Perks Of Being A Wallflower Coming Of Age Essay

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

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 These internal conflicts make him withdrawn.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

Life lessons that the books gives is relationships, depression, and suicide. For example, it talked about an abusive relationship. In the book, Charlie’s sister has a boyfriend, who punches her in the face hard (Gale). The sister did not seek for help, instead, she kept the relationship going like if nothing bad had happened. This example can open up teenagers eyes especially when they are starting to build up love relationships and demonstrates what is not acceptable in a healthy relationship. Another example is when Charlie wanted to kill himself because he had depression. That can also happen to any other ordinary teenager. Any young reader can learn from this experience and if they go through this they can get some if it does get as bad as Charlie’s did. The Perks of Being a Wallflower also talks about rape. Rape is something big in life. The book talks of how rape can occur. Whoever reads the book, the person might when through rape when they were small and did not realize. Reading this will open their eyes and come out to the truth. Reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower may get the reader to realize how important and realistic it is that it can happen to any other person. As Bancroft mentions

The second similar theme between the two books is coming of age. Coming of age is about growing up and finding out more about yourself and the world, and how its not always fair. In The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the book beings with Charlie staring high school, he is an outcast, a wallflower, he does not join in on conversations but choose to sit back and observe. He is grieving about many things, the friend he just lost due to suicide, his aunt who had a rough childhood and died in a car crash and Charlie thought it was his fault she died, and his sister who is in a bad relationship but he can’t help her. He doesn’t understand the world and is considered innocent because he does not know most things that everyone else knows such as relationships,

Over the course of the book I read-The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky- Charlie’s character went through a lot of change in many ways. Throughout the book, the narrator felt very distant from everyone (A wallflower) and was just trying to get through his freshman year. Charlie’s letters all seemed to leave out some information, as if he was always seeing the world in a haze. He did make some friends, like Sam and Patrick, but he didn’t really participate in life in general. In one of his letters, he explained when Dave raped the girl at his brother and sister’s party in an almost disturbingly nonchalant way, as if he wasn't actually witnessing what was happening. Over the course of the book, Charlie became more of an “active wallflower,” in that he learned to participate in life.

At first Charlie doesn’t understand why people do some things, and then he does things he doesn’t fully understand because of his innocence. The Perks of Being a Wallflower teaches you not to idolize innocence. You experience Charlie’s freshmen year with him and come face to face with world through Charlie innocent eyes. No matter how wise or how innocent you are, after reading the Perks of Being a Wallflower you lose a little bit of that innocence, you may not have known you even

However, it is a far cry from his original, “wallflower” nature where he observed but never spoke up. It is also ironic as it shows his need to be emotionally stable, not wanting to find out the truth as his perceptions of his “nice” aunt would be ruined just as with Pi and his resistance to accept his “tiger” or inner anger. Charlie’s eventual maturity and coming-of-age occurs through his friends can be seen through the narration “The time we were walking… And I was in the middle… walking between them and feeling for the first time that I belonged somewhere.” The quote is emotionally symbolic highlighting his acceptance of society through his association with his friends.

Charlie was always different from the other kids. Specifically how he thought and acted out. For instance, he created a life that doesn’t include himself, but is all about making other people happy. This explains why Charlie doesn’t participate in extracurricular activities and why he doesn’t have many friends. I think the purpose of this book is to demonstrate what not to do.

Passivity in The Perks of Being a Wallflower There are many life lessons to learn from in Stephen Chbosky’s, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”. One of them being, “Do as you wish. Be as you are”. Charlie, the protagonist of the novel, is a high school freshman just trying to fit in. Throughout the novel he is faced with many difficulties as a teenager.

He is struggling to fit in and make friends on top of dealing with two major traumatic deaths of his loved ones. He keeps to himself and watches life from the sidelines until he meets two senior students, Sam and Patrick, who later become his best friends. This opened up a whole lot of new experience for Charlie and their influence on him has a profound effect: He participates in more events and become more comfortable

At the beginning of “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, Charlie is portrayed as being a smart, yet introverted teenager who yearns for affection and acceptance within his age group, but feels as though he will not be accepted because of his mental illness and hospitalization the summer before he goes to high school. So, he pardons those at school who treat him badly, and lies to his parents about his high school experience because he does not want to concern them. His lack of hatred towards others at his high school is commendable, but Charlie does not view himself as being anything but a wallflower. He sees others’ pain and wants to be there

Wallflowers tend to look at the deeper meanings of things. A lot of times people tend to take things at face value because they don't have time or have no interest in digging deeper into their meanings. Charlie definitely takes the time to consider the actual meanings of things. For example, there is a multitude of instances in this book in which Charlie goes

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.

In "The Perks..." there are a variety of personalities portrayed through the book. Charlie being the "wallflower" of the title, was different from most of the other students at his high school. He understood what most didn 't and didn 't judge anyone for who they are or what they were like; on the contrary, he actually thought about and sometimes asked why they decided to be that way, and there was nothing more to it. Through out the book, entirely composed of letters to an unnamed "friend", he explains how he met eccentric people, like Sam and her step-brother Patrick; two kids a few years older than the at the time freshman Charlie. Sam