Jackson shows dramatic irony in "Charles"
because the reader realizes before the narrator that Laurie's gleeful
description of Charles's exploits are his own doings. The kindergarten
teacher's statement at the end of the story confirms this suspicion. When the
teacher said that she has no student named Charles, the conclusion is that
Laurie made up his existence and has in fact been describing himself and his
own misbehavior to his unsuspecting parents. Another example of dramatic irony
in "Charles" can be found in the narrator’s and her husband’s avid
desire to meet Charles’s mother. They do not know, as does the reader, that
Charles's mother is in the narrator herself. Therefore, they already know
Charles's mother—they just do not know she is the narrator herself.
