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Shirley Jackson's Short Story 'Charles'

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The short story “Charles” written by Shirley Jackson is a realistic fiction story which takes place in a boy named Laurie’s house everyday during lunch time and in his kindergarten class at school. In this story Laurie who is a kindergartner comes home for lunch everyday after school and tells his parents all the bad things a boy named Charles did in his class. When Laurie continues to tell his parents all the bad things Charles did, they start to wonder who this child’s mother is and why does she let her child act this way in school. When at a PTA meeting Laurie’s parents are looking for Charles’ mom but they can not find her. Then they talk to the teacher and find out that there is no Charles in the kindergarten and really Laurie was doing …show more content…

One way that this story shows lying has no good result at the end is when Laurie was telling his parents about Charles and all the awful things he did he was making himself seem like a perfect child while charles is the exact opposite. When telling his parents this and making Charles actions worse and worse each day he is really hurting himself because when his parents find out he was the one doing these things he will ultimately be the one getting in trouble and taking all the punishment. Jackson writes, “Charles was bad again” . By saying this it is setting him up to get more punishment in the end because really the one doing these things is Laurie, not imaginary Charles. When Laurie comes home everyday he continues to tell his parents everything Charles does, so when Laurie comes home all this parents want to hear about is how charles acts that day and what he did. By doing this is causes Laurie to make up more and more lies so he has something to tell his parents even though the story becomes more and more unbelievable. Now that Laurie has twists the truth so much to his parents they are probably going to have a hard time believing him even if he really is telling the truth. The last way how lying ends up doing harm is it effects Laurie’s parents but especially his mom. An example of this in the story is when Laurie’s mom

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