The Perks of Being a Wallflower also shows the importance of family and friends in a young adults’ life. The juxtaposition of Charlie when he is well connected with friends and when he is isolated shows how important his support system was. Charlie often goes back to the idea of being infinite. “Sam…Started laughing. Patrick started laughing. I started laughing. And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.” (Chbosky, 1999, p. 39). Charlie comes back to the idea of being infinite often. In those times, he is usually with friends, happy, and feels safe. On the other hand, readers are exposed to a very different Charlie when he is cut off from his friends. For example, when he must take a step back from his friends for a mistake he made. This
Though Charlie is an unreliable narrator in both film and novel form, he offers a sense of complete realism. From not quite dysfunctional families to first parties, Perks of Being a Wallflower immortalizes realistic moments in time like listening to a song for the first time in a car with friends. In one of the most memorable scenes from both the novel and the film, Charlie is in the car with Patrick and Sam and they’re driving through the tunnel after a dance. Charlie is there, completely in the moment with them and he says “…in that moment I swear, we were infinite,” (p 80). True reality is seemingly just out of grasp for Charlie until he meets Patrick and Sam. They tether him to reality and, alongside the rest of the “island of misfit toys” (movie quote), enable him to be and feel present in the moment. The narrative of the movie reflects that subtle change as when Charlie begins making friends with the step-siblings, the voice-overs, or Charlie’s inner monologue
Perks of Being a Wallflower is a novel written by Steven Chbosky that addresses the adolescence years of life and how to deal with the different aspects of it. Aspects include finding one’s self, whether that be on an individual basis or in a societal way such as friends and family, learning how to deal with negative situations and lastly, maturity. Chbosky created a piece of work that nearly everyone can relate to at some point of their life. Although I may have not endured the same situations as the main character Charlie, I have had the same aspects affect me in some way. I feel as if I am a wallflower too.
This quote was chosen because Charlie desires to be loved, treasured, and essentially wanted like any human being would, but unfortunately his love was received in the wrong manner.
[Keyes, 299] As an intelligent member of society, Charlie has a certain moment when he becomes frustrated once he understands the world he lives in, when he thinks of how “Before, they laughed at [him] and despised [him] for [his] ignorance and dullness; now, they hate [him] for [his] knowledge and understanding. [Keyes, 293]” These emotionally alienated members of society believe that they can alienate themselves, believing they can be happy alone. This happens very often. Society, in this way, doesn’t like to own up to their pain, and as such, alienates themselves. In this way, they connect to Charlie
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
In the song, 7 Years, by Lukas Graham, the boy talks about how he grew up and became who he is today. In The Perks of Being A Wallflower, we can see that Charlie is growing older and becoming more mature.. These two forms of art connect because they both share difficulties while growing up. For example, both of them do things that are not suitable for their age. In freshmen year, Charlie went to a party and that is when he got “stoned”.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a novel about coming of age that is seen through the perspective of Charlie, a young ‘wallflower’ that is starting high school and experiences the troublesome teenage life filled with drugs, sexuality and love. Charlie writes this book in a series of letters to an anonymous person. Charlie is the main protagonist of the story who is apprehensive and a kind-hearted boy however he has many problems happening in his life that he doesn’t like to concern others with “I just don’t want you to worry about me, or think you’ve met me, or waste your time anymore”. I admire Charlie because he is very considerate of others and although he is shy he overcomes this fear when he tries to find friends and step out of his comfort zone” Normally I am very shy, but (Patrick) seemed like the kind of guy you could just walk up to at a football game even though you were three years younger and not popular”. In return Charlie is rewarded with his first real friend at high school. I also admire Charlie for his mature attitude towards finding new friends and moving on from the death of his friend Michael. Charlie really needed to start interacting more with people, during the story we find out that Charlie misses having a friend and that being alone can be difficult and cause negative effects “It would be very nice to have a friend again. I would like that even more than a date”. I think
At the end of the book, Charlie was no longer intellectually advanced, as his intelligence deteriorated to its original state. However, he realized how he actually felt friends would be made. He explained, “Its easy to have frends if you let pepul laff at you. I'm going to have lots of frends where I go.” (Keyes 311) Through the novel, Charlie learns that intelligence at its extreme quickly leads to loneliness.
Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of being a Wallflower is an explicit coming of age novel that gives teenagers a sense of relation with the 16 year old protagonist, Charlie. This book was a bestseller in the year 1999. This book definitely has a more mature content and is very straight to the point, it includes drug usage from parties, sex, and violence. Although this book has explicit content, definitely do not let that distract you from the story.
Charlie, the main character in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, tells his story through a series of letters written over a span of one year, or Charlie’s freshman year of high school. Author Stephen Chbosky, tells the story of a young man trying to find his way and also trying to make friends in school. Along the way, Charlie has trials he must go through, and not everything results in a happy ending right away. Eventually, all is well in Charlie’s life, but he must struggle in order to finally be content and happy with his life. Charlie’s coming of age story is told through his trials of trying to fit in by going to parties, drinking and even doing drugs while many of his relationships are hurt in the process. Just as every other high school student, Charlie wants to feel like he belongs, even if that means becoming someone that he is not. Along the way, not only is Charlie hurt, but also his friends Sam and Patrick. The relationships with these two friends, and Charlie himself are tested by all of their actions and how they live their lives.
At the start of the novel charlie is just about to start his freshman year of highschool without any friends because his only friend michael killed himself but then at a football game he meets Sam and Patrick and make him a bit more sociable for example in a part of the novel he takes part in something called the rocky horror picture show in front of hundreds of people.By the end Charlie is now able to socialize and make more friends.This evidence shows how Perks of being a wallflower is partially about friendship and why it's important.Through socializing more and making new friends this shows that perks of being a wallflower teaches friendship and why it's important.
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.
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
Charlie wanted to be left alone because he is not a “guinea pig any more. I 've done enough. I want to be left alone now.” (Keyes 288). Charlie is fed up with how he has been treated by the doctors. He wants to be left alone, so he can do whatever he pleases. He “can’t afford to spend my time with anyone-there’s only enough left for myself” (Keyes 292). Charlie is beginning to shun his peers, and the people that love him. He has become devoured by his work, and is not able to give up any of his time to spend with loved ones. Charlie does not value the importance of having his loved ones around him, but prior to the operation, he had a strong motivation to have friends, and to be loved by his peers.
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