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George Hadley is a tragic character whose flaws lead to the downfall of everything he holds dear. Like all of literature’s tragic characters, George’s life seems ideal on the surface. He has purchased a state-of-the-art home that his family loves, demonstrating that he is successful and prosperous. He appears to have a loving wife and two smart and healthy children. However, the events of the story belie a deeper and much darker reality. In fact, George and his wife are deeply unhappy, and his children have become monsters, which is almost entirely George’s fault. 

George is a good and decent man on the surface; he loves his wife and children. But George is also weak, lazy, and slow to understand, and these traits lead to tragedy. George lets his laziness guide him when he purchases the Happylife Home. It makes life easy, but George fails to anticipate how this might negatively affect him and his family. Worse, his dull mind is too slow to understand and appreciate how dangerous the situation has become. Despite his and Lydia’s increasing anxiety and unhappiness, and the children’s strange behavior, George doesn’t see the problems until it is far too late. To George’s credit, he attempts to confront the issue directly several times throughout the story, but each time he weakly gives in to the children’s merest resistance. In the end, George’s flaws cause his home to become a terrifying place full of paranoia, hatred, and death.

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