The Perks Of Being A Wallflower And Scotty Smalls

Reading coming of age stories are always interesting and at times nastolgic. Coming of age stories typically include a young protagonist forced to make a grown decision which is a transition to their first move into adulthood. In a sense, these stories show the protagonist shifting from innocence to gaining experiences. The two coming of age stories that we read in class were “A White Heron” by Sarah Orne Jewett and “The Man Who Was Almost A Man” by Richard Wright. Both being coming of age stories, they have similar features but were different in the sense that one protagonist seemed to have made a shift into adulthood whereas one did not.

Various novels can be classified as “coming-of-age” texts, this means that these are stories about a protagonist’s transition from childhood to adulthood or just growing up even as an adult. These novels show their growth and change in character over the length of the text. Novels such as The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston are all examples of coming-of-age novels. In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God the story is focused on Janie Crawford and her growth over the course of the book.

Coming of age is an influential part of many people’s lives. They begin to leave behind their innocent childhood views and develop a more realistic view on the world around them as they step forward into adulthood. (Need to add transition) Many authors have a coming of age theme in their books; specifically, Harper Lee portrays a coming of age theme in his book To Kill A Mockingbird. Through the journeys of their childhoods, Jem and Scout lose their innocence while experiencing their coming of age moment, making them realize how unfair Maycomb really is.

In the San Fernando Valley during the summer of 1962, Scotty Smalls is the new boy in the neighborhood seeking desperately to fit in. He would be welcomed on the local sandlot baseball team that practices every day which only has eight players. Smalls however can't play baseball on his first visit to the sandlot he finds himself in the outfield with a fly ball descending toward him which bounces off his glove causing the other boys except “Benny the jet” Rodriguez the team's leader to burst out laughing Smalls is humiliated and leaves. Smalls asks his Step-Father to teach him how to play, and while his Step- Father agrees Smalls cannot catch or throw the ball. Benny soon teaches him what he needs to know, and with Benny's support he gets a place on the team. Meanwhile behind the wall

Scotty’s mom wanted Scotty to make new friends in the new neighborhood they moved in. His family moved into a new house in the summer of 1962. Scotty met a group of kids who play baseball, and they were to be mean to Scotty. They didn’t like Scotty because he doesn’t know much about baseball, so

‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’ fits into the romance and drama genres, but the movie truly shines in its role as a coming of age film. ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’ tackles the hardships and pain that growing up can sometimes make you feel, and depicts high school in the most realistic way I have seen for a while. Other coming of age films like ‘Clueless’ and ‘Mean Girls’ portray high school in a sort of innocence, with issues going on in the protagonist’s lives only occurring during their times at school. This film doesn’t sugar coat things. It shows Charlie’s struggles from all different angles of growing up and

As stated above, this humiliation that he has been experiencing has caused him to lose his confidence in himself. This is proved when Charlie writes about his conversation with Miss Kinnian. He writes: “I tried to make a conversation with Miss Kinnian but no matter how much I tried to talk at the same level as her I always brought up psychology in the process. I am having great difficulty in making friends.” This quote proves that after the surgery that Charlie took to triple his intelligence made him find it difficult to make friends after he became aware of this humiliation that he has been experiencing. It

Although it may not seem to be positive Charlie now has room to be able to learn and grow on the area of social abilities. When Charlie says,“It’s a funny thing I never knew that Joe and Frank and the others liked to have me around all the time to make fun of me.” (Keyes 307) that represents that a weight has been lifted off his shoulders.

In the beginning of the book, Charlie has only his relationships keeping him afloat. He has his relationship with Mr. Donner, which ensures his job and his relationship with Miss Kinnian, which influences her to choose him as the person to attempt the experiment on. Later on in the book, as he grows more intelligent, he also grows more distant. He soon loses his close relationships with the people around him, and when he does try to have a relationship, it doesn’t end well. Even if he has lost his relationships with people, he now has his intelligence.

And with his new increase in intelligence, comes change in his development too. This change leads to Charlie going through some of the stages of development twice. One of the stages that Charlie goes through twice is stage 6 where Charlie is supposed to form, “love relationships based on mutual caring” and he won’t be “developmentally complete until they have achieved a sense of identity”(Erikson). By the end of progress report 14, it is

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

Charlie is depicted to be a socially awkward, ninth grader. However, he is befriended Sam, a gorgeous and exciting 12th grader as well as Patrick, the most charismatic person in the 12th grade. At a party, he smoked weed which somehow altered his personality completely to be as social and humorous as one could be. Moreover, being a scrawny boy, he single handily fought and beat a group of full grown men who play football. He somehow managed to call upon an immense amount of strength to do so.

After Charlie goes through the surgery to improve his intelligence, he begins to see the world as it truly is. Charlie is not very intelligent. He is aware of his mental deficit and wants to become smart. When asked about the reason he wants the surgery, Charlie states, “I told them becaus all my life I wantid to be smart and not dumb (Keyes 286). Charlie, “Cant wait to be smart like my best frends Joe Carp and Frank Reilly (Keyes 290).” Therefore, he was not satisfied with his life before the surgery. Furthermore, Charlie’s mental deficit makes him not very smart about his relationships with his coworkers. He is unaware that his coworkers make fun of him. At first, Charlie believes, “Their really my friends and they like me” (Keyes 289). Others, however, realize that the coworkers aren’t treating Charlie well. Referring to his kind teacher, Charlie says, “I said all my frends are smart people but there good. They like me and they never did anything that wasnt nice. Then she got something in her eye and she had to run out to the ladys room” (Keyes 291). After the surgery, Charlie comes to understand people more and to understand what is a true friend. Charlie later learns, “Now I know what it means when they say ‘to pull a Charlie Gordon.’ I'm ashamed” (Keyes 293). Charlie also sees his doctors in a new light when he says, “It was as if I'd

When Charlie had a low I.Q., he believed his co-workers at the bakery he worked at were his friends. The novel states, “He was laffing and Joe Carp was laffing but Gimpy came in and told them to get back to making rolls. They are all good frends to me” (Keyes 27). When Charlie told his “friends” that he was going to school, they laughed in his face. When Charlie could not figure out that these people were making fun of him, he was happier and had an easier time communicating with others.

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.