Everybody loves happy endings! But not Shirley Jackson. In the short stories “Charles” and “The lottery”, the author Shirley Jackson uses description to make something or someone that seems so pleasant, turn out to be dreadful and awful at the end of the story. In “Charles” she made an innocent boy named Laurie turn out to be such a devil at the end of the story. Similarly, she made what seemed like a peaceful gathering in a peaceful setting turn into a dreadful murder.
In “Charles” a boy named Laurie is seen as a kind, compassionate, and behaved kindergartner. Although some might argue that he is a mischievous boy from the beginning, they forget to account for how Jackson uses description to make it look like Laurie is a behaved child from the beginning. Every day he would come home and tell his parents about something new that a treacherous boy named Charles did. Day after day he would come home and say that Charles either spanked the teacher, hit a girl with a seesaw, or did something else mischievous. Laurie’s parents got more and more worried that Charles would have a bad influence on Laurie. Then, all of a sudden, Charles started behaving. Laurie would come home and tell his parents how nicely Charles was acting every day. Over the course of all this action, Laurie’s parents got very interested in Charles and planned to meet his parents in the upcoming PTA meeting. So they went there. They met with Laurie’s teacher first to talk about him. “We had a little trouble adjusting, the first week or so, but now he’s a fine helper”, his teacher told his mom. But when his mom asked about Charles, she said,”We don’t have any Charles in the kindergarten.” It was at that moment that Laurie’s parents realized that Charles, was none other than their son Laurie.
In “The Lottery” a small village is gathering around for a celebration. The birds are chirping and the sun is shining on this full-summer day. Everybody is there and they are conducting a lottery. What could happen? The answer that the reader learns at the end of the story is, everything. At the end of the lottery, the “winner” is getting publicly stoned by a group of children. Jackson used description when she described the setting of the story. “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.” The environment seems too pleasant for anything bad to happen, but it does anyway.
Both stories show how Shirley Jackson made something or someone peaceful and pleasant turn out to be dreadful and unpleasant. In “The lottery” it was the setting that went from good to bad, and in “Charles” it was a character who seemed good at first but then turned out to be mischievous and malicious.
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