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Charlie's Themes: The Perks of Being a Wallflower Essay examples

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In Stephen Chobosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Chbosky wrote a coming of age story; about a fifteen year old boy named “Charlie,” and his strife to find his place in high school, and all the while trying to handle the suicide of his best friend. While learning many important lessons of life, and of its important relationships. Stephen Chbosky's purpose is to share with us, these common themes of isolationism, harsh society, participating, conflicting with emotions, and finally people treat themselves as they think they need be treated. The first theme that “Charlie” faces is isolation, for his one true friend “Michael” committed suicide, and the rest of his middle school acquaintances either moved away, or decided just not to …show more content…

Another subject that develops for the protagonist is participation, in its two forms passive and progressive. He is first questioned by his friend, and instructor whether or not he partakes in school events, and from then on he passively participates; by going to these events and analyzing others, instead of actually participating he finds things to distract himself. When he commences to progressively act, he finds that he does not analyze people so critically; or over think little things. Even Roger Ebert notices this when “Charlie,” participates on the stage, for a viewing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and goes along to write “... it provides him with a turning point...” (Ebert). This turning point being to engage things instead of just watching them happen, and to not be passive but assertive. One of the many topics is “Charlie’s” struggle with his emotions; one occurrence is during his fight with “Sean,” and he fights his emotions “I really hurt Sean. The truth is I could have hurt him a lot worse. And maybe I should have.”(Chbosky, 9)This is a fight between his natural instincts and a sense of control. Then he conflicts with his feelings for his friend “Sam,” but she does not want him to like her; because, she already has a boyfriend; nevertheless, one night during a game of spin the bottle “Charlie” is asked to “ Kiss the prettiest girl in the room on the

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