Mr. Benedict Character Analysis

Mr. Benedict is Margaret’s sixth grade teacher. He’s a young, first-year teacher, and Margaret quickly realizes that Mr. Benedict is somewhat afraid of his students. However, when the students work together to pick on him, he’s able to shut them down and seems far more confident afterwards. Margaret and the PTS’s resent him for assigning a yearlong personal project on anything of their choice. They think the project is silly—though everyone in the class, aside from Margaret, turns in booklets that indicate they took the project seriously and did a lot of research. In comparison, Margaret feels horrible about only writing Mr. Benedict a letter detailing the research she did into different religions. Though Mr. Benedict seems supportive of Margaret’s quest to find a religion and work on her project the way she did, Margaret is unable to accept his kindness—she runs out of the room crying, and she doesn’t speak privately to Mr. Benedict again.