*This is a response essay regarding Shirley Jackson's short story entitled Charles
Image credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFFnbq0ScFk
Unfortunately, this bad memory of mine
couldn’t even recall my childhood time. I do remember some of my major
mistakes as an innocent child, but what makes Laurie and I different is what a straightforward kid I was, well at least
from the fragments of my perspective as a child. Surely, reading Charles by Shirley Jackson brings back
the nostalgic and also some
other
feelings
of having the
perspective
of a reckless and joyful little kid, but the real question for me is am I stopped ‘being Charles’?
Charles as the epitome of naughty really struck me, and that’s what I
like the most from this short-story, even though I do hate Laurie’s parents who
made us think that way. This kind of thinking, making someone as the epitome of
something, is what human like to do, and that is very interesting from the
social point of view. As the story goes on, the parents even blinded from their
own judgement and insecurities of Charles’ influence, and even stopped asking Laurie what he
did at school. Instead, they just listen to Laurie’s endless narrative of
Charles, and that is why I don’t like the parents, for being very blind to Charles who is ironically their precious son.
Now, the term ‘being Charles’ is
somewhat intrigues me, not as a child (because I myself really couldn’t even
remember how was it), but more into nowadays ‘me’. The best time I’m ‘being Charles’ was in junior high school, the time
everyone goes through puberty is the time for ‘Charles’ to show up in some people. So, aside from my vague childhood, I was ‘being Charles’ more in the pre-puberty than I ever was in childhood. Maybe
I am a late-bloomer, in fact I’m still trying to understand ‘myself’ these days
and ‘being Charles’ once in a while. Even though I’m not
exactly sure, am I just ‘being
Charles’
or am I just reckless and emotionally unstable. But, I think the problem is some people in
this world are also still in ‘Charles mode’, and what’s worst is that maybe they don’t even realize it.
The point that I’m trying to say is
childhood is just a flash in the eye, but unfortunately some people couldn’t
get out of it easily. Since the
responsible feeling is somehow little or even nowhere to be seen
in children, some people tend to nostalgia to those days and being realistic,
but some other people just couldn’t resist the urge and let their Charles out. So, maybe by reading this Charles by Shirley Jackson some people can reflect not only to themselves,
but also the societies around them.
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