Share your literary essay with the rest of the students that chose this short story. Take some time to read 2 or 3 other essays. Comment on them. Your comment should be about something you noticed them doing well from our lessons. For example, "You did a really good job explaining your evidence"
ReplyDelete“Charles” is a short story by Shirley Jackson that takes place in a small English town. In this story, the author goes through a few months of a young boy in kindergarten and his parents. Every day after school Laurie comes home and tells his parents about a boy named Charles. Laurie tells them that he's a bad kid, he fights says bad words, and makes a fuss all the time. His parents believe him about this boy and think he's a bad influence on their child. The parents are judgmental of Charles and his parents without knowing the full story. At the end of the story, we find out that Charles doesn't exist and Laurie has been lying to his parents for months. We find out that Laurie is the child making a fuss and causing trouble. The theme of this story is not to be quick to judge people because you don't know what they could be going through.
The first event that shows the theme of this story is when Luaries mother first judges Charles's mother. Laurie's mother says that she “Wanted passionately to meet Charles's mother.” When she says this she is talking with her husband about them going to parent-teacher meetings. In this interaction, the reader can see that she is very quick to judge Charles’s parents and thinks that she is the reason her child is acting the way he is. However, she has no negative thoughts about her husbands and her parenting skills.
Another key point that includes the theme is another integration Laurie's mother and her husband have a little later in the story. The two are having a conversation about going to the PTA meeting at Laurie's school. The mother says that she “Wants to get a good look at her.” With this conversion, the reader can see that Luaries mother is very concerned with the way Charles's mother acts and looks. Laurie's mother seems very blind to the way her child is acting. We can see this because she does not want to go to the meeting to hear about her child but she is very worried about others. At the beginning of the story, she does touch on the fact that he son has changed a little but never really blames her or her son for his actions.
The last event to show the theme is at the very end of the story. Laurie's mother and her son's teacher are having a conversation about Laurie. In this conversation, the teacher says she is very interested in Laurie and that he had a hard time adjusting to kindergarten. When the teacher says this he's had a hard time adjusting the mother doesn't listen and doesn't respond. She instead turns the conversation straight to talking about Charles. The reader can see that Laurie's mother is very quick to judge and talk badly about Charles and his Mother.
The next element of the story that shows the theme is figurative language. Laurie's parents asking about Charles every day is something that the author repeats a lot throughout the story. This piece of figurative language shows us that the conversations that Laurie and his parents are about to have are very important to the story and help to show the theme. Another reader could argue that the theme of this story is how lying could affect you as the characters use lying very frequently as well. Still, the theme is to not be quick to judge because of the repeated figurative language that strengthens the theme. While there is some evidence for lying, this theme is stronger.
ReplyDeleteAnother place we see repetition in the story is with the use of the word “fresh.” Laurie overuses the word “fresh” in the story, and whenever he does this an important part of the story is brought up. In the beginning of “Charles,” the author uses this word to show how Charles acts. This is a clear moment of repetition and helps the reader to see when a key part of the story is coming. When Laurie uses the word fresh his parents start listening closer and find more ways to judge Charles and his parents.
Shirley Jackson used dialogue to show the theme of judging. A piece of dialogue that shows the theme is at the very beginning of the story. In the first paragraph, Laurie's mother is thinking to herself about how her son has changed since he started kindergarten. She thinks about all the things that she thinks cause the sons to change. With these thoughts/dialogues, the reader can see that the mother thinks that her son can do no wrong. In this part, the mother says she blames the other kids and their parents for her son's actions.
The author also shows the theme through Laurie's father's words. At one point Laurie's family where talking about Charles and he had been good at school that day. When Laurie's father heard that Charles was good he was very surprised. The father says “Can this be true about Charles?” This word shows that Laurie's father also is very quick to judge Charles.
In conclusion, the author used this story to teach the reader about being quick to judge others. Shirley Jackson used events, dialogue, and figurative language to show the theme of the story. The reader can take away many themes from this story but the true theme is to not quick to judge others; when you feel like judging someone think about how you can affect them.
I like the conclusion and introduction
ReplyDelete
ReplyDelete“Charles” is a short story about a young boy in kindergarten named Laurie. Everyday when Laurie comes back home from school he has something to say about a boy in his class named charles. He tells his parents all these bad things Charles has done like kicking people, yelling, and saying bad words. The parents are so quick to judge Charles and Charles’s parents even though they don’t know who they are. Next and the end of the story Laurie's mom finds out that she has been lied to and that Charles is not a real boy and the kid in Lauries class who has been doing all these bad things is actually her son.
The first event that shows how the theme is to not be quick to judge others would be when Laurie's mother finds out about how her son is actually Charles and is that her son is one being really bad and is respectful and she's the one being a bad parent. This makes that the theme because the whole time during the story the mom has been judging Charles and his parents when she was basically just judging herself. The second event that shows the theme is when Laurie's parents are saying how they want to meet charles parent’s and they say they want to “invite her over for tea” to tell her what she's like. They say this assuming that Charles has bad parents without knowing that they are the bad parents. One more event that shows the theme is when the parents are wondering if it would be smart to take Laurie out of school because Charles might be a bad influence. This really shows you how quick the parents are to judge.
The dialogue in this story shows the theme in many ways one is how the parents don't waste any time to say judgemental things about charles such as “ what are they going to do about charles do you suppose” and “ I don't see how they could hold a P.T.A meeting without charles parents. When Laurie's mother is at the meeting it says that she was looking around for any mother that could be Charles and how no one stood up at the meeting to apologize how their child was acting. That shows why the theme is to not be quick to judge. Another bit of dialogue is when the mother is about to go to the P.T.A meeting and her husband says “I wanna look at her” and “invite her over for a cup of tea.”
The next thing that helps you see this theme is the figurative language. One type of figurative language in this story is repetition. You see repetition everyday after school when Laurie gets home they always talk about what Charles did and about all the bad things he does. You always hear them have some type of negative discussion about charles everyday. Laurie also brings up how fresh Charles is everytime he talks about him.
Clearly, the theme of “Charles” is don't be quick to judge others. This is first seen when the author used the events. In the events it mainly shows the theme when Laurie’s mother finds out that there is not a Charles. Next, the theme was created when the author used dialogue. The dialogue helps show the theme when they say bad things about Charles and his parents and how they are really saying bad things about themselves. Finally, the author used figurative language to create the theme. Readers saw this when the author used repetition. As a result, it is evident that the theme of “Charles“ is don’t be quick to judge others.