Identity In Charlie

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 changes over the course of the novel by changing the way he writes, talked to people, and listens to others. (Pg. 1 “I had a test today. I think faled it…”) (Pg. 246 “ I want to know if you feel any gratitude for all the things that have been done for you…”)

Charlie begins to hang out with Sam and Patrick and is getting in the routine of going to football games and then going out afterwards to celebrate. Afterwhile he catches feelings for Sam and the way he expresses them further deepens our understanding of his depression. Instead of going with the flow and not telling her about the dreams he had about her, he professes his love for her in the form of sharing his dreams and telling her just how he feels. Perhaps, this isn’t all his fault because when Sam tells him that she’s too old for him, he becomes obsessed with his love for her and can’t stop thinking about how perfect she is in his eyes. The only thing this confession has done for him is make his feelings grow and send him in a downward spiral of

Charlie was a man that did not know how to stand up for himself. He allowed his peers to bully him, and treat him like he is worthless. Charlie thinks that if he allows people to laugh at him, and tease him, they will become his friend. He thinks “Its easy to make frends if you let

At the beginning, Charlie is without friends and is rather alone. He is very gifted and quite an overthinker which expels him from the usual teenage social groups. This changes, however, when he meets Sam and Patrick at a football game. They expose him to all new experiences. Resulting from his new friendships, is his relationship with Mary Elizabeth, his experimentations with drugs, and new knowledge of being a person. During this time, he is increasingly happy because Charlie was finally living.

We get to know Charlie through letters he writes to the unnamed “friend”. Charlie has a lot of internal conflicts which he deals with every second of his life. He deals with his best friend’s death and his aunt’s death and his past with his aunt. These internal conflicts make him withdrawn. Moreover, Charlie has a need to tell someone about his life and thoughts, maybe to feel less lonely. In the very start of the story Charlie expresses: “I don’t want you to find me”, which emphasizes that he does not want a concrete person to help him, he only needs to let his thoughts out. Charlie is absolutely a dynamic and round character. He is an intelligent, observant high school freshman who hides his beautiful personality because of having dealt with a lot of trauma in his childhood. Through the relationships he develops over the course of the school year, Charlie suddenly comes out of his shell and grows as a person. For example, what he tells Sam who has also dealt with a troubled past: “Even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there”. However, it is not until the very end of the book that he uncovers the repressed memories of sexual abuse of his aunt that are at the foundation of his internal

Charlie was known to have the personality that was always bright and talkative. Charlie had the lowest skill level out of all his “friends” and he didn't understand how real friends should treat one another so he never thought anything of it. Charlie felt good about himself but he wanted to be smart and know what his friends and other people around him knew. He was ready to learn and he wasn’t scared because he pushed fear away; he just wanted to know what it was like to comprehend what was going on in the world. The

His mother had taught him to not look at girls, and after the operation when he started to develop more feelings, he had a hard time talking to Alice Kinnian because he had the thought that he liked her, and that he shouldn’t. Due to the hard nature of his mother, Charlie’s emotional life was not maturing with his new-found intelligence. Emotionally, he was still a little kid. “I knew she would give herself to me, and I wanted her, but what about Charlie?” Whenever he would get near Alice, he would start to panic because he felt that there was still a part of his old self within him, keeping him from taking his relationship further with

Initially, Charlie was not aware of what was going on around him. He thought that everyone liked him and was his friend. He also was not very intelligent, which is why he was oblivious to what was happening around him. After Charlie had the surgery he was able to now notice that the people he worked with at the factory were not actually his friends. He found out April 20, “I never knew that Joe and Frank and the others liked to have me around all the time to make fun of me” (33-34). Now that he got the procedure he can now tell that his so-called friends, just liked him because they could make fun of him. Another example of him noticing things for the first time is when the doctors were arguing Charlie felt that he know saw them for the first time. He realizes about their personal life, how one has a wife that wants him to be successful and the other wants some of the glory to. Once again, due to his intelligence, he notices more about the people he interacts with almost every day. He noticed things that he has never realized, let alone thought about.

In the story, Charlie experiences being lonely in different aspects of his life. The first one that he feels this in is his family. His family consists of his parents, his brother and sister, and his aunt Helen. His parents, especially his dad, have never really been that involved or shown much interest in his life. This is shown when after he had been on LSD and was found in the snow, they never questioned if he was on drugs, they just contributed it to his prior problems of “seeing” things. His dad usually just ignored Charlie because he was different and quieter than the other kids. Charlie’s brother isn’t in the story much because he’s away at college playing football for Penn State. Charlie’s sister is in the story pretty often, but she doesn’t really talk to

The setting of the novel greatly breads Charlie’s life. In the suburbs, everyone knows each other better than in the city. Therefore, when one person is beaten by a mental illness, it affects everyone in some way. When someone has a mental illness people do not talk about it, it is pushed away and hidden. No one really tries to help, but once the problem goes to extremes and someone commits suicide, no one is not talking about it. So when Charlie’s best and only friend stops coming to school and they announce that he has passed away, everyone is whispering about it and trying to find what really happened. Charlie found someone who knows the truth and got the true but devastating news “Dave with the awkward glasses told us that Michael

He feels lonely, blames himself for his aunt’s death, abuses substances at parties, and has thoughts of suicide. Before he returns to the mental hospital, the camera shows him reaching for a knife. This moment suggests he would have committed suicide if his sister had not sent the police to his house. His depression could have been caused from his PTSD and feelings of loneliness. He was lonely on the first day of highschool because his best friend had also committed suicide the May before. He even describes to his new friends, “I didn’t think that anyone noticed me” (Perks of Being a Wallflower). He describes himself as “getting bad again” when his best friend dies, when he has not seen his friends for two weeks, and when his friend group leaves for college. These are all times when he may have been feeling lonely. He reveals his PTSD and depression through his relationships as well. Charlie is close to his family and reveals he has not spoken to anyone outside his family since the school year, but he meets seniors who help him find his way. He is loving, caring, and thankful for his friends and is sad when they leave, and he even stands up for them after they had asked Charlie to stay

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),

His meltdown in Alan's office one could have seen from a mile away, with it the ultimate heralding of displacement for Charlie's pain, and final straw to let Charlie live his life alone. (Displacement is but one of many defense mechanisms that involves shifting aggressive or hurtful emotions away from one’s self to a more “acceptable” or less threatening outlet.) Yet for most who watched the movie most likely, Charlie didn't get immediately better right away to their surprise. In honest words taken from an episode of House I once watched, he uttered a line that rings particularly true in this circumstance: "We tell ourselves it helps. To make [them] talk about it. To help... heal. When all you've done is make [someone] cry." After Charlie's reveal of his true past he seems to be by all standards progressing. That is until he sets out to kill himself, if not by his own gun then a police officer's. In all three main areas of his mental make-up Charlie has been both affected and ravaged, his entire being but a husk of what he accomplished four years prior. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is illustrated through Charlie as a life-changer, a psychological diagnosis that alters your entire core of being without proper therapy or treatment. (Diagnosis in