The Importance Of Attention In Shirley Jackson's Charles

When a daring child decides to be dishonest, it definitely will be disastrous. “Charles” is a short story by Shirley Jackson in which a child, Charles, is misbehaving; however, Charles is actually the main character, Laurie. Laurie acts out due to the fact that he wanted attention. Laurie, or Charles, was, deceitful. Furthermore, he spoke with unacceptable grammar. “Charles” is set in Laurie’s home. The story is set into motion by Laurie’s ultimate need for attention. The attention he desired was not returned because his parents had to care for a baby. Consequently, he did not adjust well to kindergarten. This urge to be the focus of everyone else, in turn, forced Laurie to create the alter-ego, Charles.
On the first day of kindergarten, Laurie returned home and recited stories of a classmate Charles. Charles was spanked due to being “awfully fresh” (Jackson 345). Later, Charles hit the teacher, injured a little girl, and hollered, causing a student to be sent to tell him to quiet down. In truth, Charles’ actions were actually those of Laurie. These negative actions were proof of Laurie’s need for attention. This represents his personality trait of selfishness since he wanted to be in the spotlight, no matter how he achieved it.
Laurie’s troubles continued at home, in addition to Charles’ incidents in school. Initially, Laurie’s intentions became
This is evident when Laurie comes home and reports that Charles received an apple for remarkable behavior at school. Charles gave out the crayons and helped out the teacher in several ways. This improvement continued for over a week, with Charles being the teacher’s helper. Since Charles is Laurie, this indicated that Laurie himself was behaving at school, not obtaining negative attention. This is supported when Laurie’s teacher informed his mother that “now he’s a fine little helper” (349). The change in Laurie at school demonstrates his