Hopper then attacked by saying ‘Is it a picture of him in the battle?’ This shows that Hopper already doesn’t believe him. Kingshaw says in reply to this ‘No. But…’
Hopper then showing that he doesn’t believe Kingshaw says ‘I don’t believe you anyway, you’re a liar, the battle of Briton was in the war.’ Defensively Kingshaw replies by saying ‘Well, I know that, everyone knows that.’ This line of questioning carries on until it gets to the moment when Kingshaw doesn’t answer one of Hopper’s questions straight away, this makes Hooper angry an example of this is found on pg 20, line 18 – 22.
On page 21, line 19. Kingshaw starts to fight back with Hooper by saying ‘You’d better shut the window,’ ‘it’s my window now.’ This makes Hooper get extremely angry with Kingshaw, Hooper then come at Kingshaw with his fists raised ready to fight, the fight that Kingshaw and Hooper have is very short and meaningless and ends quickly with Kingshaw having a bleeding nose.
All though the coming week Hooper was always spying on Kingshaw to see if there was anyway in which he could scare him. This is proven in chapter three, when Kingshaw leaves the house for the first time to explore. This is on pg29, line 14. Hooper also watched Kingshaw as he walked through the fields to the encounter that Kingshaw had with the crow in the fields away from the house, after this when Kingshaw returned to the house Hooper proceeded to find a stuffed crow in the attic of The Warings, to place on Kingshaw’s bed during the night, this can be found on pg 36, line 14. This was done when Kingshaw was asleep with the rest of the house asleep as well. Hooper then removed the stuffed crow when Kingshaw had woken up and seen it. This was done by Hooper to scare Kingshaw and to ‘tell’ him who is ‘boss’.
The next evil thing that Hooper does to Kingshaw is locking him in the ‘red room’ with the dead moths that Kingshaw is scared of; this can be found on pg41, line 24. This was the first truly evil thing that Hopper did to Kingshaw as he knew that Kingshaw was scared of moths and that he would be trapped in the red room until someone would let him out, Hooper also knew that Kingshaw wouldn’t be able to get out as all of the windows were bolted shut. When Kingshaw finds himself a room away from Hooper, that he lock himself in Hooper is always searching for the room that he goes in trying to find it, then when Hooper does find Kingshaw’s room Hooper just says ‘Where’s the key? Look, this isn’t your house, you know, who do you think you are, going around locking doors?’ Kingshaw reacts to this very quickly by replying with ‘Stuff it.’ Hooper then starts to get angry by saying ‘You can’t come in here anymore unless I say so.’ Kingshaw then tells Hooper that he is very ‘childish’ Hooper tells Kingshaw ‘I want to know what you keep coming up here for. You needn’t think I don’t know where you go to, I’ve known for weeks all the time, I’ve known.’
This makes Kingshaw believe that he has lost again to Hooper and that he has lost the only place that he felt safe and that was his ‘own’, and that he might as well let Hooper into the room now that he knows all about it. Kingshaw thinks this because he wants him to show Hooper the room and not for Hooper to find out by himself. When Hooper enters the room he grabs the bag that Kingshaw had and starts accusing of stealing matches by saying ‘You stole these, all of them. Thief, thief, thief.’ Kingshaw keeps saying to Hooper that he didn’t steal them and that his mother must have bought them. Hooper then replies by saying ‘I expect she did not, pick-thief. Things in this house aren’t yours, they belong to us, and if you take them it’s stealing. You’re a thief.’ Kingshaw then tried to punch Hooper. At this point Hooper then realises that Kingshaw is planning to run away because of him, he says ‘You’re scared of me, Kingshaw, you’re Mummy’s little scaredy-pet. You don’t know what I might do to you, I could do anything at all. That’s why.’
This shows that Kingshaw is really getting scared of the way that Hooper is treating him and that Hooper is really turning evil towards him. In chapter five Mr Hooper and Mrs Kingshaw go up to London together and this is the day when Kingshaw decides that he is going to run away to get away from Hooper, but when Kingshaw leaves in the morning just before Mr Hooper and Mrs Kingshaw leave Hooper follows him without Kingshaw knowing.
In chapter six Kingshaw finds out that Hooper has left the house as well to follow Kingshaw so he can carry on ‘intimidating’ him. Hooper starts saying to Kingshaw that his mother is only a ‘servant’ and that she always has to do what every his father says and that Kingshaw has to do what ever Hooper says he has to do. This can be found in pg 73. This is physiologically affecting Kingshaw and making him start to believe this ‘Kingshaw thought, it might be true’ After this was thought ‘Kingshaw wanted to hit him and hit him, and then he was frightened, at the way Hooper made him feel like this, destroyed every sensible, reason-able idea in his head.’
In Hang wood with Kingshaw, Hooper shows his first sign of weakness to Kingshaw when a thunder storm approaches the wood. This is the first sign that you get that Hooper could be anything but evil to Kingshaw. In chapter seven in a clearing in the wood Hooper hits his head and becomes really vulnerable to all of his surroundings.
In a clearing that Kingshaw finds there is a pool that Hooper hits his head on when Kingshaw tries to find a way out of Hang wood and gets knocked out. When Hooper and Kingshaw are found Hooper uses this to his advantage by saying that Kingshaw pushed him over into the water and punched him in the back. ‘It was Kingshaw, it was Kingshaw, he pushed me in the water.’ ‘He punched me in the back.’ Mrs Kingshaw and Mr Hooper believe Hooper’s story that Kingshaw tried to kill him. This is a very good example on how evil Hooper can be to Kingshaw and that he has no feelings for him at all except to make his life a misery. Kingshaw reacts very quickly to this by saying ‘he’s a sneaky little liar, he’d say anything. Well I didn’t touch him.’
Later on Hooper keeps on complaining that his head hurts and that he need some aspirin to make Kingshaw feel even worse for something hat he hadn’t even done.
The next evil thing that Hooper does to Kingshaw is in chapter fourteen when he says that Kingshaw pushed him off the wall at the castle that they all visited on a summer day trip together. Before Hooper falls off the wall Kingshaw once again tries to help Hooper but when Hooper gets out of hospital he just says that Kingshaw pushed him off to try and kill him.
Near the end of the book Mr Hooper and Mrs Kingshaw arrange for Kingshaw to go to the same school as Hooper, this is the last point for Kingshaw as school was the only place that Kingshaw would have been able to get away from Hooper’s torment with him. The night before Hooper and Kingshaw go away to school Kingshaw rips up Hooper’s ‘Battle plans’ and burns them, so when Hooper finds this out, during the night he wrote a note to Kingshaw saying ‘Something will happen to you, Kingshaw’ The very next morning Kingshaw gets up after reading this note thinking that he knew ‘what to do’. Kingshaw then made his way back down the clearing that him and Hooper had found when Kingshaw had run away. And he drowned himself in the small pool that was in the clearing to end all that had happened to him from Hooper and all that would happen at his new school because of the note from Hooper the night before.
When the rest of the household had awoken Hooper knew where to look for Kingshaw straight away, and as soon as they had found the body of Kingshaw in the pool Hooper thought ‘I did that, it was because of me, and a spurt of triumph went through him.’
I believe the reasons for Hooper’s evil actions are completely unjustified and that he is just pure evil in every way. This is because he was always trying to find ways off getting the adults against him by always blaming him for everything that happened to him for example the falling off the wall at the castle on the day trip. Another example is that on the last paragraph of the book when Hooper is proud of what he has done to Kingshaw by making him commit suicide ‘I did that, it was because of me, and a spurt of triumph went through him.’ This shows that Hooper if this was a real life satiation should be closely watched in case anything like this was to happen again.
I do believe that things like this can happen in real life and children do commit suicide due to stress and pressure from peers. This mostly happens because they feel that they are trapped in their lives and tormented by their peers and ‘demons’ that control their lives for them. For some children just the thought of this is just unbearable and unthinkable and that can be enough for some to commit suicide. This also might happen as some children believe that their parents don’t listen to them and just ignore them and never show them any love and just generally tell them to ‘get lost’ or possibly worse when ever they ask for any help or advice.
Some of the events in the book ‘I’m king of the castle’ are unrealistic for example an eleven year old being able to be so sadistic and ruthless, towards another human being especially to one of the same age group. Also I don’t believe a child of this age group would be able to come up with such advanced premeditated plans to make another’s life so vile.