happening with their son. First, he has changed from a cute, sweet toddler to a “long-trousered, swaggering character” who doesn't even wave goodbye to his mother on his first day of kindergarten. His behavior is insolent, noisy, and disobedient. He talks back to his father, is rude to his mother, and is generally a very naughty little boy. Yet his parents don't seem to know what to do about it. They correct him verbally, but they don't enforce their words with punishment, and Laurie's behavior worsens. His parents remain completely perplexed at how to handle Laurie.

What's more, Laurie's mother and father are perplexed by their son's constant talk about his classmate Charles. Charles is always doing something horrible at school. He is fresh with the teacher. He even hits the teacher. He refuses to participate in class activities. He throws chalk and makes noise and says bad words. Again, Laurie's parents don't seem to know what to say to their son about Charles. They listen to him, but they never talk to him about why Charles is wrong or how Laurie most certainly should not behave that way. Instead, Charles becomes something of a family joke.

The story (and Laurie's mother) reaches the heights of perplexity at its end. Laurie's mother goes to a conference with her son's teacher, who tells her that Laurie had a tough time adjusting to kindergarten but is doing better (with a few lapses). Laurie's mother wants to blame Charles's influence, but the teacher looks at her strangely and says that they “don't have any Charles in the kindergarten.” Laurie's mother must now come to terms with the greatly perplexing fact that “Charles” is her own son.

The mood of "Charles" is darkly humorous. At the beginning of the story, readers are sympathetic to the narrator, Laurie's mother, as she adjusts to her son's newfound independence and confidence as he leaves the house for kindergarten. Laurie's cheekiness is amusing, understandable, and not yet out of control.

The stories that Laurie tells about Charles are shocking but at the same time funny because they are ostensibly happening to another family. Jackson builds readers' interest in finding out what Charles's mother is like, and when Laurie's mother misses the first PTA meeting, it heightens the suspense even further.

Though a close reading of the story makes the outcome less surprising, the mood is maintained throughout because of the descriptions of Charles's antics. Jackson utilizes the phenomenon of schadenfreude (enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others) to create the story's darkly humorous mood.

Mood is the feeling an author deliberately creates through the use of
language and images, particularly in the treatment of the setting, the place or location of the story. You can think of mood as an effect that the author tries to achieve through a consistent and repeated use of similar details. The details that are constantly repeated in "Charles" are how awful Charles behavior is and how that bad behavior escalates. This creates a mystery about who this child is and who his mother can be. The irony comes at the end of the story when the reader finds out what he/she has already suspected. Charles does not exist; he is simply a character young Laurie has created to mirror his own behavior. Consequently, two moods are prevalent in the story. The first is mysterious and the second is ironic.

Jackson wrote the story "Charles" in a light and humorous, yet somewhat reflective, tone. The very first paragraph includes phrases describing the mother of the story reflecting on the way that she watched her little boy, no longer a toddler, walk off to school without so much as a glance back to her. The tone is light, even in this slightly sad, reflective sentence. The author does not allow the main character to reflect about this incident in a sad way but only as a reflection of life passing by. The author allows the main character Laurie to bring out the humor in the story with short, funny phrasing in the voice of Laurie, jokes and childishly rude behaviors that the family does not take too seriously. This allows Laurie's actions to remain humorous and set the main story tone as a humorous one.

The story would not have been as effective as a humorous, reflective story if written in the third person because written as it is, the reader lives the story through the point of view of Laurie's mom. It is by having her voice be the narration of the story in first person, that we can experience the humorous side to Laurie's actions. His actions are funny because we see them as a parent would. Had the story been written in third person through the eyes of an anonymous narrator, then the story would lose some of the humor and would not draw the reader into the experience as much.