Claudia's strengths

You Lee Hong
10th Nov 09

In the novel, From the Mixed- Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler, written by E.L Konigsburg, the main character is Claudia. Claudia felt that there was lots of injustice at home because she was the oldest child and had to do all the chores. She decided to run away. She escaped from home with her brother Jamie and hid at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. When they were hiding in the museum, Claudia got interested in the secretive angel and started to research about it. Finally, her and Jamie learned the secret of the angel from Mrs. Frankweiler, who narrated the story. In the adventure, Claudia’s organized and curious character helped the adventure to be successful.

In the story, Claudia showed her organized personality affected the adventure. First, her organization made their adventure easy and safe. For example,
after they entered in the museum, Claudia told him where to go and how they are going to hide when the guards are checking. “Because I’m certain that when they check the ladies’ room and men’s room, they peek under the door and check only to see if there are feet…”[pg.36]. As always, Claudia told Jamie her plan. She told Jamie exact where to go and the way how they are going to hide when the guards are checking around the museum. Which means she thought about every little details and planed for it. Not to be surprised and panic before they got in to the museum. The another example, “oh! There'll be a night watch man, I’m sure, but he mostly walks around the roof to keep people from breaking in. We are already in. They call what walks, a cat walk, we’ll learn his habits soon enough…” [pg.36]. Jamie asked how they are going to do with the watch man and Claudia answered it. Claudia had thought of the watch man and where he might be and how he might look around the museum. It shows that she doesn’t let anything happens before she thought of it and plan for it. In dialogue and quotes her thoughts actions, relationship and physical appearance she showed her organization character so many times.

The second Claudia’s character that affected the adventure was her curious personality. During the adventure, Claudia’s curious character made Jamie and Claudia to learn about “ The Angel ’’. She said that she wants to know about the angel statue. Such as, [on page 53,] “ we’ve got to get one, Jamie. Don’t you want to know why everyone is standing in line to see it?” Claudia was saying to Jamie that she’s very curious about the angel and got to know about it. When she saw the angel, the angel intrigued her and then she began researching about it. She went to library to read books that related to the angel. She never skips anything that intrigued her and she wanted to learn about it enthusiastically. It shows she is very curious about the angel. Another example, [on page 120,] “Jamie, I want to know if Michelangelo did it. I can’t explain why exactly. I feel that I’ve got to know for sure. One way the other. A real discovery is going to help me.” she was talking to Jamie when Jamie said he wants to stop learning about it and go back to home. However, Claudia didn’t want to go back to home she wanted to continue learning about the statue. It means she has passion in the statue and she learns about it and she became more important than the adventure to her. Her curious character changed the adventure differently and interesting. If Claudia weren’t curious about the angel, probably Jamie and Claudia would just hide and go back to home. When Jamie wanted to go back to their house, Claudia wanted to go to Mrs. Frankweiler’s house to ask about the secret of angel. Which means, she’s not just curious about it. If she were just curious about it, she wouldn’t go to Mrs. Frankweiler’s house for asking. That represents she’s very curious about the statue and she learns about it enthusiastically.

Throughout this novel, there were many different characters but, the most important and the most affective characters was Claudia’s personalities because her organization and curious personality made the adventure. That reminded me that good planning makes anything to happen fine and thinking of something before doing it is more safety. Moreover, being curious about something is very good for learning about it and a chance to get interested in it. This novel gave me a lesson by the different characters.