How Does Laurie Create Tension In Charles

In the story Charles, the only characters we get to know are the mother, the father, and the son, Laurie. Since there are only three characters, there’s a heavy suspicion that possibly Laurie is this,“Charles,” character he talks about. This suspicion, of course, comes into play at the finale of the story, though hints that the stories Laurie makes up are of himself, appeared far before the ending. During the very first scene, Laurie seems as if he is going to tell his parents something important about his day. When they ask him who does the awful things he tells them, he hesitates. He then thinks about it, and says,”Charles.” This whole scene could fly over most people’s heads, but the delivery of the word was done in a most bizarre way. If a person came to you to tell them about someone who was misbehaving, and when you asked them they

This whole scene would alert anyone who had been reading, and analyzing the story for a second time. As the story progresses, Laurie talks about a little girl who was told by Charles to say a bad word to the teacher, and when the girl says it she gets her mouth washed out with soap. When the father asks Laurie what the little girl said, Laurie whispers into his father’s ear joyfully. When his father’s eyes widen after hearing it, the father asks if Charles got in trouble, and Laurie says, “ Nope.” Now this would be the point where most people reading the story for the first time would probably start to tune in, and would notice something was off with Laurie’s story. If the girl got in trouble because Charles told her to say the word, then why didn’t Charles get in trouble? And also, how would Laurie know all of that if Charles didn’t get into trouble? These kinds of questions might be dismissed by the average reader as just part of the plot, or maybe development for Charles’ character, but any reader who was analyzing the plot, could realize that maybe Laurie