Childhood Theme Analysis

I’m the King of the Castle is a book about children, but it’s not exactly a children’s book. Like another disturbing work about young people, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the novel paints a dark picture of human nature, suggesting that children—contrary to the way in which they’re often portrayed—are born with the capacity for cruelty, destruction, and evil. Hill’s novel revolves around two young characters, Edmund Hooper and Charles Kingshaw, whose minds (particularly Charles’s) she explores with detailed psychological realism. By emphasizing their frustration, anger, and sadistic behavior, Hill suggests that both boys are capable of doing awful things.

Through Hill’s portrayal of the thought processes of the two main characters, she shows that the dependence of children on their parents often gives them a sense of entitlement—in other words, they feel that they deserve certain things, not just from their parents but from the world at large. Children often have a keen sense for when they’ve been treated unfairly, and they’re forever comparing what they receive to what other children receive. For example, when Charles Kingshaw moves to Warings with his mother, Helena Kingshaw, he notices almost right away that he and Edmund Hooper aren’t treated equally. Confused and frightened, he clings to the logic of fairness. Charles feels that he is entitled to as much love and attention as Edmund receives. Therefore, when his mother pays more attention to Edmund than to him, or when Edmund steals one of Charles’s models, Charles is quick to cry foul, because he perceives other people’s behavior as being unfair. But of course, Charles isn’t alone in feeling this strong sense of entitlement. Edmund—both because he’s a particularly nasty child, and because he is accustomed to getting whatever he wants—feels that he’s entitled to treat Charles cruelly and effectively make him his servant. Charles and Edmund’s needs frequently come into conflict with one another. Charles wants a room to himself, and the freedom to play and be happy, while Edmund, who is much greedier, believes he alone is entitled to all of Warings, meaning that he’s unwilling to allow Charles even his tiny amount of independence and pleasure. When Charles and Edmund’s needs clash, Edmund quite often emerges the victor, causing Charles to grow frustrated and even fantasize about killing Edmund.

By portraying the entitlement, greed, and frustration of these two very different children, Hill raises the question of whether children are innately good. The novels shows children as being capable of both good and bad behavior and having both good and bad thoughts. Both characters seem to have an innate sense of right and wrong, but they also both have destructive and even murderous tendencies. Over the course of the book, Edmund bullies Charles in various horrific ways. He preys on Charles’s fears of birds and dead animals, waging a full-scale psychological war on his nervous guest. He seems to have an almost preternatural instinct for what will scare Charles most. And because he seems to have almost no sense of compassion, he never hesitates to hurt Charles. Charles is a more complex character, whose thoughts and emotions Hill studies in greater detail. There are many times when Charles has the opportunity to hurt Edmund without fear of punishment. On many of these occasions, he does the right thing by helping Edmund instead of hurting him—and even saves Edmund’s life by pulling him out of a stream. At other points in the book, Charles contemplates pushing Edmund off a high staircase and wishes, over and over again, that Edmund would die. It’s crucial to recognize that Charles feels a strong instinct to help Edmund and a strong instinct to hurt him. Charles acts morally, but Hill makes it clear that he’s possessed of destructive capabilities. By depicting Charles in this way, Hill offers a portrait of childhood that is dark but not necessarily cynical. She recognizes that children sometimes want to do good, and she also recognizes that this instinct sometimes swallowed up by another, darker instinct. Edmund is an example of a child with almost no good in him. Charles, by contrast, is a much more nuanced character: because he hesitates to give in to evil or destructive impulses, he often finds himself under Edmund’s control. At the end of the novel, he finally gives his destructive instincts an outlet, but he does so by drowning himself.

Hill’s depiction of childhood is in many ways astonishingly accurate, and yet in other ways seems incomplete. Even though the novel is about two children, it never touches upon the wildness, goofiness, or whimsical sense of carelessness and fun that virtually all kids—no matter how miserable—experience at some point. Nor does the novel delve into the small acts of kindness and gentleness that children are capable of. Perhaps Hill omits these positive attributes, so often found in stories about children, in order to emphasize a larger point. In her book, children are deeply conflicted and possessed of inner demons. Adults, by comparison, are portrayed as being surprisingly naïve, with simplistic desires and ways of thinking about the world. By portraying adults in the way children are usually portrayed in books, and vice versa, Hill refutes the cliché that children are either simple or purely “good.” On the contrary, she suggests that children, because of the intensity of their emotions and the depths of their self-interest, are capable of being even more wicked than adults.