Charlie- the vessel of a sympathetic soul, his bittersweet innocence defines the authenticity of his rare character among the youth.
CHAPTER ONE
The first chapter is deemed as the overview of Charlie’s life. The good and the bad, the politically correct, the acceptable norms, the traditional social circles and the golden thoughts of Charlie scratched the surface of an anticipated worthy-read story.
Despite Charlie’s bittersweet innocence towards the circumstances in life, his frank and dauntless character is relatable. His sympathy towards people puts him into situations wherein he messes up his mind between what is right and wrong. The first few pages talks about his friend, Michael, who committed suicide. It seemed like Charlie felt an irrelevant guilt because of what had happened but it just tells the readers how Charlie is a person who builds compassionate and authentic relationships around him. Charlie looks at life in many forms such as developing the penchant for reading from having been recommended with books from his teacher, reminiscing past experiences from other people and even listening to the mixed tapes that his sister’s boyfriend gives him down to the untitled songs that people might have already forgotten over unforgettable road trips with Sam and Patrick.
Charlie notices changes wherein not everyone would give a thought about. He watched a schoolmate Susan pretended and enclosed her real self upon entering high school, wherein popularity among peers became her outlet instead of developing real connections between the people whom might care for her. This troubled Charlie how peculiar people could change just to get the approval of the crowd. Charlie talks about how he accidentally tapped his first peak to intimacy, but an intimacy in a troubling way. He was exposed to grave emotional violence upon witnessing a teenage girl being forced for oral sex by a guy during a party and his sister’s boyfriend slapping his sister. But he didn’t speak about it, he kept it to himself. His introverted nature kept on persisting over his decisions and conversations. He also talked about his growing intimacy towards Sam, the stepsister of Patrick, whom he all got acquainted with during a football game. He developed his natural urge for intimacy such as masturbation. He even revealed it to Sam and felt guilty. But with that awkward confession, he was able to gain first-hand advice from Patrick.
With all of these circumstances, he wondered why love could be that painful. His thoughts all boiled down to what Bill(Charlie’s English teacher) said, “We accept the love we think we deserve.”
Charlie is aware of all the angles of traditional high school settings from the classic name-calling bullying down to the popular smoking, drinking and drug vices. His opinions over Sam and Patrick’s smoking lifestyle are neutral. He tried his first ‘space cakes’ wherein he got stoned without even allowing it but he kept quiet about it. He didn’t call Patrick as ‘Nothing’ even if the tease is one of their school’s famous ones.
Charlie tags along with Sam and Patrick to parties. Photo from www.kpbs.org
He grew a connection with the popular siblings but he didn’t really got involved with their affairs aside from tagging along parties.
He remembered Patrick’s thought about life, “It’s just that sometimes people use thought to not participate in life.”
Charlie is family oriented and a curious soul. He is proud of his brother’s football achievements and got hurt with his sister’s choices. He is also close to his Aunt who moved in with them. He was the youngest of the brood and he preferred watching his siblings way of living and then interpreting it in many ways.
Sam and Patrick are the characters whom Charlie became really attached to. They showed Charlie a life of pure freedom, more than just the party neon lights or cigarette fumes but their vulnerabilities. Charlie didn’t judge. He didn’t base their characters based on their actions. He was a listener more than a speaker.He doesn’t steal the limelight. He was willing to accept them as they are, perhaps that was something that they loved about him.
He is a wallflower. Patrick told him, “You see things. You keep quiet about them, And you understand.” He was aware of the vulnerabilities in life and he understands.
Vulnerabilities- chapter two revealed the past experiences of pain among the characters, it also confesses the true nature of each one.
I haven’t had the hint towards Patrick’s authentic sexuality until the first few pages revolved around it. I frowned at the idea that Patrick and Brad had to keep the realities involving them, as if their true nature is a dark secret. The truth could have sent them free but they had to shield themselves from society’s judgment. I felt this kind of empathy towards Patrick when he said that he wasn’t sad because at least, Brad doesn’t have to get ‘drunk or stoned’ to make love.
Patrick and Brad’s relationship was very complicated. Photo from www.tumblr.com
Patrick is residing in mediocrity when in the first place, he is worth more than that. He is worth to be loved in a higher value.
Chapter two also talks about Sam dating Craig, the introduction of another interesting friend named Mary Elizabeth and Charlie’s memories about his Aunt Helen along with the traditional settings of family reunions over the holiday.
Yet, the most memorable sub-story among all for me, is the Christmas party among Charlie and the rest of Patrick’s friends. My heartstrings were tugged the moment Patrick (Charlie’s Secret Santa) was able to complete his gift that assembled a suit.
It wasn’t the suit that really mattered but the words that Patrick told everyone which is: “all the great writers used to wear suits all the time.” I just couldn’t forget it. I was glad that Patrick, in a way, was able to see Charlie in that kind of light, even adding ‘great’ in his sentence.
As usual, Charlie is always the thoughtful one in the group. He gave everyone gifts, gifts which really meant so much to them. The humor and thought about it made me conclude that whatever you tell Charlie, he gets it and keeps it to his heart. Aside from the heartwarming moment from Patrick, Sam also had her moment with Charlie too when they talked inside her room. She revealed how she didn’t get to have her first kiss with someone she loved when her father’s friend stole it away when she was seven. Sam poured her heart out to Charlie, which I could conclude that ‘she is the bravest’ when she did this.
Despite this, she managed to give ‘the right first kiss’ to Charlie, “I want to make sure that the first person you kiss loves you. Okay?”
(Which is another aggressive but gentle yet brave at the same time). Sam owned the moment when she gave Charlie a typewriter. I couldn’t believe that Sam and Patrick really saw the true nature and potential of Charlie, more than just their friend that was branded as ‘the wallflower.’
Charlie’s Aunt Helen was also revealed in the chapter. Although she was mentioned in the chapter for a multiple times, chapter two emphasized why Charlie became attached to his Aunt. I could say that Aunt Helen is a cool adult who let Charlie watch television way past bedtime and gives Charlie two presents instead of one. Charlie had this childhood grief that kept on repeating every Christmas time as he stated: ‘And I know that my aunt Helen would still be alive today if she just bought me one present like everybody else. She would be alive if I were born on a day that didn’t snow. I would do anything to make this go away. I miss her terribly. I have to stop writing now because I am too sad.’
Charlie’s guilt upon the loss of his Aunt Helen had been haunting him for a very long time. Photo from www.all-the-quotes.blogspot.com
I don’t know why Charlie seems to be very guilty and devastated with his Aunt Helen’s death. It seemed like he is always sympathizing with people’s death, such as tracing back to Michael’s suicide. I wish Charlie could move on with it, he could escape the pain of his past experiences because he is braver than all of his fears.
CHAPTER THREE
Love and Heartbreak- Chapter three dealt with the pangs of the strongest human emotion there is: love. This seemingly dangerous, frustrating, intoxicating, addicting and deadly human condition sabotages life’s little comfort zone. In love, there are always going to be thorns in all of its promising roses.
Chapter three talks about the short-lived one-sided love affair between Mary Elizabeth and Charlie (honestly, though, I don’t think you could call it a love affair at all since it wasn’t a mutual connection but for the sake of underlining the context, perhaps it’s alright to describe their affair as that). It is deemed unrequited in the first place. Mary Elizabeth was blinded with Charlie’s passiveness and dishonesty the whole time.
I couldn’t understand why Charlie was able to endure a ‘fake connection’ between them. He let her talk without pouring his heart with what he was hearing from her. He knows her favorite things but not her fears and her vulnerabilities.
He was even entertaining the selfish thought that Sam could develop some kind of jealousy because he started dating Mary Elizabeth. Mary Elizabeth, on the other hand, is an interesting, go-getting, worldly and witty lady who is also figuring things out in her life and in her relationships. The downside with the whole time she’d been together with Charlie is that she never got to know who he really is. She was selling herself by introducing him to the ‘great things’ that interested her, hoping he’ll reciprocate with the same extremity of passion and developing connection. She didn’t get to know Charlie as a person with dreams, fears, favorites, dislikes, obsessive compulsive disorders and painful stories.
Charlie: I just don’t want to hurt her feelings. Photo from www.tumblr.com
As what Charlie emphasized: ‘It almost feels like of the three things involved: Mary Elizabeth, me and the great things, only the first one matters to Mary Elizabeth.’
Charlie’s sister told him that Mary Elizabeth is having ‘low esteem issues’, which made her feel superior by introducing Charlie to great things. I beg to differ, though. Mary Elizabeth might be someone as spontaneous, wild and liberal in context but she couldn’t be just as insecure as that since a lot of things are occupying in her mind, she is really attached to those ‘great things’ that she could go as far as worshiping them in conversations and material acquisitions about those ‘great things’.
Charlie’s sister, at an out of the box thought, is the irony. She kept on labeling people with her rude outlook like how she concluded Sam as being another insecure girl a few months ago and how she insulted their brother’s girlfriend on a drive to a holiday getaway. She might be feeling knowledgeable and somehow superior when she could point out the vulnerabilities of other people and attacking them on their weak spots but it only caused her constant repression of her personal attitude that she needs to fix.
Talking about Charlie’s sister, she also underwent a stressful, devastating and immoral act: abortion. That’s what she got from keeping her boyfriend in secret. Her boyfriend coward on it so she had no resort but to get rid of the unwanted offspring since her parents could have killed her if she told them.
That’s when Charlie proved himself worthy when he went with her to the clinic. He even said he was glad that someone counted on him at that time.
Nina Dobrev plays as Charlie’s sister in the film adaptation of the novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. Photo from www.youtube.com
The heartfelt moment they had was the reciprocation of uttering “I Love You” in the most simple and genuine platonic love. Heartbreak could not really crash someone’s world into pieces when there will be people helping you assemble them again before everything goes missing.
Although, having your lover coward out during a pregnancy could be that scary, Charlie’s sister tried to be sane enough to handle her mess. I just wished she didn’t resort to abortion, there could have been other ways and an innocent child isn’t part of the sin. On another thought, Charlie’s sister discovered that he had been smoking already and warned him about the bad benefits for his health but he just shrugged it away.
He also ignored the pamphlet about smoking from his teacher Bill who was concerned about his vice. I guess Charlie was already subconsciously ‘participating’ in life wherein you’ve got to live the life you want to experience.
Going back to Mary Elizabeth, Charlie was able to stab her heart and pain colored her crushed soul one night because of what he did. I guess the ‘Truth or Dare’ game was a blessing in disguise to uncloak all pretensions and shows the real colors of what’s going on.
When Charlie was dared to kiss the prettiest girl in the room, he went to kiss Sam. This of course, startled everyone. I saluted Charlie for making that bold move to start getting honest with himself as what his psychiatrist encourages him to do so but I wished he’d done it another way in an earlier time so that he could have not broken too many hearts on that night. It was a good shot in some way because Mary Elizabeth, Sam, Charlie and everyone else’s eyes were opened.
Charlie deserved his freedom and Mary Elizabeth deserved the truth. It was a pretty big mess with broken hearts, ugly tears and stained friendships but everyone deserved the truth even if Charlie’s confession was unspoken and very painful.
I just wished that someone could have cheered up Charlie or just even listened to his sentiments after a while because he had to smoke pot as a way to escape from the terrible mess.
CHAPTER FOUR AND EPILOGUE
You only live once– Chapter four and the epilogue seemed to be the roundup of Charlie’s journey along with all the rollercoaster ride of emotions: his own emotions and the emotions of the people around him.
At first, I was disappointed on how Charlie reacted with the loss of his friends by buying drugs and excluding himself to others through lonely walks and lonely strolls at the mall. Then it struck me that maybe there was really no available good company. It applies to me sometimes too, when I have so much things going on my mind that it could explode but I just couldn’t tell anyone about it because they weren’t there.
I know how it feels when Charlie said, “I don’t know how much longer I can keep going without a friend. I used to be able to do it very easily, but that was before I knew what having a friend was like.”
They say that its better to be alone than with a mediocre company which you can have at your own convenience whenever you just feel that lonely but I think that everyone is not worthy to be called just a mediocre one when each one has their own special way of giving company. Being alone could be good at times but when it gets to too much of solitude, it feels like you have forgotten people and people had forgotten about you too, which is just sad.
That’s what Charlie felt and I’m glad he could acknowledge the difference between loneliness and solitude already. He’s starting to get honest with himself and it’s a big leap.
He also acknowledged a bittersweet truth about life when he said, “Things change. And friends leave. And life doesn’t stop for anybody.”
I guess it’s important for all of us to move on with our lives no matter how hard things could get. Time doesn’t wait for anyone and everyone will have to move on soon.
Just as what he said, “I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and then make the choice to share it with others.”
Of course, there were a lot of happy moments such as the promenade, the after-prom parties and the graduation with the graduation parties. There was one moment when Charlie was really present and I am glad that moment became a memory. He danced with Sam while thinking, “It was the one time all day that I really wanted the clock to stop. And just be there for a long time.”
The epilogue was quite shocking, indeed. Throughout the whole story, Aunt Helen was portrayed in a light, subtle and gentle way because he was so close to Charlie and Charlie really loves her company. That’s when Charlie realized that Aunt Helen was touching him in wrong ways. It stained his childhood subconsciously and it became his greatest vulnerability. But it’s okay since he has a good moral support around him so I guess his healing will not really take that long.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a coming-of-age story wherein nostalgia creeps in along with all the complex stories. It reminds me of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, like Mark Twain’s classic, it has its own dark truths about living and its own poignant representations of life.
*The novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky has a film adaptation under the same title and with the author as the director. The images used in this article is courtesy of the film adaptation.
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*Royanni Miel M. Hontucan is a mass communication student from Silliman University Dumaguete. She loves tinkering with her brain’s wordbank and claims that Instagram is her playground.
Miel 
actually these were requirements for our literature 22 for Sir I am:-) and I’m glad I was able to share it here. 🙂
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Thanks for this article mill 😙 — totally reminds me of literature and to the great, Sir Ian Rosales Casocot.
P.S.
Thank you so much for sharing your entries here,
I definitely love your blog, keep it up!
😙😙😙
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