Task 1
Analysis of “The perks of being a wallflower”
Thea Bossum
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a story which is told through a series of letters written by Charlie, a freshman in high school. (Chbosky, 2012) In the letters he tells about what his day was like, his feelings and his thoughts about his life. Charlie does not know the person he is writing to, and the person’s identity is never revealed. At school, Charlie finds it hard to make friends and he does not feel like he fits in. This is mostly because of his troubled past and he is still trying to cope with the recent suicide of his best friend, Michael. In addition, his beloved Aunt Helen died at his seventh birthday when she went out to buy Charlie a birthday present and he constantly
…show more content…
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 These internal conflicts make him withdrawn.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
Charlie, also has a peculiar speech pattern. Despite being a young teenager, his language is somewhat outdated; and he has a sardonic sense of humor. He shifts from “fancy” vocabulary to a more simple type of speech on a regular basis. In his first letter of Part 4, he describes someone’s face as “ashen”; but he had previously described his family members using the words “nice” and “fat”. Surprisingly simple speech from someone so seemingly contemplative. He, Charlie, is also very “matter-of-fact” about things. He does not say things that he does not believe to be true; and if he’s unsure, he states his ignorance as a fact. This is easy to see in Part 1 when he states, “I am really in love with Sam, and it hurts very much,” like it was an immovable thought or an unchangeable
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
Charlie begins to hang out with Sam and Patrick and is getting in the routine of going to football games and then going out afterwards to celebrate. Afterwhile he catches feelings for Sam and the way he expresses them further deepens our understanding of his depression. Instead of going with the flow and not telling her about the dreams he had about her, he professes his love for her in the form of sharing his dreams and telling her just how he feels. Perhaps, this isn’t all his fault because when Sam tells him that she’s too old for him, he becomes obsessed with his love for her and can’t stop thinking about how perfect she is in his eyes. The only thing this confession has done for him is make his feelings grow and send him in a downward spiral of
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.
The film I chose to write about is Perks of Being a Wallflower. The story starts with Charlie the main character feeling depressed and lonely.1 His best friend committed suicide and he is about to start high school without any friends. The story is told in he perspective of Charlie because he writes letters about what is happening in his life. Charlie is an avid reader and immediately connects with his English teacher Mr. Anderson.1 Although Charlie is timid, he meets Sam and Patrick at a football game that he was attending alone. Charlie seems happier throughout the movie as Patrick and Sam invite him out with them. They become good supporting friends that he has not had since the death of his friend.
Teenagers today face a number of problems, ranging from peer pressure and alcohol, to depression and rape. These severe topics can have an intense effect on a growing child, now, and in the future. Many modern teenagers face the daily struggles of harmful situations, and the good and bad in them. In The Perks of Being a Wall Flower, Charlie faces almost every bad situation imaginable, in a heart breaking and realistic coming of age story. Charlie does not have the grandest high school experience, but the book represents the harsh and cruel reality of what so many students face today. Charlie, also being on the unclear side of what he was experiencing, was also hit hard with the outcomes of his actions. Drugs, alcohol, and sexual interaction contributed to the difficult standards that are held to growing students, in their fight to fit in. Every teen has faced the harsh reality of peer pressure and abuse, which takes a harsh effect on its victims. In the beginning of the story, Charlie faces the death of one of his friend Michael, to suicide. Starting the beginning of Charlie?s coming of age story, also known as a freshman in high school. Throughout the book, peer pressure, substance abuse, the fight to be normal, and the hope to have friends in the first place pushed Charlie to take the wrong path in some situations. Charlie?s coming of age story represents the teenage life today
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.
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.
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.
In the story, Charlie experiences being lonely in different aspects of his life. The first one that he feels this in is his family. His family consists of his parents, his brother and sister, and his aunt Helen. His parents, especially his dad, have never really been that involved or shown much interest in his life. This is shown when after he had been on LSD and was found in the snow, they never questioned if he was on drugs, they just contributed it to his prior problems of “seeing” things. His dad usually just ignored Charlie because he was different and quieter than the other kids. Charlie’s brother isn’t in the story much because he’s away at college playing football for Penn State. Charlie’s sister is in the story pretty often, but she doesn’t really talk to
The setting of the novel greatly breads Charlie’s life. In the suburbs, everyone knows each other better than in the city. Therefore, when one person is beaten by a mental illness, it affects everyone in some way. When someone has a mental illness people do not talk about it, it is pushed away and hidden. No one really tries to help, but once the problem goes to extremes and someone commits suicide, no one is not talking about it. So when Charlie’s best and only friend stops coming to school and they announce that he has passed away, everyone is whispering about it and trying to find what really happened. Charlie found someone who knows the truth and got the true but devastating news “Dave with the awkward glasses told us that Michael
He feels lonely, blames himself for his aunt’s death, abuses substances at parties, and has thoughts of suicide. Before he returns to the mental hospital, the camera shows him reaching for a knife. This moment suggests he would have committed suicide if his sister had not sent the police to his house. His depression could have been caused from his PTSD and feelings of loneliness. He was lonely on the first day of highschool because his best friend had also committed suicide the May before. He even describes to his new friends, “I didn’t think that anyone noticed me” (Perks of Being a Wallflower). He describes himself as “getting bad again” when his best friend dies, when he has not seen his friends for two weeks, and when his friend group leaves for college. These are all times when he may have been feeling lonely. He reveals his PTSD and depression through his relationships as well. Charlie is close to his family and reveals he has not spoken to anyone outside his family since the school year, but he meets seniors who help him find his way. He is loving, caring, and thankful for his friends and is sad when they leave, and he even stands up for them after they had asked Charlie to stay
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
In the movie, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the main character Charlie is on a journey with his mental health. There are many high and low points, but it is obvious that he has a serious mental illness. Throughout the movie, Charlie shows many symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which is defined as “A disorder that develops in some people who have experienced a shocking, scary, or dangerous event.” by the National Institute of Mental Health, and can be diagnosed through the DSM-IV method. Firstly, there needs to be signs of deviant behaviour. During the movie there are multiple occasions where Charlie blacks out and loses his memory. Whether it was drug, rage or anxiety included, this is still considered both deviant behaviour and a symptom of PTSD. Secondly, there needs to be signs of maladaptive behaviour. At the beginning of the movie, we see Charlie writing letters to his deceased best friend about his negative thoughts and feelings. While it is good to express these thoughts and feelings, it is not normal to articulate them to a dead person. He also experiences multiple flashbacks to the trauma he experienced from his Aunt Helen. Flashbacks are one the most common symptoms of PTSD, and can also develop other mental illnesses such as depression if not correctly treated. Lastly, there needs to be signs of personal distress, which can be seen when charlie expresses quilt about his Aunt Helen’s death before he has a blackout in the snow. When his feelings