharp. Much like Mrs. Wishart, but with considerably more venom. It stings for a long time. I touch my face, shocked”(Silver 94). She full on slapped Charlie in the face, for going to the library! Her excuse was that there is a killer on the loose, but no one knows that for sure. It's what comes after this that showed Charlie’s courage. “Go to your room! She screams. I can’t! There's a wasp in there. What? There's a wasp in there! That's why I couldn't get changed! I don't care! She yells, pointing toward the back of the house. Well, that's been patently obvious for some time! Excuse me? She leaned in, aggressive, speaking through her gritted teeth. Goddamnit! I yell. I'll go and bloody get stung”(Silver 96)! Charlie knows that his mother is treating him unfairly, and he decides to talk back to his mother, trying to defend his case. He even swears at her. He stood up for himself and left his mother stunned. She has treated him unfairly most of her life, so it was about time she got a taste of her own
Now to illustrate Craig Silvey’s construction of Charlie, his gradual moral evolution can be metaphorically depicted in an ethological social hierarchy – a wolf pack. Yes, you heard me right. Just like how an innocent wolf cub listens to the pack, Charlie initially follows the prominent morality and beliefs of Corrigan. As a wolf matures, it challenges the members of its pack {start fake howling}, similar to how Charlie challenges the conventional morality of the town. Eventually, Charlie can be represented as an alpha
6.After the fight between Charlie’s sister and brother, what did his dad asked Charlie to do?
“I hear his voice but I don’t want to answer him. It annoys me that he is there. I’ve got to ignore him.
In the blessing Bishop Richards promised Charlie that his work on the other side was to take care of his father’s kingdom. Charlie was surprised because others in his family had been bishops and he thought they would be doing that in the next life, not him. But it gave him good comfort and feelings.
At the beginning, Charlie is without friends and is rather alone. He is very gifted and quite an overthinker which expels him from the usual teenage social groups. This changes, however, when he meets Sam and Patrick at a football game. They expose him to all new experiences. Resulting from his new friendships, is his relationship with Mary Elizabeth, his experimentations with drugs, and new knowledge of being a person. During this time, he is increasingly happy because Charlie was finally living.
For example, when he, Sam, and Patrick are all on the way to his first party, and, as he explained it, “Feeling infinite”-Page 98 This is one of the first times that Charlie shreds a hint of comprehensible emotion, and it seems like he is actually experiencing life. This experience showed him that he could live in the moment and enjoy it instead of passively trudging through life. This moment helped him to speak up for himself and friends later in the book, like when he helps Patrick in the fight or when he kissed Sam. Another example of something influential to Charlie is when he reads the poem to his friends at the Secret Santa party. He didn’t realize that the poem was about suicide at first, but a few days after the party, he realizes how truly dark it is. Charlie’s misunderstanding of the poem’s message shows how dark his own world is, although he continues to live in it as if everything was fine. Reading this poem makes him question how he is viewing his own
Charlie, also has a peculiar speech pattern. Despite being a young teenager, his language is somewhat outdated; and he has a sardonic sense of humor. He shifts from “fancy” vocabulary to a more simple type of speech on a regular basis. In his first letter of Part 4, he describes someone’s face as “ashen”; but he had previously described his family members using the words “nice” and “fat”. Surprisingly simple speech from someone so seemingly contemplative. He, Charlie, is also very “matter-of-fact” about things. He does not say things that he does not believe to be true; and if he’s unsure, he states his ignorance as a fact. This is easy to see in Part 1 when he states, “I am really in love with Sam, and it hurts very much,” like it was an immovable thought or an unchangeable
When humans encounter other humans, we tend to treat them differently. Whether it’s because of cultural barriers, language barriers, or something as trivial as skin color, we view some people differently than we view those who share our ethnicity, culture, and values. This is referred to as racism or prejudice and it is still an active problem in the world today. But although people can differ greatly when it comes to culture or appearance, we share most of our genes. Our closest related (and now extinct) ancestor, the Neanderthal, can be viewed in similar terms. Their culture differed from ours now as modern humans, but surprisingly the genomes of humans and Neanderthals are 99.84% identical (Gibbons). However, based on our history of bias, if Neanderthals were alive today, we would no doubt treat them differently, if not inferior, to modern humans.
In the story, Charlie experiences being lonely in different aspects of his life. The first one that he feels this in is his family. His family consists of his parents, his brother and sister, and his aunt Helen. His parents, especially his dad, have never really been that involved or shown much interest in his life. This is shown when after he had been on LSD and was found in the snow, they never questioned if he was on drugs, they just contributed it to his prior problems of “seeing” things. His dad usually just ignored Charlie because he was different and quieter than the other kids. Charlie’s brother isn’t in the story much because he’s away at college playing football for Penn State. Charlie’s sister is in the story pretty often, but she doesn’t really talk to
Charlie is very far from what most people call normal: he is shy, introverted, awkward, independent, paranoid, confused, respectable and kind; showing many examples of this throughout the book. He keeps to himself for the most part and is constantly in his own head. Aside from the many negative traits he also has many attributes: he is a loyal friend and listens to the people he talks to, he is a caring person and comforts those in need. However he has his flaws as well: Charlie can get very angry and upset at others which causes him to lash out with violence or sadness, he is extremely sensitive, crying frequently and constantly questioning himself. Several of his peers labeled him as nerd or a weirdo, which damaged
Charlie grew up in Australia. He was very close with his mom, and they will do a lot of things together. Although his relationship with his dad was terrible. His dad was a doctor and he was very dedicated to his job.