The Metaphor
We should not judge someone based on other people’s opinions, one persons perception on someone could be completely inaccurate and even hurtful. In the Metaphor written by Budge Wilson, we are introduced Charlotte a seventh grade student who loves her teacher Ms. Hancock. Ms. Hancock is a creative English teacher who inspires the her students to enjoy literature. We also learn about Charlotte’s home life, and how Charlotte feels about her mother. Charlotte moves schools only to find that Ms. Hancock will also be teaching her tenth grade but, things have changed. The kids in senior high don’t respect Ms. Hancock the way they did at Charlottes old school and Charlotte goes along with what her peers think and say to fit in. Unfortunately this story had a sad ending because Mrs. Hancock ending up being hit by a bus, this left Charlotte feeling very bad about the whole thing. Charlotte’s mother and Mrs. Hancock where polar opposites, yet they both influenced Charlotte in major ways.

Everyone has a different personality it’s just the way we are, for example Charlotte’s mother was very modest and systematic, Charlotte describes her mother as ”a flawless modern building, created of glass and the smoothest of pale concrete”. Throughout the book she doesn’t show much emotion towards Charlotte. When Charlotte was saddened her mother told her father to “leave her alone” and that Charlotte was “acting like a hysterical child” even though Charlotte was upset by the death of her teacher. Charlotte had never dealt with death before and needed her mothers love and compassion, but instead had to morn by herself. Her mother always had a negative perspective on Mrs Hancock’s teaching styles could have been have been more accepting towards Charlotte’s growing love for literature. When Charlotte’s enters tenth grade t her new school she changes and acts very cool like her mother, and let’s others change her opinion of Ms. Hancock. This change was probably influenced by her mother. On the other hand Mrs. Hancock was vibrant “Brassy and overdone” as Charlotte’s mom described. Ms. Hancock’s lessons affected Charlotte greatly by showing her the love she had for metaphors, as she continued to use them. When Ms. Hancock showed compassion towards Charlotte by wiping a metaphor off the board when she sees that Charlotte is uncomfortable with it, and then asked Charlotte if she was okay after class. This to me showed that Mrs. Hancock was sympathetic, and was comfortable with showing it unlike Charlotte’s mother.

Style is another way people express themselves, like how Mrs Hancock wore “Colorful beaded and embroidered blouses”, and her makeup could “keep a student interested for half an hour if she or he were bored with a grammar assignment”, although all the kid students where amused by Mrs. Hancock’s style, Charlotte’s mother said it was “in bad taste, like the rest of her”. Charlottes mother wore conservative put together clothes, Charlotte described her as a “white picket fence”. Charlotte was exited to start senior high school as she said “I was pretty, I was shapely; I was anonymous; I melted into the crowd. No one there would guess that I had once been such a skinny, pimply, wretch. In grade seven Charlotte didn’t give a care in the world if she was the pretty or “cool girl.” In grade seven Charlotte didn’t care about fitting in and didn’t change her opinion due to others. However in grade ten Charlotte was taking on the image of her mother pretty and proper. Mrs. Hancock’s style taught the students to be who they are and to express themselves but Charlotte now wanted to be like the other kids and it resulted in her betraying Ms. Hancock.

Finally the environments that Charlotte’s mother and Mrs. Hancock created where totally different, Charlottes mother was very neat and keeps a clean house. Charlotte never felt like she could express her imagination because if whatever she was doing made a mess she would have to clean it up immediately, this had a big impact on Charlotte. However Mrs. Hancock allowed all ideas to flow in her classroom, she encouraged the students to express themselves. The classroom was a lively noisy environment. Charlotte arrived home from school to what she called the “box” it was lacking noise and variety. Everything was tidy and put away in an orderly fashion. Charlotte explained her home as “cool, quiet and empty and uninteresting.” You can tell that Charlotte felt trapped in the environment her mother had created and that was why she loved Mrs. Hancock’s class because she felt free, able to be herself and excepted.

In all I think Mrs. Hancock made a smaller but better impact on Charlotte than Charlottes mother did, obviously she being her mother she probably had more of an influence on her that we see when Charlotte entered tenth grade, but when Mrs. Hancock died she wrote a poem about her and we can see what kind of a relationship Mrs. Hancock had not only with Charlotte but that whole class.