I Like Charlie

Despite the amount of traumatising murders Charlie comes across, he is determined to understand people that are different from himself, providing him with a sympathetic and compassionate personality. Charlie's efforts to understand the minds of others does not go to waste as he successfully learns in-depth details about Jack Lionel "I don't know who this man is, but he didn't kill anybody. I've done everything wrong. Mad Jack Lionel isn't a criminal. He's probably not even mad. He's just old and sad and poor and lonely" (Charlie Bucktin p234). Through the sympathetic side of Charlie, a softer and more vulnerable component has been added to the novel, expressing Charlie's curiosity towards understanding Jack. A transition between Charlie regarding someone as dangerous and cruel compared to a harmless and nostalgic man is clear throughout chapter seven of the novel as Charlie begins to develop a further and deeper understanding of Jack's personality traits and motives. Instinct is a powerful aspect of the novel as it begins to delve into the innocence of the mind of Charlie when he originally assumes the worst of Jack before having a moment of realisation where Jack is no longer the criminal but instead a lonely, old man. After evaluating the multiple aesthetic features that constructed this particular novel, the innocence, understanding and sympathetic components are highlighted and contributed to the description of Charlie as a typical

Charlie’s friendship with Jasper Jones, his parents, and witnessing the intolerance of Corrigan are the three biggest factors in Charlie's development from innocence to experience. Jasper Jones exposed him to fear and forced him to be brave and face his fears, the rampant intolerance in Corrigan, both racial and otherwise, exposed him to the injustices of the real world, and his relationship with his parents taught him to be diplomatic and control his

Charlie, also has a peculiar speech pattern. Despite being a young teenager, his language is somewhat outdated; and he has a sardonic sense of humor. He shifts from “fancy” vocabulary to a more simple type of speech on a regular basis. In his first letter of Part 4, he describes someone’s face as “ashen”; but he had previously described his family members using the words “nice” and “fat”. Surprisingly simple speech from someone so seemingly contemplative. He, Charlie, is also very “matter-of-fact” about things. He does not say things that he does not believe to be true; and if he’s unsure, he states his ignorance as a fact. This is easy to see in Part 1 when he states, “I am really in love with Sam, and it hurts very much,” like it was an immovable thought or an unchangeable

Charlie is very far from what most people call normal: he is shy, introverted, awkward, independent, paranoid, confused, respectable and kind; showing many examples of this throughout the book. He keeps to himself for the most part and is constantly in his own head. Aside from the many negative traits he also has many attributes: he is a loyal friend and listens to the people he talks to, he is a caring person and comforts those in need. However he has his flaws as well: Charlie can get very angry and upset at others which causes him to lash out with violence or sadness, he is extremely sensitive, crying frequently and constantly questioning himself. Several of his peers labeled him as nerd or a weirdo, which damaged

Charlie also learns love in a way to get him better and set him for life. When his mother makes him dig the hole and fill it back up, this is harsh love and will prepare Charlie for later life as it will teach him respect and manners. Charlie deep down knows this is what his mother is trying to teach him, but at the time he just wanted to believe that she was trying to punish, annoy and make him work. Charlie also discovers the love of peers. When Charlie is dragged into the drama of Laura by Jasper he didn’t know if to trust him. But when the truth came out and Jasper wasn’t a part of it, Charlie loved him for telling the truth and being a good friend. Also when Jasper asks Charlie to leave Corrigan with him when they are older, Charlie loves Jasper for the respect and friendship he is giving him. Charlie also sees the act of false love. This is seen by Charlie when he witnesses his mother cheating on his father in the backseat of a car. Charlie knew his parents relationship wasn’t going too well, but he didn’t expect this. He uses this to overcome his mothers power over him. But this example shows us how Charlie has learnt the difference between real love and false love, this will only help him later in life.

Although Charlie was reluctant to help Jasper, he realized that Jasper was innocent and genuinely needed someone on his side to prove his innocence. Just from his actions, readers can see that Charlie is a good person and really does want to help Jasper. Readers also can tell by Charlie’s thoughts that he is a good, honest person. Charlie had an internal conflict on what to do and whether to tell. This shows that Charlie is an honest person and he’s not used to keeping secrets. Readers can infer from the information given that Pete Wishart was a bad person. He abused his daughter and bullied his family. After Laura went missing, he acted like he never had another daughter. His actions prove that he is a terrible, cruel person. In the beginning of the novel, Jack Lionel had a bad portrayal. He was viewed as a cold-hearted killer because of Corrigan’s rumors. Jack was thought to have scary characteristics. These characteristics made him seem worse. By the end of the novel, readers find out that Jack is actually not a terrible person and those scary characteristics were untrue. All these examples show that Craig Silvey used actions, thoughts, and traits to show whether the character was good or

The author uses communication style as a method of character development, which the author utilized to build Charlie Gordon’s character. Throughout the book, Charlie’s communication changes from when his IQ is merely 68 to when the surgical procedure raises his IQ to 125. Initially, his grammar is full of errors and simple vocabulary but later improved drastically, after the procedure, by use of complex wordings (Allan 31). The communication style is different between the two phases especially through differentiated personalities and speech between two periods. Daniel Keyes also endeavors to capture the character’s history to enable the audience to understand the events that shape Charlie’s personality.

Well, his mom is very strict and treats Charlie unfairly. His father stays out of the conversations Charlie has with his mom, so he is no help. So Charlie went to the library to read, and his mom spazzed at him. “Before I can close the front door, my mother has slapped me. Hard and sharp. Much like Mrs. Wishart, but with considerably more venom. It stings for a long time. I touch my face, shocked”(Silver 94). She full on slapped Charlie in the face, for going to the library! Her excuse was that there is a killer on the loose, but no one knows that for sure. It's what comes after this that showed Charlie’s courage. “Go to your room! She screams. I can’t! There's a wasp in there. What? There's a wasp in there! That's why I couldn't get changed! I don't care! She yells, pointing toward the back of the house. Well, that's been patently obvious for some time! Excuse me? She leaned in, aggressive, speaking through her gritted teeth. Goddamnit! I yell. I'll go and bloody get stung”(Silver 96)! Charlie knows that his mother is treating him unfairly, and he decides to talk back to his mother, trying to defend his case. He even swears at her. He stood up for himself and left his mother stunned. She has treated him unfairly most of her life, so it was about time she got a taste of her own

After falling out with his friends because of his mistake with Mary Elizabeth, Charlie became even more depressed than he was before Sam and Patrick. He turned to smoking as a way to grieve at the loss of his friends and the loss of his previous life. Charlie becomes ever out of it. When his sister needs him to drive her to the abortion clinic, he feels important and depended on and as he reported this was the first he felt needed. This repercussion with his sister helped him

Charlie Kelmeckis is described as a “wallflower.” He is socially awkward and likes to keep to himself. He also really enjoys reading and writing. Charlie cares deeply for others, but has a lot of guilt about past events. For example, Charlie believes that the death of his Aunt Helen is his fault, because she was killed in a car accident on an errand to get Charlie a birthday gift. Charlie has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Anxiety, and Depression. His mental instability was mostly caused by being sexually abused by his Aunt Helen before the age of seven. Charlie experiences flashbacks of his Aunt over the course of the movie, but all are portrayed in a positive light.

He wears glasses but only for watching T.V. and movies. Charlie has a great motive because all he wants is to be smart for example, "After the operashun I'm gonna try to be smart. I'm gonna try awful hard. (p.11)". Charlie, being intellectually disabled, doesn't understand things, making him constantly happy. This is because he doesn't think about life. Charlie gets bullied but thinks they're being nice to him when they do things like "He really pulled a Charlie Gordon that time. I don't know why they say it but they always laff and I laff too. (p.23)". After the operation, he had a different outlook on life. He wanted to become smart so that he could talk with his coworkers about intelligent things like politics. Although, the operation made him too smart. His way of thinking was based on facts and intelligence, rather than emotion, feelings and instinct. Charlie was a genius and they weren't. He didn't know how to control his emotion because he never knew he had them, often making him go into depression and be

Conformity is a dominating theme from start to finish and seen in several of the characters, but Charlie falls victim to this often. Beginning with him meeting Sam and Patrick, it can be said that he never says no to anything, he just goes along with it to stay friends. Two prime examples of this are: the drugs/drinking and the relationship that Mary Elizabeth forced onto Charlie. The first example is the drugs and the drinking; perceived as conformity, since they did not force either of the items down his throat. Identification is changing personal beliefs to be like the influencer, which is a primary motivator for Charlie’s actions. Charlie is compliant when Mary Elizabeth forces a relationship onto him, which is another example of conformity. Compliance motivates by either a reward or a punishment and in this case, both motivate Charlie. He states in the movie that he just accepted being her boyfriend

Throughout the novel Charlie’s personality and intelligence level changes a lot. In the beginning Charlie is happy, has friends, he’s retarded, and can’t remember a lot of things. “I fergot his last name because I dont remebir so good.” (Keyes 2),

I feel as though Charlie is somewhat similar in those aspects.

I think that almost all teens go through a certain time of depression, some more than others but Charlie 's is kind of exaggerated I think. I can relate to Charlie though when he cried about losing his beloved Aunt Helen, because of what I went through when my grandfather passed away. I admire how maturely Charlie explained the quote, "I would die for you. But I won 't live for you". His idea that " every person has to live for his/her own life and then make the choice to share it with other people. Maybe that is what makes people 'participate. '", is very strong and I think makes perfect sense and defines life a little bit. In my opinion also, I think that I and pretty much everyone else is alike Charlie, because we can be open and agree to other 's thoughts. We can all watch, and hear and talk about differing opinions and in the end not really judge the opinions. The fact that Stephen Chobsky chose to create a story about a boy growing up and being labeled different catagories, especially a "wallflower", is an interesting idea. Most authors wouldn 't be so daring to write about something so controversial. And Charlie 's story is controversial; most parents and teachers wouldn 't want their children to read something about the experiences that a boy has in high school, but at some point we have to realize what 's true and false. In the book, I really enjoyed reading the last 30 or so