Analysis Of The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

High school is filled with fake people and stress. Students in high school often do not know what they are doing in relationships or how bad they can hurt another person. Lying, cheating, little communication, getting used for sex, drugs, or alcohol and what people continue to believe is real love. It is even harder while trying to make the people around you ecstatic and please your boyfriend/girlfriend. Navigating through the paroles of adolescents with someone that is guaranteed to break your heart in some way, shape, or form is laborious. In Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the main character Charlie has to navigate all of this while trying to maintain new friendships, try new things, and find new relationships. As presented in the book Charlie is a wallflower. A wallflower is typically an introverted person. They might attend social gatherings, but will continue to remain silent. They see and understand. They feel lonely or shy all the time. As if no one ever see’s them. Also only have a few friends, just like Charlie. His 2 friends are Sam and Patrick. Patrick’s a senior, introducing Charlie to new people, new relationships, and giving him the whole high school experience. They all have something in common, they’re all involved foul relationships. Charlie and Mary Elizabeth, Brad and Patrick, and Sam and Craig. Chbosky displays insolent relationships throughout the book using young adolescent relationships in Perks that are unfair because the people in

In the book “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky, the main character, Charlie, writes letters to a stranger; the letters are what we read. Charlie is writing the letters as a way to cope with the recent suicide of his middle school friend Michael. Charlie is also nervous to start his freshman year in high school, and writing makes him feel better and less anxious about entering high school. He writes the letters all throughout his freshman year in high school. We watch him grow throughout the year, and see the many obstacles he faces and how he deals with them.

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.

As a country, society dictates what is termed deviant by the influences of the elite and, eventually, the masses. Society controls deviance through formal, such as criminal justice rules, and informal culturally constructed policies, such as societal reprimands that cause individual conformity, such as fashion trends, “appropriate” subjects to converse about in public settings, and, even, socially accepted body modification. This conformity could be influenced by religious affiliation, familial expectations, peer associations, and, even, mass media. In “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, the protagonist, Charlie, is subjected to undergoing experiences involving drug use, suicide, underage drinking, sexual abuse, mental illness, stigmas, homosexuality, the Goth culture, and sexual infidelity by the end of his freshman year in high school.

This is one of Charlie's greatest qualities. The book allows the reader to see the progression and course of Charlie's life. We see this change in Charlie after he meets a group of Seniors through siblings, Sam and Patrick, that he later begins to associate with. We see that Charlie has definitely came out of his shadow. While reading this book, we notice that Charlie is telling the story through writing letters to an unknown character.

The Perks of Being A Wallflower is a coming of age story about a boy named Charlie who doesn’t have many friends and is always switching schools. The only thing he really likes and has a connection with is books. But when he ends up at his current school something different happens. He meets some friends. Their names are Samantha and Patrick and they are the first real friends Charlie has had in an extremely long time.

Values of societal context in ‘Catcher in the Rye’ and ‘Perks of being a Wallflower’ are reflected and portrayed to change due to the times they were set and written. Author J.D. Salinger wrote ‘Catcher in the Rye’ during the 1940’s and released it in the early 1950’s, thus giving the book the ‘American dream’ vibe, while Stephen Chbosky set ‘Perks of being a Wallflower’ in 1991 and released it in 1999, (movie released in 2012), this introduces themes of changing ideas of sexuality and gender roles. Both composers use the context of high school and the values of ‘coming of age’ to explore the isolation caused by mental illness and the context the era had as an influence. Throughout ‘Catcher in the Rye’ and ‘Perks of being a Wallflower’, Holden

I believe that The Perks of Being a Wallflower should be a required reading, because it genuinely dives into the issues of mental health and all of its complexity, alongside complications that result for sexual abuse. I feel that this reading specifically should be required because I legitimately feel that it can change people's perceptions on those important issues. This is because I honestly never gave thought to those ideas and values. And If i were to be told that mental healthiness should be regard witht the same care and expenses as physical healthiness, before this reading, i would have objected.

His Aunt Helen, his favorite person, had been killed when he was seven years old. To better express all of his emotions and help sort through his life, Charlie decides to start writing letters to an unknown character. The story is presented to the reader in the form of Charlie’s letters. One day, Charlie decides to go to the football game at school. This is where we are really introduced to Patrick and Sam.

Charlie starts off high school with no friends and at a football game he decides to talk to a random upper class-man that he has in one of his classes. Charlie is a little nervous about doing this, so he goes up to them and talks as if they were old friends then leaves. He proceeds to come back with food to share with them, making them like Charlie right away. Charlie suffers from social anxiety. In this situation he was able to overcome it, but it still took him some work. Throughout the book we see Charlie’s journey to becoming more social. He begins to hang out with Sam and Patrick, the people at the football game, a lot more. They eventually become his best

Life is about overcoming challenges, taking risks, and accepting your flaws; a journey every individual endures.’The Perks of Being a Wallflower’ follows a boy, Charlie, who undergoes this exploration of life throughout his freshman year in high school. The greatest aspect of why readers are captivated by literature is because they discover themselves in this journey; the conflicts, emotions, and achievements of the stories they read. It is fascinating to know that characters mirror the struggles and success that the readers do. A quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald , “That-is-the-part-of-the-beauty-of-literature. You discover that your longings are universal longing, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong,” illustrates that literature is the inquiry of the human experience. It doubtlessly applies a message that novels aren’t superficial, but a binding object. In ‘The Perks of being a Wallflower’; Stephen Chbosky binds readers and Charlie, the protagonist together by tying in a unique narrative style, character development, and universal longings of love and acceptance to emphasize that you are never alone in literature.

“Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It's not 'I love you' for this or that reason, not 'I love you if you love me.' It's love for no reason, love without an object.”- Sam Jones. Although unconditional love is just as simple as “love without conditions;” in today’s society, that notion seems almost impossible. Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower manages to prove this rare, pure love exists, though, through Charlie and his sister’s, Charlie and Sam’s and Patrick’s, and Patrick and Brad’s relationships: family, friends, and lovers. Though these three relationships differentiate greatly from one another, Chbosky authenticates that true

With the help of his advanced English teacher, Mr. Anderson, whom Charlie refers to as

Emotional Instability can develop into a mental illness and is most often caused by a traumatic event early in life. This can result in an individual growing up to have drastic mood swings without reason. Examples of these mood swings are lashing out, dangerous and reckless behavior, crying randomly, isolating oneself from society, and experimenting with alcohol and drugs. Stephen Chbosky’s novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, follows a socially awkward boy named Charlie entering high school after his only companion, Michael, commits suicide. Under those circumstances, it is evident that this experience has impacted Charlie because he often becomes overly aggressive or breaks down crying for no reason.

I used to keep lists of every movie I've ever seen. I started to keep track when I was around fourteen, maybe thirteen. It was a strange, uncomfortable time in my life. I was in middle high school when my superiority complex disguising my insecurities were being shattered to bits by my peers who seemed much cooler, and much more knowledgeable than I was at the time. People loved them for that. Discovering no one likes the snobby, pseudo-underground intellectual was a difficult lesson to learn, but instead of accepting these people and figuring out what they were about, I just rejected it. I even denied some of the things I actually did like. I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky that Spring, but when a girl whom my crush