“The Happiest Day of Your Life
“The Happiest Day of Your Life” is a short story, which stamps by the novel collection Children, our future and is written in 1978 by Penelope Lively.
In the story we meet a little boy sitting in a car with his parents. They are on their way to a preparatory school called St Edward’s because the boy might have to go there after summer to continue his education. When they get to the school they meet the headmasters wife, Margaret Spokes, and they start talking about where Charles’ family live while they are waiting at the headmaster. After a while the headmaster shows up and Margaret takes Charles away to show him the school and meet the students. They come to a room where there are some boys at the same age
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“And this is Charles? Hello there, Charles. His large hand rested for a moment on the child’s head, quite extinguishing the thin, dark hair. It was as though he had but to clench his fingers to crush the skull” (page 57, line 36-40). The headmasters hand on Charles head gets described like he wants to crush Charles head. That’s adding up to he’s the headmaster and soon can “brainwash” Charles if he starts the next term. The headmaster has his large hand over Charles and can play with him like he’s a puppet doll because the headmaster has the power of the …show more content…
Through the whole story it doesn’t look like Charles wants to go at the school. Already in the beginning where they are sitting in the car on their way to the school, it appears that Charles isn’t confortable in the situation. “The boy sat on the back seat of the car, a box of chocolates, unopened, beside him, and a comic, folded.” (Page 54, line 1-2). In this quote it seems like he is nervous of something. The unopened box of chocolate and the folded comic describes that there is something he’s nervous for or just uncomfortable with. Normally if a boy gets a box of chocolate, he would eat it quickly. But in this story, he doesn’t even want to taste the chocolate or read the comic. That could be a sign of that he is nervous of something or just don’t want to visit St. Edward’s. He’s also feeling very unwell when he meets the students at the school. Here he stands with shoulders humped, starring at his feet and only hear the sound of rushing water (page 58, line 19-22). He really doesn’t want to be there, but he has no choice because the parents want him to go there because of their reputation.
One of the themes in this story is the theme “growing up”, because Charles is growing up and is about to find a school where he can continue his education. When you are in this phase, you have to make your own decisions and go your own way. Charles can’t make his own decisions because his parents won’t let him. When Charles mother asks
Charles got a job at the newspaper warehouse, but he wasn’t a good employee. His boss and co-workers believed he was stupid. He would fail to complete even the simplest of tasks. He made barely enough to pay rent, and sometimes it wasn’t even enough for that. When rent wasn’t in on time, his landlord would lock him out. The one reason he chose that job was because he worked right next to Caril’s school, and he could see her as soon as she got out every day.
The air is tainted with the fumes of cherry blossom, hairspray and “Scarlet” red nail polish. Pink and white paint add texture to the walls. Week old clothes begin to hide underneath the solitary wooden mahogany chair as new, fresh clothes take their place as head of the drawer. Pieces of pencil shavings cover the once pastel pink carpet while the white fan creaks once it hits a 180-degree angle. A battle between bright yellow and soft white light occurs when someone decides to take settle on the full- size bed.
The book Charles written by Shirley Jackson is about a young boy into his first month of kindergarten. He would always come home and talk about a boy named Charles. Charles is a troublemaker, who was also a bad influence. Whenever Laurie talked about Charles, it would be about what he did, and how he would be punished. Everyone has been taught in their childhood to follow the rules or else there could be consequences. This is shown mainly in the book Charles. Charles is always getting into trouble. Every time that Laurie talks about him, it’s about how he gets punished and what he did to get punished. This is shown many times throughout the story and here are some reasons.
The author stated that Charlie, “On Monday Laurie came running home yelling “Charles” up and down the hill until his mother came out of the house to greet him.” (346). He was making sure that his Mom was paying attention to him and listening to what he is saying. The final reason why Laurie misbehaved is he wanted to be bad at school for a little while, then become nicer when the parent teacher conference came so the teacher will say that he is doing well in school. The teacher will say that Laurie is doing well in school now that he is being the
Charlie was constrained into adulthood early through him having to fill his father’s boots. Therefore, Charlie had to become the financial provider of his family.
Success is extremely coveted in the society, however on the path to success, obstacles will stand in the way. Failure is inevitable and the response of an individual towards these obstacles and the failures in their lives determines whether or not they will have success. Failure gives allowance to learn from mistakes and motivates to do better the next time. The Pursuit of Happyness uses lighting, music and camera angles to give viewers an insight into Chris’ journey through the film demonstrating his resiliency, optimism and loving personality. Filmmaker, Gabriele Muccino, uses the protagonist, Chris’ final triumph to illustrate the significance of failure in achieving success.
He feels as if is age is preventing him from being able to make the most of his life. His age as described in the novel, greatly influences his relationship with his son. “It was always a surprise – that old man, his work, his name. That's Charles William Halloway, thought Will, not grandfather, not far-wandering, ancient uncle, as some might think, but…my father.” He feels that his age ultimately prevents him from a healthy and satisfied relationship with Will. Charles is much older than his son and initially accepts that he is too much of age to be a good father. He believes that if he was younger, he would be able to better bond with his son, for Will is just a boy. At an old age Charles feels that he cannot connect with his son, in which he feels he must do as a father. Charles himself ties himself to his old age as a negative ideal. As long as he negatively confines himself to his old age he will not be able to enforce the type of relationship he hopes to have with his
Happiness: a Human Disease -- An Examination of the Allegorical Theme of Existentialism in the Happy Man
The madness that was Charles continued onto the following weeks. Laurie then continued to tell his parents about all the trouble that the boy was causing. His parents in shock just came to the realization that it was better to deal with someone like Charles early in his life rather than later. Charles was also a defiant young boy. To support this, in the story Charles “threw chalk” (346) and could no longer use the blackboard.
Have you lied so you can get your way around the trouble that follows.? Well if you have then, Charles is a story written by Shirley Jackson and it’s about a young kindergartener named Laurie who gets into a lot of mess with his behavior at school and decided to take help from his “Friend” Charles and when Laurie’s mother goes to speak to Charles’s mother she also gets a surprise that she might have never expected and now also will never forget.“ In the story Laurie uses verbal and situational irony while claiming the universal truth of kids going beyond their way to defend themselves.
Some of them that had convinced me that they were the same person, were that he had to stay after school to watch Charles when he was in detention, when he had to think about a name to say to his mom because he didn’t want to get in all the trouble and because he knows everything about Charles. These are some of the reasons why I think Laurie is pretending about there being a Charles in class, and blaming all the things he did bad in school on Charles. The theme of this story is to teach children not to lie to their parents, because it will give you a bad reputation then and in your future, and it will catch up to you. You parents or who else you are lying to will find out that you were lying to them soon enough. When Laurie lied to his mom about Charles, here were some of the negative consequences that he had to face while he was in class. He got spanked several times, he had to stand in the corner, he was deprived of blackboard privileges because he threw chalk, he had to stay after school in detention, he got his mouth washed out with soap and he didn’t get to do exercises with the class because he had kicked the teacher’s
Laurie is a young boy who brings home unexpected news from kindergarten. Shirley Jackson is the author of short story “Charles”. A problematic Laurie misbehaved due to having both problems at home and at school. Laurie is a son to his mother and father, while also being an older brother to his infant sister. The story takes place in the 1950’s in school and at Laurie’s residence. The conflict that arose in this story is that Laurie did not adjust well to kindergarten. Laurie brings home stories about another school boy named Charles who just so happens to be Laurie himself
The story of the movie The Pursuit of Happyness directed by Gabriele Muccino portrays a family who struggles with finding enough money to pay taxes and afford living expenses. The movie takes a place in San Francisco during the 80s. The two main characters are the father Chris Gardner and his son Christopher, Will Smith and Jaden Smith respectively. Gardner tries to support his family. But every time he attempts to make things better, they always end up worse. Gardner in the story wonders on "how to be happy?" He earns his money by selling the bone density
The school he attends when he is a little older is a school by any means, but there is great turmoil. Often the older boys pick on the younger ones and while this may be brought to the attention of the director (the principle, headmaster etc.) the older boys would be punished but it would be so overlooked that as soon as they were finished being punished, they would return from their beatings and give them back tenfold to the young boys who told on them. This section is actually one of my favorite parts.
I remember it like it was yesterday, the day that changed my life forever. On March 9th of 2011, my mom was diagnosed with skin cancer in her lung. The doctor gave her about six months to live and this is how it went.