Summary of Plot The Perks of Being a Wallflower is an endearing novel written by Stephen Chbosky. The main protagonist is an introverted and attentive teenager by the name of Charlie. In the exposition, Charlie begins writing letters to an anonymous person. He does this because he was told that the person would read whatever was sent to him. Although nothing is reciprocated, Charlie finds comfort in the fact that someone listens to his ordeals. In the first letter, it is revealed that Charlie’s best friend Michael had committed suicide which sparked the beginning of his letter writing endeavors. The loss of his best friend leaves Charlie to deal with the aftermath, and this event proves to instigate the basis of the entire novel. During this …show more content…
His sensitivity and introversion define who he is as well as his role in the story. His motives are modest and truthful, but he is also frank at the wrong moments. He is also passive as well as aggressive. Charlie typically treats others respectfully, but he oftentimes analyzes things too much and ends up internally trivializing others. He often neglects his own feelings for the sake of others. For instance, he deejayed for one of the various parties, and he took satisfaction in seeing everyone else be happy even though he remained alone for the majority of the party. Loneliness is something that Charlie has difficulty with, and the fact that he overcame that to make everyone else happy is exceptionally selfless. His speech is often intuitive as well as unequivocal, and he enjoys using the word “infinite” to describe his feelings in situations in which he feels it is …show more content…
Ever since they had first met at the football game, she had captivated Charlie’s attention by becoming his love interest. However, being three years older than Charlie, she tells him that nothing further than a friendship can ensue. Despite the age difference it seems that the two have a genuine attraction to one another. Even more so, it seems that they are polar opposites, and, in the resolution of the story, this proves to connect Sam and Charlie. She often treats Charlie with respect, but she is sometimes painfully frank with him. Also, Sam shows Charlie the error of his ways before the two attempt to kindle their love which undoubtedly affects his perception of things. Another significant character in the story is Patrick, Charlie’s best friend. Charlie’s and Patrick’s friendship begins when he recognizes Charlie at the football game. Patrick is usually carefree and content, but when his relationship with Brad ends abruptly, he begins to self-destruct. While wallowing in drugs, alcohol, and premarital relations, Patrick seeks out Charlie’s friendship more than usual. Patrick talks to Charlie a lot more during this situation, but Charlie just sort of listens. Basically, Charlie is trying to be a good friend which is why when Patrick tries to kiss him, he just lets him
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
In the novel Charlie takes each person’s words into his heart and ponders about them thoughtfully. Nostrils Charlie’s best friend sticks by his side and is loyal at all times. While Nostrils is doing a job with Charlie, Nostrils gets beat up by Barlow and Nostrils tells Charlie to run which lands Nostrils in hospital. This teaches Charlie to be loyal and listen to what his friends tell him to do. Another incident is where Daisy Molony who is a prostitute tells Charlie to ‘use that money fer somethin’ good’, the filthy money that Squizzy Taylor gave to Charlie, for doing jobs for him. Mr Redmond is another strong character in Charlie’s life, teaching Charlie boxing, giving Charlie a gramophone and training him to run in the Ballarat mile. This shows Charlie, through an old man’s eyes, love and compassion. Mr Redmond dedicated a lot of time and energy for Charlie. All these people show Charlie a fragment of properties and qualities. From himself and spending time with his friends he learns how to nurture the feeling s of others but not the feelings one
Charlie also learns love in a way to get him better and set him for life. When his mother makes him dig the hole and fill it back up, this is harsh love and will prepare Charlie for later life as it will teach him respect and manners. Charlie deep down knows this is what his mother is trying to teach him, but at the time he just wanted to believe that she was trying to punish, annoy and make him work. Charlie also discovers the love of peers. When Charlie is dragged into the drama of Laura by Jasper he didn’t know if to trust him. But when the truth came out and Jasper wasn’t a part of it, Charlie loved him for telling the truth and being a good friend. Also when Jasper asks Charlie to leave Corrigan with him when they are older, Charlie loves Jasper for the respect and friendship he is giving him. Charlie also sees the act of false love. This is seen by Charlie when he witnesses his mother cheating on his father in the backseat of a car. Charlie knew his parents relationship wasn’t going too well, but he didn’t expect this. He uses this to overcome his mothers power over him. But this example shows us how Charlie has learnt the difference between real love and false love, this will only help him later in life.
Charlie’s friends even take advantage of how nice he is. They always make him the root of their jokes. When Charlie asks a barber shop owner to move his illegally parked car, the owner laughs at him and just throws him the keys to the car and tells him to move it himself. The whole town takes advantage of Charlie though, not only his friends. In the supermarket a woman asks to cut in front of him inline and then ends up having a cart full of groceries. This is Charlies breaking point. He starts tensing up, you can tell something is happening. All of a sudden he starts talking in a different voice, and finds vagaclean in the woman’s cart that cut in front of him. So to take his anger out on her he gets on the store microphone and announces she has vagaclean in her cart. We learn this new personalities name when he is drowning a young girl in the water fountain who disobeyed him earlier. When the girl says she is going to tell her father on him, he announces that he is Hank. After this change in personality he starts going
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 book also focuses on Charlie’s home life. Charlie has two siblings that make him feel invisible. There’s a hidden resentment in the tone that is used by Charlie to explain his sister and brother. But by the end they have managed to form a certain bond that Charlie has always wanted.
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.
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
After Sams past of getting with many boys, Charlie did not care he knows she changed and has also matured. Sam is someone who accepts the love she thinks she deserves and goes for people who put her down. When Sam and her boyfriend broke up Charlie realized to himself that he had strong feelings for Sam. “ All I cared about was the fact that Sam got really hurt. And I guess I realized in that moment that I really did love her.
Charlie is asked to kiss the prettiest girl in the room. Since they are dating, everyone thought that he was going to kiss Mary Elizabeth, they were wrong. Charlie kissed Sam and this caused problems in their friendship. Patrick tells Charlie that it is a good idea for him to stay away from them for a little bit until things cool off. Charlie is all alone again and his flashbacks slowly start coming back.
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
Consequently, this type of mentality contributes to the sudden emotional outburst he experiences on a regular. Furthermore, repressed anger can build up leading to sudden outbursts of intense, uncontrollable wrath. As we read in the book, we come across a couple of situations in which Charlie becomes belligerent, “I use to play sports..but the problem was that it use to make me too aggressive, so the doctors told my mom I would have to stop.” From a young age, Charlie began to restrain his feelings and that only made his situation worse as he got older.
This passage near the ending of the book is very important for Charlie. Sam tells Charlie that if he likes her, he should be open to her, and if he wants to date her, he should ask her. Also, this reveals a change in Charlie after Sam tells him this; if he is uncomfortable with something, he will tell them that instead of being shy about it. For example, when Patrick kisses Charlie, he is uncomfortable with it, but because Patrick is his friend, he lets him do it. After what Sam tells Charlie, next time he will most likely be more open to Patrick and tell him he is uncomfortable with what he is doing to him. All in all, this passage is important, because it expresses that Charlie is changing from a once awkward and shy person to a more open and direct person.
He walks into high school with not even a single friend to call his own. Until, one day he meets Patrick and Sam who are seniors at his school. Charlie ends up joining their friend group and feeling like he is starting to have a place in the world. They have some downfalls, but they stay true friends throughout, and for