The Perks of Being a Wallflower analysis
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is the famous book written by Stephen Chbosky about the 15-year-old boy Charlie, who is both the main character and the narrator in the story. Charlie is writing a bunch of letters to his “friend” who we do not know but Charlie is telling this friend absolutely everything he experiences throughout his first year of high school. These experiences include both friends, love, family and death.

As mentioned Charlie is a 15-year old boy who is just about to start high school. At first he seems to be confused about his feelings because he says on page 3 that; “I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.” He is also a strong person, even though he has a breakdown towards the end of the book, but he is still standing tall despite the fact that his best friend Michael shot himself and his Aunt Helen molested him as a child and died in a car accident. Charlie is a very observant person, he talks a lot about his family and his friends and how they are doing and that is what makes him a wallflower. Just like Patrick says to Charlie; “You see things and you understand. You’re a wallflower.” Charlie never says much but he sees things and he is aware of everyone’s feelings, like when he sees his sister’s boyfriend hitting her and then tells his teacher, Bill about it. He is also very sensitive and cries easily. He dreams about Sam naked and most boys would never tell her about it, but Charlie does and that also indicates that he is an honest boy. And the fact that he cries because he feels bad about it, makes him very emotional, as he also says on page 9, when he gets into a fight with Sean; “…And I couldn’t stop crying after he did it. I guess I’m pretty emotional.”

Charlie is very quiet and shy and does not have any friends until he meets Sam and Patrick and that makes him an introvert but as soon as he is in his little group of friends where he feels comfortable, he is fairly sociable. He is also very valiant because he not only stands up for himself when Sean is hitting him but also for Patrick when he is getting hit by Bad and at last, he talks to Patrick at the football game even though he is this very quiet and shy boy. Despite his not so smart move when he kissed Sam instead of Mary Elizabeth, Charlie is a very sweet and kindhearted boy. He replies with an “I love you” when his sister says that she hates him, and even though it was incredibly dumb and he did not want to he keeps having a relationship with Mary Elizabeth just to make her happy.

As I mentioned earlier, the book is about Charlie and his experiences, which include love, family, friends and death. One of the main themes in the story is friendship. Charlie is struggling with dark moments of depression and he gets a lot of help from his friends. They make him a much happier person than he was in the beginning of the book and they give him something precious he has never had before; a sense of belonging. Then he falls in love with his friend Sam who is his first real love, which leads us to the theme “love,” as another important theme. There is both love between Charlie and his friends, between Charlie and his family and of course, the love between Sam and him. Charlie is learning about feelings and how to express them and he is having a difficult time because his Aunt molested him as a kid and that can make it hard to love and let other people love and touch you. Charlie and his friends uses different kinds of drugs. Alcohol, hash, LSD. This makes “drugs” another important theme. The drug use is the key to Charlie’s self-discovery and personal development and he often only opens up under the influence of drugs.

Forgiveness is also a major theme in the book. It shows us that forgiveness can help you move on with your life. Aunt Helen did something very terrible to Charlie but he still does not think of her as a bad person because he knows she was very sick. He forgives her for what she did to him and that helps him to move on and live his life as normal person without struggling with his demons. The thing about the whole group with Charlie, Sam, Patrick, Mary-Elizabeth, Alice etc. Is that they are all misfits. A central theme in The Perks of Being a Wallflower is the idea of not fitting in. When Charlie is on his own, he cannot quit function but when he is a part of a group with other misfits, he feels more comfortable with his own identity.