The Ransom Of Red Chief Character Analysis

Are children naturally bad? In the film The Ransom of Red Chief and Shirley Jackson’s “Charles” both boys differ in the way they misbehave. Andy and Laurie are two very restless boys with huge imaginations. They are using their imaginations to think of traps to get them out of trouble. Since they use a lot of negative behavior, Andy’s parents are mad at him, and Laurie’s teacher punishes him. Even though children might seem naturally bad, there is usually a reason behind their behavior; while Andy is seeking to get attention from his parents and the kidnappers, Laurie uses his imagination to create a character named Charles so he won’t get in trouble by his parents.
In The Ransom of Red Chief, Andy is constantly making his parents insane …show more content…
Andy doesn’t seem to care and keeps minding his own business, fooling around. This shows that Andy is very selfish since he doesn’t seem to care about anyone else besides himself, and that he is just doing this for attention. Andy wants to get his way, for example when he asks to go to the fair the father says no but he doesn’t know how to take no has an answer. With all the begging Andy can do the father finally decides to think about it. Both the mother and father are extremely mad at him and he doesn’t seem to care. This isn’t the only time that Andy has done some other crazy thing for attention. When he gets kidnapped by Bill and Sam, he is always keeping them on their toes. A spider lands on Sam’s head and he tells Andy to get it off his head. Instead of wiping it off he smacks him in the head with a pot. Sam and Bill are angry but they don’t know that this is only the beginning of their adventure with Andy. Andy is loving getting kidnapped by them because he has a playmater. Eventually the kidnappers are sick of him and they want to return him for a ransom. Instead of earning money they have to give the father money in order from him to take Andy …show more content…
When Laurie first starts kindergarten his mother is extremely sad to see him leave. Everyday after school when Laurie comes home the whole family sits and has lunch together while he tells them about his day. Laurie started talking about a boy named Charles, “It was Charles,’ he said ‘He was fresh. The teacher spanked him and made him stand in a corner. He was awfully fresh,” (Jackson 6.) This caused the mother and father to become very concerned. After hearing about all the bad things Charles has done each day like having to stay after so the whole class stayed with him, yelling in class, and being rude to his classmates the parents began to whether if kindergarten is a good fit for Laurie. The mother decides to attend the parent meeting so she could meet Charles’s parents. Laurie’s mother is talking to the teacher about how Laurie had a hard time adjusting, but the mother thinks that it is a Charles influence. The mother begins talking about Charles, and confused look fades onto the teachers face. The text states, “We don’t have any Charles in the kindergarten,” (Jackson 11.) This shows that the whole time there was no Charles and Laurie was making this all up so that he would get in trouble by his parents. Laurie didn’t want his parents to know that he was getting in trouble and had to stay after school so he made up Charles. By