Aunt Helen?

As my favorite story The Perks of Being a Wallflower unfolds, author Stephen Chbosky displays the main character for what he has truly become; the epitome of a wallflower. Charlie is a high school freshman in the early '90s. The reader is quickly able to assume that Charlie possess social or psychological challenges, due to his continuous explanations of visual feelings and vivid mental experiences he has, through his letters. The reader may also presume that there is a cause for these problems, but what exactly could it be? He is super shy and quiet. He doesn't want to rock the boat, want to speak out, or even want to be noticed at all. At first Charlie seems happy with being alone, but the couple of friendships he develops throughout the book seem to prove this theory wrong. His social abilities are weak, only until he has formed solidified relationships with a select few students who also attend his high school. They happen to be seniors, and their names are Sam and Patrick. No other relationship the reader is exposed to comes close to meaning as much as the friendship Charlie, Sam, and Patrick share. Except, however, that which Charlie shared with his aunt Helen. Charlie recounts many memories he shared with his aunt, and emphasizes the fact that she is the one and only person who brought him both a Christmas and Birthday present, since they were on the same day. This makes him feel special, and compared to his sister and brother, Charlie is Aunt Helen's favorite. There is an underlying background story to Aunt Helen that is obvious to the reader only when we learn that Charlie's mother had been physically abused by her father. This is the time when the reader becomes aware of the fact that Aunt Helen had been also abused as a child, but in her unfortunate case, her abuse was sexually. The theme of abuse is common throughout the novel, because it is a life experience that is also shared by Sam. As Sam and Charlie's friendship grew stronger, Sam felt that she was able to share that personal tragedy with him. Her confession made Charlie much more upset than he assumed anyone else would have been from hearing this, and it puzzled him tremendously. This event leads the reader to question if his reaction was it due to the overwhelming amount of love he had for Sam, or because he could relate to the experience himself. The subtle hints offered by the author throughout the novel will lead the reader to soon discover that both aspects of that particular question are accurate in relevance to Charlie's life. Toward the end of the novel, Charlie explains that his parents had found him in a state of unresponsive trance, in which he confessed to the times he was sexually abused by his beloved aunt. His family had no clue that this had been happening for years when she would babysit the children, nor did the reader expect this to be the cause of his social anxiety. This curveball hits every reader hard, because of how special and touching the relationship is. It's intriguing how easily sexual abuse can go unnoticed by the reader. This was the major plot of the entire novel, and it doesn't even cross the mind of the reader until it is spelled out to us by Charlie.    

nd only person who brought him both a Christmas and Birthday present, since they were on the same day. This makes him feel special, and compared to his sister and brother, Charlie is Aunt Helen's favorite. There is an underlying background story to Aunt Helen that is obvious to the reader only when we learn that Charlie's mother had been physically abused by her father. This is the time when the reader becomes aware of the fact that Aunt Helen had been also abused as a child, but in her unfortunate case, her abuse was sexually. The theme of abuse is common throughout the novel, because it is a life experience that is also shared by Sam. As Sam and Charlie's friendship grew stronger, Sam felt that she was able to share that personal tragedy with him. Her confession made Charlie much more upset than he assumed anyone else would have been from hearing this, and it puzzled him tremendously. This event leads the reader to question if his reaction was it due to the overwhelming amount of love he had for Sam, or because he could relate to the experience himself. The subtle hints offered by the author throughout the novel will lead the reader to soon discover that both aspects of that particular question are accurate in relevance to Charlie's life. Toward the end of the novel, Charlie explains that his parents had found him in a state of unresponsive trance, in which he confessed to the times he was sexually abused by his beloved aunt. His family had no clue that this had been happening for years when she would babysit the children, nor did the reader expect this to be the cause of his social anxiety. This curveball hits every reader hard, because of how special and touching the relationship is. It's intriguing how easily sexual abuse can go unnoticed by the reader. This was the major plot of the entire novel, and it doesn't even cross the mind of the reader until it is spelled out to us by Charlie. 

   

Bill's Beneficial Beauty *

Throughout the novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower, author Stephen Chbosky gives the reader the impression that Charlie, the main character, has great relationships with everyone who is in his life. It is kind of intriguing that one of the closest friendships he has happens to be with his freshman year English teacher, Bill. Giving him so many awesome books to read, Bill has Charlie spend his free time writing extra essays, which serves as a great way to keep him busy. It is apparent to the reader that Charlie has social and/or psychological problems, since he repeatedly describes his thought processes and breakdowns in the letters he writes to an unknown receiver. Somehow, Bill also seems to be familiar with Charlie's instability, and views reading and writing as an escape from reality. Each book acts as a story to Charlie, and he mentions some amazing novels such as: The Fountainhead, Naked Lunch, On the Road, and This side of Paradise. Although Charlie may not fully understand each book, Bill always reassures him that there really is no right way to interoperate this literature. Bill is constantly telling Charlie to act more as a filter than a sponge while reading the books he lends him. This stood out to me because of how easily Charlie's environment is able to negatively influence him, so Bill makes sure Charlie knows to not take the writings too literally. Everything Bill presents to Charlie is so beneficial to his life that the novel would not be complete without him. He is that one teacher that influences you so much that it's inspiring. Charlie views Bill as the best teacher he has had so far, and that's awesome because it is actually Bill's first year teaching! Even though it is Bill's first year and he is just getting familiar with the whole teaching thing, he seems to be able to feel Charlie's pain and acts upon his intuition. Bill provides Charlie with a way to stay occupied that involves something that they both love to do. They share interests and firsts, which is something that really stood out to me about their relationship. They both get lost in reading and writing, and view it as a way to escape reality. Charlie writes letters that constitute the whole entire novel. Charlie and Bill also feel lost in this big school, full of kids and teachers expecting the most out of them, and sometimes even more than they're able to offer. They are going through this high school career together, and when Charlie's closest friends leave for college next fall, Bill will take the role as an equally great friendship. Their relationship isn't forced at all, Bill is his just his English teacher so he really doesn't feel obligated to reach out to Charlie as a friend. But he does, and its awesome that he does. It pretty much saves Charlie. It's his freshman year of high school, and his best friend had just taken his life a year before. The kid is suffering so much and Bill makes him feel comfortable in his class. Bill doesn't think he's a weirdo or make fun of him the way the students do. Charlie doesn't feel lost in Bill's classroom, and the most beautiful thing about their bond is that it's completely natural.

A Quite Quidditative Quote

In Stephen Chbosky's Perks of Being a Wallflower, Charlie, the main character, has experienced many things throughout his life that have left him feeling completely invisible and abandoned. Feeling helplessly alone, Charlie resorts to writing multiple anonymous letters, sending them to unidentified receivers to express his day-to-day emotions. At one point in the story, Charlie describes his reoccurring and paralyzing feeling by saying, "It's kind of like when you look at yourself in the mirror and you say your name. And it gets to a point where none of it seems real. Well, sometimes, I can do that, but I don't need an hour in front of a mirror. It just happens very fast, and things start to slip away. And I just open my eyes, and I see nothing. And then I start to breathe really hard trying to see something, but I can't. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, it scares me." This particular quote ties the entire story together perfectly, by allowing the reader to better understand the way Charlie felt after everything he went through in his life. Giving an example of a way the person reading the story could actually attempt to feel the way Charlie feels is a great way to emphasize the tone of the entire story. Through each letter, Charlie tries to express his feelings in the best way possible, and in this case he did a wonderful job doing so. The way Stephen Chbosky depicts Charlie's feeling so precisely is meaningful to the reader, because everyone can at least partially relate to what he must be going through due to the implied tragedies. As the story unfolds, it is apparent that his best friend, Michael, had taken his life about a year before Charlie decided that writing letters would be a good coping mechanism for his feelings. Coming to terms with how he is truly feeling allows Charlie to deal with the loss much better than if he had just contained all of the emotions that resulted from his friend's death. It seems that the loss of Michael hit Charlie so hard because he was his best and only childhood friend. However, Michael's death was not the only time Charlie was exposed to losing someone close to him. The quote mentioned earlier is also related to the death of Charlie's aunt Helen. She was the most affectionate family member to Charlie, and throughout the story the reader gets the impression that they had an almost inseparable bond. Throughout the story, Charlie recounts many of the wonderful memories they had made together. He is even able to describe the day she passed with great and perfect detail. The great bond Charlie had with his aunt and his best friend is what makes it is so hard for him to accept their absence in his life. Everyone he is closest to leaves him so permanently. So, when he describes the feeling of everything uncontrollably slipping away from him resulting in him seeing nothing, it directly resembles the way he feels about his aunt and best friend slipping out of his life, leaving him with nothing but nothingness.  

Characters & Cinematics

As soon as I began to read The Perks of Being a Wallflower written by Stephen Chbosky, I realized that the movie adaptation of the novel was available On Demand. Since I was already through the first few chapters, I really wanted to wait to see the movie until I finished reading. Ever since I can remember, everyone has been encouraged to read the book before seeing the film, and I usually do follow this standard. But a rainy Sunday near the beginning of the school year is probably the most perfect time to see a movie, so I couldn't stop myself from watching. My family and I watched the movie together, and each of us fell in love with not only the story line as a whole, but with each and every character in the movie as well. Emma Watson was the perfect fit for the role of Sam, the super eclectic girl with whom the main character, Charlie, falls hopelessly in love. Charlie, the handsome and seemingly normal freshman high school student actually struggling with countless mental ailments, was played by Logan Lerman. Although I have never heard of this specific actor, he did an amazing job portraying the emotions (and lack there of) of Charlie. As the main character, Charlie's feelings are the primary focus of the novel, and Logan Lerman depicts each emotion wonderfully throughout the film. Every personality in the movie is so likeable and easy to relate to, similar to each character in the novel. Since the book is written in the form of multiple letters anonymously written by Charlie, having an image of each character in my head actually did make reading the novel much more interesting. Even though it is common for most people to strive to read before watching, it was really cool to be able to relate the character's names throughout the novel to the appearance of the characters in the movie. However, you could technically take this viewpoint in the opposite direction by saying that reading the story initially makes seeing the cast of the movie even better, possibly due to the fact that you have already made judgments regarding each character in the book before you even had a visual image of who they actually are. But with The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I believe it could be beneficial to see the movie before reading the book, because neither the novel nor the movie will let you down!