English Literature

There are many stories considered to be classics and have been the subject of much scrutiny and analysis through the ages.  Among the most commonly used stories in the subject of Gothicism and horror are those written by Edgar Alan Poe, simply because they are fine examples of this genre.  However, the stories of Poe are such that they can be quite archaic at times, making relevant association quite difficult for the reader, unlike the story, Charles by Shirley Jackson and Lamb to Slaughter by Roald Dahl which are stories that are quite contemporary in nature and very simple in execution that readers tend to find it easier to associate and identify with the stories but it is not the execution or approach in both of these stories that make them quite unique, rather it is in the treatment and the characterization of the protagonists.  In both of these stories, the protagonists are characterized in a very vivid way revealing an underlying or different dimension in their natures, very accurately portraying the protagonists as people with seriously disturbed psychological states, whether permanent or temporary.
    The first story, Charles by Shirley Jackson is about a young kindergarten boy named, Laurie who tells stories to his parents about an apparently problematic classmate in school, named Charles.  Laurie describes Charles to his parents to be somebody who is periodically troublesome in school, and at times helpful, but also schemy despite the positive faade or personality that he shows.  Eventually, the parents of Laurie become curious about this child and are bent on meeting the parents of the child.  Soon enough the opportunity arises as the school holds a PTA meeting.  In the PTA meeting, Lauries mother is anxious to meet the mother of the Charles that her son has been talking about almost everyday.  However, in the end of the story, the mother of Laurie talks to the teacher, and finds out that there is no such kid in the class named Charles.  The story ends with implications that in fact, the Charles that Laurie was talking about was himself and not any other boy.  This thematic of a pathologic mental state takes on a new life in Roald Dahls story, Lamb to Slaughter because in this story, instead of portraying a mentally disturbed protagonist, he presents a character who seems to be very normal, and because of a particular incident, suddenly shifts to becoming someone who is mentally deranged critical enough to commit the murder of her own husband.  In the story, the pregnant Missis of a Police detective is sitting in a room with her husband who suddenly reveals that he has an extra-marital affair and was going to leave her.  With this revelation, the wife is shocked and bludgeons her husband behind the head with a leg of lamb.  Then, the wife goes through a series of events that validate her deranged personality.  She carefully plans out activities succeeding the murder that get her off the hook.  She puts the leg of lamb that she used in the oven the she goes out to buy things from a nearby grocer telling the grocer that her purchases were for her husband who did not want to go out for dinner, but was in fact, already dead in their living room floor.  Next she goes back to the house and pretends that this was the first time she finds her husband, after which she call the police and reports the incident.  When the police are busy looking for the murder weapon, she invites then to dine on the leg of lamb that was roasting in the oven.  They eat and in the end, the Missis simply giggles.
    In both of these stories, the approach is character-based.  Fiction can have two basic approaches, one is the approach where the story is plot-driven and the other is where the story is character-driven.  In both of the stories read there is a character-driven approach because instead of giving more attention to how the plot dictates how the story will unfold, both stories give more attention to how the protagonists would cause the revelation of the story.  In the first story, the first person-point of view is taken, perhaps, to delay the unfolding of the character of the protagonist, who, instead of the narrator, happens to be the child, Laurie.  In the second story, a third person point of view is taken, maybe to reveal more about the internal workings of the mind of the protagonist in the story.  In both of these stories, though, the main thematic is the psychological state of the protagonists.  The first story has something to do with what is known in psychology as projection where the troubled person projects himself unto other people whether real or imagined, to attract the attention of people close to himher like the parents, in the case of the story.  In the second story, we have a protagonist who snaps psychologically after being confronted with an issue that was too difficult to bear and to accept both emotionally and psychologically.  The second story is borders on crimes of passion and psychosis in terms of thematics, but in the end, it turns out to be more of the latter than the former. 
    Discussing the first story in more detail, early on, the author already foreshadows the kind of protagonist that is in the story with the following conversation that Laurie has with his father

He sure did, Laurie said. Look up, he said to his father.
    What his father said, looking up.
    Look down, Laurie said. Look at my thumb. Gee, youre dumb. He began
to laugh insanely. (Jackson)

    This early, the author already offers a glimpse of what Laurie actually is  the aimless and pointless act of asking his father to do purposeless things like looking up or looking at the thumb suggests that Laurie has something going in the upstairs department this, as well, is validated by the kind of laugh that the protagonist elicits, insane according to the author.  Now, this early revelation of what the character really is maybe considered a foreshadowing of events which is a tool in fiction used to allow the audience to anticipate what might come next, however, it does not work quite well in the story because instead, it reveals too much probably because the story is character-driven and not plot-driven.  The author also gives another clue as to the character of the protagonist in how the boy develops, my sweetvoiced nursery-school tot replaced by a long-trousered, swaggering character who forgot to stop at the corner and wave good-bye to me (Jackson) here, we have Jackson revealing the emergence of a new and different person from the boy who used to be sweetvoiced.  The use of the words replaced and character in this particular line reveals that the narrator no longer knows her son the way she used to.  Moving on in the story, we have more revelations of the character of the boy being one who seems to be indifferent and ill-mannered, which points out to something being seriously wrong with his social and family life.  In the lines, What did he do I asked again, but Laurie slid off his chair, took a cookie, and left, while his father was still saying, See here, young man. (Jackson) the author portrays the character as one who seems to be detached from the things around him, taking no notice of his own father, which by the way, is also a way of showing discourtesy.  Then, all throughout the story, the author describes the character of Laurie in the way the boy describes Charles, for instance, we have Laurie saying, Charles
wanted to color with green crayons so he hit the teacher and she spanked him and said
nobody play with Charles but everybody did. (Jackson) referring to the aggressive nature of LaurieCharles or He told a little girl to say a word and she said it and the teacher washed her mouth out with soap and Charles laughed. (Jackson) illustrating how schemy the boy has become.  However, it is not what the boy does that proves disturbing in this story but the fact that the boy uses an imagined person to reveal his own personality to his parents.  Now, proof of this projection as it is called in psychology is the fact that Laurie refers to Charles as being a separate and different person, as in the lines describing Charles, Hes bigger than me, Laurie said. And he doesnt have any rubbers and he doesnt wear a jacket. (Jackson) Here the author accurately suggests that instead of just using a different name or projecting his misgivings to another existing person, the protagonist creates another person in his mind and uses this Charles character to reveal himself to his parents.  Now, why is this, because young boys normally are able to speak to their parents with much frankness and candor  In this case, the reader begins to question the relationship of Laurie with his parents, because if he is not able to communicate directly with them and uses a dummy to tell them things about him, then something must be wrong with his relationship with them. 
    In the second story, another approach is taken to reveal the deranged personality of the protagonist.  First, the author creates a picture of perfection with Mrs. Maloney.  The statements, She took his coat and hung it in the closer.  Then she walked over and made the drinks, (Dahl) she, on her side, was content to sit quietly, enjoying his company after the long hours alone in the house., (Dahl) and If youre too tired to eat out, she went on, its still not too late.  Theres plenty of meat and stuff in the freezer,, (Dahl) all paint a picture of a perfect, caring, and loving wife but then, even early on, the author also reveals the obsession that the wife has for her husband which sets the tone for what was about to happen later on.  In the story, the narrator describes Mary Maloney as loving to luxuriate in the presence of this man, (Dahl) suggesting a sinister, and deeper side to her love affair with the man also, there are references to her uncanny attention paid to her husband with the lines, When the clock said ten minutes to five, she began to listenshe heard the tires on the gravel outside, and the car door slamming, the footsteps passing the window, the key turning in the lock., (Dahl) and She wasnt really watching him, but she knew because she heard the ice cubes  against the bottom of the empty glass ...  (Dahl)  This strange personality of Mrs. Maloney makes leads the audience to conclude that there must be something really wrong about her, especially in the way she peruses her husband.  Later in the story, more is revealed about her when her husband tells her that he was going to leave her, the protagonist then watches, him (her husband) with a kind of dazed horror as he went further and further away from her with each word. (Dahl) and she When she walked across the room she couldnt feel her feet touching the floor.  She couldnt feel anything at all- except a slight nausea and a desire to vomit. (Dahl)  These two lines reveal the gagged reaction she had to what her husband reveals and foreshadows a further even where her emotions explode.  This explosion comes when she bludgeons her husband with a leg of lamb.  Later on, she does unusual things like practicing her script, talking in front of the mirror (Dahl), and then acting as if nothing happened.  She reveals what she is doing to be acting with the lines, All the old love and longing for him welled up inside her(she) began to cry her heart out.  It was easy.  No acting was necessary. . (Dahl)  Here, the author reveals that the protagonist is acting by suggesting the opposite.  Then the disturbing nature of the protagonist is revealed when after she kills her husband, she walks back into the house, and  when she entered the kitchen by the back door, she was humming a little tune to herself and smiling. (Dahl)  This line suggests that a nerve has snapped further in the mind of the protagonist because of her indifference in killing her own husband.  This is further validated in the end of the story, when after the police had eaten the leg of lamb that she used to kill her husband, Mary Maloney began to giggle.  The insanity of the character is further confirmed with this final line, because she actually killed her husband and felt no guilt at all after doing the terrible act.  This story is quite like the story The tell Tale Heart of Edgar Allan Poe, but in a more contemporary and modern setting.
    So, based on the textual evidence, it is obvious that both of the stories tackled dwell on the characterization of the protagonists and this characterization reveals that both of the characters are mentally unhealthy.  In the first story, the protagonist, because of his problems with his parents, projects himself unto an imagined character, and in the second story, because of obsession, the protagonists becomes insane and murders her husband.  In both of the stories, the psychological make up of the characters is undeniable and the fact that both stories have been crafted really well makes these stories worth the read.