Perks Of Being A Wallflower Essay

     The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky is a poignant coming of age story about a teenage boy named Charlie who is entering into his freshman year of high school and trying to cope with death, life, friends, and sexuality. Chobosky does a remarkable job at describing all of these issues through the eyes of a shy, introvert teen. The reader will be shocked, amazed, and grateful to join Charlie in his walk down the road of realization and growing up.

“I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn’t try to sleep with people even if they could have. I need to know that these people exist” (Chbosky 2). The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky is a very moving coming to age story about a teenage boy named Charlie. The author, Stephen Chbosky noted, “The Charlie character is very personal to me. Not everything that he goes through is something I went through, and there are things that I went through that I did not include, but he’s very personal to me.” (Author information). This novel goes into many hard-hitting details about the struggles a young adolescent may face once they enter high school. The author uses certain experiences that Charlie has

The novel, Perks of Being a Wallflower, written by Stephen Chbosky, displays the themes of loss of innocence, self-discovery, and trauma. The reader follows Charlie, a sensitive introvert, through his letters in which he documents his thoughts and the events he is experiencing as a teenager. His traumatic experiences forced him to grow up quickly, while conveying that change is inevitable and should not be feared. Chbosky, in his novel, showcases the difficulties in being stuck between adolescence and adulthood, and how important it is to participate, develop friendships, and truly live in the moment. The friendships Charlie makes and the experiences he documents throughout the novel alter his life as he deals with the hardships of getting older, dealing with trauma and mental illnesses, and finding who he truly is.

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

The Perks of Being a Wallflower Stephen Chbosky is a compilation of letters written to us by Charlie (the main character). Charlie writes to us telling us anything that went on that day. It could be something good or it could be something bad. Basically, in these letters, Charlie would tell us his feelings about events that occurred on that particular day. It’s in these letters that we see what I believe to be the two most important themes are friendship and coming of age. I believe that Charlie is a very pleasant person. I believe that because I trust he is a person true to his word. There is no deceit or ill intensions in what he says, to my knowledge.

Emotional Instability is most often caused by a traumatic event in life. This leads to an individual growing up to have drastic mood swings without reason. Examples of these mood swings are lashing out, dangerous/reckless behavior, crying randomly, isolating oneself from society and experimenting with alcohol/drugs. Stephen Chbosky’s book, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, follows the socially awkward Charlie entering high school after his only companion ,Michael, commits suicide.Under those circumstances, it is evident that this experience impacted Charlie because in various parts of the book he often becomes overly aggressive or breaks down crying for no reason. Similar to the Perks of being a wallflower J.D Salinger’s ,Catcher in the rye,

Charlie is the main character in the movie; The Perks of Being a Wallflower. This movie depicts an adolescent’s (Charlie) struggle with trauma and grief. Past experiences are revealed gradually bit by bit, all tying into each other. The movie starts off in Charlie’s room; it is a neat and tidy little room. Charlie is fifteen years old and entering his freshman year of high school. He is innocent, hopeful, awkward, and likable to everyone but his classmates. He sits at his desk, writing a letter as he tapes songs through the radio on a cassette. His letter appears to be anonymous; it mentions that he was in the hospital and he did not want anyone to know so that no one would think he was weird. He also says that he has not spoken to anyone outside of his family all summer. He wants to turn himself around/find himself while in high school. He seems hopeful and counts down the days until graduation.

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.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is the story of a unique high school student named Charlie and his journey of self-discovery throughout his freshman year. Charlie’s personality changes drastically from the beginning of the book to the end of it; and this is what I want to focus on. First I am going to detail Charlie’s personality at the beginning of the book and then use Erik Erikson’s theory of Psychosocial Development, Kohlberg’s theory of Moral Development, Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development and an article about adolescent bulling to analyze them. I will then use examples from the book and film to illustrate his growth in the respected areas. Through these major theories of psychology I will show Charlie’s evolution from a wallflower to a human being.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a novel first published in 1999 by American writer Stephen Chbosky. The story started with Charlie writing an anonymous letter to an unknown friend because he heard that the friend is willing to listen. He discuss his first year of high school and how stumble he deal with the problems he faced. His only middle-school friend, Michael Dobson, suicide; his favorite aunt, Helen, died on the way to buy him a birthday present.

We chose to write about Patrick. Patrick is played by Ezra Matthew Miller at the age of 20. Patrick is a senior at the same high school Charlie goes to and shares wood class with him. He jokes a lot and doesn’t take things seriously and therefore he isn’t a very good student. In the beginning of the movie Patrick is joking around and leads him to getting the nickname nothing and soon everyone at school start calling him that. He has a stepsister named Sam who’s one of the main characters and they share their love with music. Patrick is homosexual and has a boyfriend named Brad. He doesn’t struggle with being gay but his boyfriend does so they keep their relationship a secret. When Brad’s dad

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky is the unapologetically honest story of the teenage protagonist, Charlie, facing the challenges that come with growing up. Though the novel does not cover themes unheard of to teenagers, Chbosky was able to masterfully create a heartwarming and heartbreaking story that many people, young and old, can easily relate to. Such a convincing story was created by using a series of letters sent from Charlie to an anonymous recipient. Through Charlie’s eyes, the reader is able to experience his perspective on issues such as introversion, sexuality, rape, and drug use. Charlie addresses every letter with “dear friend,” and lets the reader in on the intimate details of his encounters.

Matos analyses The Perks of Being a Wallflower as a novel that progresses as the protagonist, Charlie, progresses. He states that not only does Charlie learn how to overcome his past as a wallflower, but as he matures, his writing does as well. The novel is written entirely in letters from Charlie to an unknown recipient, addressed by “friend,” so readers are subjected to Charlie's view on the world and himself, and not the view the world has on Charlie. He self reports everything going on in his life which, Matos points out, might cause a slight bias in writing and the exclusion of certain events. The novel starts when Charlie is about to begin high school, a time when he was very alone after the suicide of a close friend, and ends at the

Due to various backgrounds, experiences and mindsets people who read the book might interpret the message dissimilarly. In my opinion, one of the most important themes in the story is coming-of-age. Every child should learn how to become the leading character of their own life. By doing that, they can create their own paths. Being a ”wallflower” might be safer, but in the end, you will have wasted your precious life. You might not get a second chance to do what you want to do. For instance, Charlie was dishonest with Mary Elizabeth about his feelings for her. This caused him to hurt her badly when he kissed Sam at a party. By being with Mary Elizabeth, Charlie wasted time not being with the love of his

Sociology is the scientific study of being behavior in human groups (Schaefer). There are very many examples of sociology in the movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but I view alienation, deviance, and gender roles to be the most prominent. This movie is about the struggles of a teenage boy named Charlie’s freshman year of high school. Charlie is seen as a social outcast and he just barely makes it through the year with the help of his best friends Sam and Patrick. Throughout the movie Charlie experiences most of the basic struggles of starting high school and some. This movie is very relateable since it gives a more realistic view of high school for some people. Charlie , and the audience, learns the importance of love and friendship in growing up in today’s society.