In Shirley Jackson’s “Charles” a young boy named Laurie tricks his parents by making up an nonexistent character named Charles and telling them about the poor class behavior he exhibited. Laurie convinced his parents that “Charles” was a real student in his class by giving them a descriptive account of what he saw Charles did and what the consequence was for behavior each and every day. Laurie gave many accounts of what he saw and what was the consequence his parents were puzzled that a student could be that wild. Some of the thing Charles did was kicking the teacher’s friend when he told Charles to touch his toes and yelling so much that the first grade teacher had to come in just to keep him quiet which led to Charles staying after school.
