"," like 's most well-known short story, "," has a few surprises
and, certainly, a surprising ending. Within the story, however, Jackson has left a fair number
of clues that she has created a kind of Jekyll-and-Hyde story or, more precisely, a
Jekyll-and-Jekyll story. Laurie and Charles, who appear as distinct characters throughout the
story, seem to mirror each other so precisely that we begin to suspect, as Laurie's parents do
not, that Charles is Laurie's alter ego.
Our first encounter with Laurie is,
by itself, no clue to the story's ending, but it does foreshadow the behavior later attributed
to Charles. After announcing his arrival from school with a "raucous shout,"
Laurie
spoke insolently to his father, spilled his baby
sister's milk, and remarked that his teacher said that we were not to take the name of the Lord
in vain.
Implicit in this description is that Laurie has
taken the Lord's name in vain, but Laurie's parents assume, as they do with all...
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