Essay The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, includes the topic of adolescent development, the book forces itself to thrive in conflict, and the idea of loving submission is present throughout the story as the discussion of modern issues becomes apparent. As expressed In the Perks of Being a Wallflower, “I am very interested and fascinated how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other”(Chbosky.)

The book and the movie for The Perks of Being a Wallflower are extremely different, and I believe that the movie is much better than the book. The book is written much differently than the movie. There are lots of scenes that are in the book but not in the movie and that are in the movie not the book. The movie focuses less on the bigger, depressing topics than the book does. The characters in the movie are also much different than they are in the book. Their personalities are very different in the movie than the author described them as in the book.

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.

A motion picture normally has between 7,000 and 20,000 words depending on the type of movie (Tameri Guide for Writers, 2012). It takes the right words, in the exact right order and in the ideal situation, to create the right phrase that goes beyond the movie and into the hearts and lives of many. Similar in ways to how phobias and sometimes disorders are formed. It takes the right situation, at the right time, and the right circumstances for phobias and disorders to form. If there’s a line that fits this description in the Perks of Being a Wallflower it will have to be “We accept the love we think we deserve.” (Stephen Chbosky, 2012, The Perks of being a Wallflower) It’s a line from halfway through the movie, spoken during a conversation between Charlie and his English teacher.

The character I’m writing about is Charlie from The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. When you look at Charlie’s health triangle it would be very unbalanced. The book doesn’t touch much on his physical health and his social health is not horrible, but his mental health is very poor. His mental health is bad because of all kinds of reasons, for example past abuse from his childhood, the use of drugs, and his best friend committing suicide the year before.

The first heartbreak I ever had was not even one of my own. I let words and sentences from a love story run through my blood, and to my heart, where it then cracked, fell apart, and possibly stopped beating for a while. I laid in bed for days. Perks of Being a Wallflower, why did you do this to me? I realized everyone has their own personality when it comes to reading. My reading disposition holds a deep sense of empathy. Because of this, in every story I read, I transform into any character I (sometimes) choose to be. I then experience the story more heavily since I am apart of it. I have learned that the trait of empathy can send you down a tunnel of agonizing pain that does not even belong to you, or it can put you on someone else’s

January 2015, there was a girl who was living in a home filled with fighting causing the tension in the air to be so thick you could cut it with a knife. Being the ripe old age of 15, and being a pastor’s kid, this girl, having only ever known parents who lived together and experienced a seemingly happy life, quickly had to adjust to a life the exact opposite. This girl had to learn to live with her parents at two different addresses, her dad changing professions, not seeing her brother all the time, and hours upon hours of counseling. Within the past year or two, I have had to grow tremendously as a person. As a teenager, we are supposed to be confused with who we are and high school is the time that we are supposed to start finding ourselves,

Have you ever lost someone in your life and didn’t know how to cope with the pain? In The Perks Of Being a Wallflower written by Stephen Chbosky there are two families that have to cope with the pain of losing a loved one. Charlie’s family has to deal with the loss of Aunt Helen. She died in a car crash while going to get Charlie’s christmas present. The novel takes you through the hardship that Charlie goes through when he’s trying to cope with the pain of losing his Aunt. Then there is Michael’s death that took place when Charlie was in middle school. Michael had committed suicide by shooting himself. He didn’t even leave a not for Charlie as to why he decided to do this. Both Charlie and Michael’s family had to try and cope with this loss.

Having sold over 2 million copies, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky is a #1 New York Times Bestseller novel that has captured millions of people’s attention worldwide. Taking place in the early 90’s, a fifteen-year-old boy named Charlie is experiencing his first year of high school. Unfortunately, Charlie has lost his only friend and now has to navigate his own way to fit in. As a person who is naturally withdrawn, Charlie finds himself struggling to discover and maintain his new friendships, love life and sexuality. With the secret of having an abusive childhood, Charlie’s past slowly begins to haunt him. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a spectacular novel because of the cathartic installments, a compelling main character

“We accept the love we think we deserve.” (1.8.41)Citations look like this: (Page ___) #1 New York Times bestseller, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky. A story about uncharted territory of high school, first dates, family drama, new friends, sex, drugs, and roller-coaster days known as growing up. This book is worth reading. There are so many unexpected things that happen.

Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower demonstrates how ‘Charlie’, the protagonist drives the narrative through his subconscious exploration of his own mother complex and masculine worth. He analyses his past and current personality in his letters to arrive at how his current attitudes, values and beliefs have been shaped through key events that have happened. As the story develops, it is clearly demonstrated through Charlies exploration that Chbosky utilises the theory of Freudian psycho-analytical criticism and masculine theory. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is an American coming of age text; the protagonist, Charlie is starting the journey of high school. Charlie is a socially awkward boy who as the title says; is a wallflower.

Imagine that you could only see life in a dull grey. The world that is full of life and somehow dead because of an overcast view that only you can see, and everyone else can see every saturation and detailed shade of color. This can be just a slight piece of what depression is actually like, but it’s not the same for everyone. I believe that this disorder can be perceived as different for everyone for the reasons of the different lives people have lived, how every person varies in their perspective, and a matter of which disorders may impact the person with it.

“Every life is narrow .Our only escape is not to run away, but to learn to love the people we are and the world in which we find oversleeves”-Mark Haddon. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky is a story that describes a difficult time for many people specifically high school. Individuals of all age have struggled with fitting in and finding their place in high school , which in this book becomes an issue for characters. In the novel characters manage to find themselves engaging in both negative and positive methods of escape, for instance drug use, reading, writing, and or through suppressing thoughts.All these different methods touch on issues that many teens have explored in their own lives whether directly or indirectly.

Stephen Chbosky’s novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower is an important novel for everyone, but especially adolescents, to read. The main character, despite all his flaws, provides an insightful look into the world of a traumatized person. This trauma affects everything Charlie does and hinders his growth as a person. Chbosky uses this novel to explore Charlie’s situation and demonstrates the profound effect trauma has on a person’s development. Only by understanding his trauma, is Charlie able to grow and function as he is supposed to. By doing this, Chbosky both informs the reader of a potential path to recovery and displays the effectiveness of problem novels.

I chose to do my Abnormal Psychology paper over The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I heard about this movie a couple of years ago and I never had time to watch it until recently. I did have a difficult time diagnosing what disorder I thought the main character had, but it turned out to actually be a learning opportunity for myself.