INTRODUCTION
The American author Shirley Jackson's short story "Charles" was first published in the July 1948 issue of Mademoiselle magazine. The story subsequently appeared in Jackson's semiautobiographical collection of short stories titled Life among the Savages (1953). Jackson based this collection on her experiences of bringing up her four children. The child protagonist of "Charles," Laurie Hyman, has the nickname of Jackson's own son Laurence Hyman. According to Lenemaja Friedman in her biography Shirley Jackson (1975), the author based this story on the real-life Laurie's childhood tales of another boy at kindergarten.
"Charles" is the story of a young boy's first month at kindergarten. He returns home each day to recount the exploits of a naughty child called Charles who is repeatedly punished for being "fresh" to the teacher, injuring his fellow students, and indulging in other forbidden activities. Themes of the story are chiefly psychological and include the creation of self-identity, the fictionalization of the self, projection (the process whereby people locate undesirable or disapproved-of aspects of their own selves in others), and the ubiquity of evil. However, the treatment of this serious subject matter is humorous and ironic. The story never veers into the dark horror that typifies Jackson's stories and novels, though it does exemplify her interest in the workings of the human mind. "Charles" is Jackson's second-best-known short story, after "The
Lottery" (1948), and it is widely taught in schools. It is often classified as domestic realism. "Charles" is currently available in Jackson's The Lottery, and Other Stories (2005).