The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

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 Wildflower movie is a great demonstration on adolescence and childhood development as it portrays how much we as humans are effected by our early childhood years and how we struggle to make sense of life while navigating through adolescence. We are molded by our environment, but also shaped by the neglect or abuse we suffer as children. The traumatic experiences are life altering and if not dealt with can have dramatic outcomes for our future. The movie has a great story line and walks the audience through the character and identity development of an adolescence. Dissecting Charlies character will be helpful in understanding that part of a human’s life and development.

For my paper, I am diagnosing Charlie from the film, Perks of Being a Wallflower. Before I delve into Charlie’s diagnosis, I will provide some background information about his character. In the film, Charlie is a 15 year old boy who has recently started high school as a freshman. He lives with both parents, and his sister who is a couple years older than him. Charlie also has a brother who has gone away to college. In school, Charlie is seen to be good with academics, particularly in English, since he has an interest in writing. However, Charlie does not have any friends and his best friend had kill himself in the last year. Furthermore, Charlie is seen to be quite socially awkward around his peers and usually keeps to himself.

Charlie Kelmeckis is described as a “wallflower.” He is socially awkward and likes to keep to himself. He also really enjoys reading and writing. Charlie cares deeply for others, but has a lot of guilt about past events. For example, Charlie believes that the death of his Aunt Helen is his fault, because she was killed in a car accident on an errand to get Charlie a birthday gift. Charlie has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Anxiety, and Depression. His mental instability was mostly caused by being sexually abused by his Aunt Helen before the age of seven. Charlie experiences flashbacks of his Aunt over the course of the movie, but all are portrayed in a positive light.

‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’ follows shy and kind-natured Charlie Kelmeckis (Logan Lerman- Percy Jackson, The Butterfly Effect) as he enters high school alone, after the recent loss of his middle school best friend to suicide. Charlie gets befriended by seniors Sam (Emma Watson- Harry Potter-Beauty and the Beast) and Patrick (Ezra Miller- Justice League, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) and finally feels accepted.

Throughout his diary entries, Charlie demonstrates an emotional attachment to his Aunt Helen. Although Charlie isn’t aware, Aunt Helen is in his subconscious: the part of the mind that an individual is not aware of but influences one's actions. According to Charlie, his aunt is his favorite person in the world. Aunt Helen lived under her sister's roof for her last few years of life after living a dreadful life. This woman was formerly molested by a family friend and when she revealed this information to her parents, the suffering didn’t stop because they saw it as a false claim and continued inviting this man over. This traumatic event led to an overuse of drugs, the frequent reentry to a hospital, a jobless life, and lastly the repeated sexual abuse of a young version of Charlie. Charlie develops a form of

Author of The Perks of a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky, mentions an important point when he says, “Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.” Banning books has been a practice since 443 BC in Rome when Socrates was to drink poison because of “his corruption of youth and his acknowledgement of unorthodox divinities,” says Beacon for Freedom of Expression. Before a book can get to the point of being banned, it undergoes a process of being challenged. This is when a group of people or a person tries to restrict certain materials. When a challenge ends up being victorious, the book gets banned and removed. Some people believe that certain books are not ethically

Movies are constantly created by producers and writers to convey a particular meaning to their audience they are reaching out too. The meaning can be interpreted in several ways. For example, one can understand the meaning that was intended by the creators, or it could be an individual’s own understanding of a storyline in the movie. As a movie can be viewed through different perspectives, a dominant male named Louis Althusser created the theory of Interpellation and the Role of ISAs and RSAs to help further understand movies. Althusser’s theory explains that people in power will remain in power and others will be controlled by those in power (Hartt-Fournier, Lecture 2). Furthermore, the role of ISA, known as the Ideological State

This exaggerated startle response when he feels threatens shows another sign of PTSD. He is miserable of having these experiences and feelings. His “abnormalities” leads to the clinical depression of him. Therefore, he’s been hospitalized, and “damaged”. Last year, his best friend has committed the suicide. Charlie locks himself and sincerely believes himself of being a loser. He can’t protect his friend or anybody. He is fully isolated from the outside world. This could be the reason why he loves to read and write. Even though the PTSD and depression put barriers on him to make friends and blend into the social stream, he finds his passion for reading and writing, as well as music. In addition, it gives him the chance to be connected with Mr. Anderson, his English teacher, and Sam, his love.

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.

In the film The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Charlie, an introverted boy, coping with the recent suicide of his friend, begins high school. He finds trouble making friends until he meets Patrick and Sam. As Charlie attempts to improve his social interaction, and cultivate a sense of self, he continuously experiences blackouts and triggers. Nearing the end of the film, Charlie has a mental breakdown, which leads to his hospitalization, and he uncovers his repressed memories of his Aunt Helen molesting him. Charlie shows symptoms and behavioral tendencies of post-traumatic stress disorder in addition to a comorbid diagnosis of depression and social anxiety.

Imagine receiving one’s first car or an acceptance letter to the best school in the state, or even simply having a birthday party. Now, on the contrary, imagine a close family member has just passed away, school is incredibly stressful, and, because of all this, a mental breakdown is on the horizon. From the most saturated moments to the ones that are decidedly grayscale, friends should be at the side of anyone experiencing these moments - which is nearly everyone. What if all those confidants vanished? This is what happened to charlie after his only friend, Michael, committed suicide. Then, he met step siblings Sam and Patrick, who filled his life with colors he hadn’t even known existed. In The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, the author emphasizes the theme that, no matter how cliché it is, friendship can often be the one thing that teaches a person what to do to save themselves.

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 movie Perks of being a Wallflower sparked people's hearts throughout the world for its variety of difficult situations teens everywhere go though. In The perks of being a Wallflower there are three main values that reflect a larger cultural values. For example the value of happiness. Everyone deserves happiness but it is not simply attained it has to be fought for. Charlie from The Perks of being a Wallflower has to learn the hard way the value of friendship. He was shy and unpopular, and socially awkward. But with the help of his friends, he transformed into a kind, funny person. the values of friendship affects many people in the world. Another values in The perks of being a Wallflower is sadness. Sadness can consumes one's life if not

was at a party) and voiced that you think that your Aunt Helen's death was your fault. Knowing