The Perks of Being A Wallflower
Overview
Charlie, the fifteen-year-old narrator of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, has just entered his
freshman year of high school when the book begins. Charlie is the eponymous “wallflower.” He is
quiet and withdrawn, but he is also extremely observant and thoughtful, always paying close
attention to everything going on around him, even if he is only a silent witness. Charlie writes the
entire book as a series of letters to an anonymous “friend.” The reader never learns who this “friend”
is, and the “friend” never writes back. Each letter begins with the greeting “Dear friend” and ends
“Love always, Charlie.” Because the recipient of the letters never writes back, the novel reads like a
series of diary entries.
When the novel opens, Charlie is grappling with two major traumatic deaths of loved ones in his
past. The most recent death occurred last spring, when his only friend from middle school
committed suicide. When Charlie was seven, his beloved Aunt Helen was killed in a car crash on
Christmas Eve, which is also Charlie’s birthday. Although Charlie is nervous about entering high
school, he soon finds acceptance from two main sources. First, his English teacher, Bill Anderson,
recognizes Charlie’s talent for literature, and he takes him under his wing, assigning him extra books
to read and essays to write over the course of the year. Also, Charlie begins to participate more in
events, and he becomes friends with Patrick and his stepsister, Sam, who integrate him into their
friend group. Charlie develops an enormous crush on Sam, which he tells her about, but Sam treats
him affectionately. Patrick, who is gay, is having a closeted relationship with Brad, the quarterback of
the football team. Sam kisses Charlie so that his first kiss can be from someone who loves him.
As the school year progresses, Charlie begins to come out of his shell somewhat, but Charlie’s life,
his family life, and his friends’ lives become more and more complicated. The holidays are always a
difficult time for Charlie’s family, because they bring up memories of Aunt Helen’s death. This year is
no exception. Even though Charlie finds some solace in reading and re-reading The Catcher in the
Rye, he still struggles to cope with his depression and with flashbacks of his time with Aunt Helen.
However, Charlie’s acceptance by his friend group helps him become more at peace with himself. As
Charlie becomes more mature, his relationship with his sister also deepens. Charlie’s sister has an
abusive boyfriend. Charlie tells Bill about the boyfriend, and Bill reports it to their parents, which
,makes his sister mad at Charlie. But when Charlie’s sister becomes pregnant, she decides to have an
abortion, she trusts Charlie to drive her to the clinic.
After Charlie performs as Rocky in one of his friend group’s regular viewings of the film The Rocky
Horror Picture Show, Mary Elizabeth, a smart, pretty senior in their friend group, starts dating
Charlie. However, Mary Elizabeth is far more interested in Mary Elizabeth than in having a
relationship. During a game of Truth or Dare, Charlie is dared to kiss the prettiest girl in the room,
and he kisses Sam. Mary Elizabeth stalks out of the room in a rage. In solidarity, the rest of the group
sides with Mary Elizabeth, and Patrick advises Charlie to stay away from everyone for a while until
tempers cool down.
Brad’s abusive father discovers Patrick and Brad’s relationship, and Brad is sent to rehab. When Brad
returns, he refuses to speak to Patrick. Patrick confronts Brad in the cafeteria, Brad makes a
derogatory comment about Patrick’s homosexuality, and Brad’s football teammates beat up Patrick.
Charlie jumps in and, in a whirlwind, breaks up the fight. His defense of Patrick wins back the respect
of Sam and his friend group. Patrick is thoroughly depressed and he leans on Charlie for emotional
support. Patrick gets drunk and kisses Charlie, but he apologizes, and Charlie understands that
Patrick is lonely and doesn’t know how to handle it. Eventually, Patrick sees Brad kissing a strange
man in the park, which helps Patrick pull himself together and move on.
At the end of the school year, Charlie becomes increasingly anxious as the prospect of all his senior
friends moving away becomes more and more imminent. When Sam is packing to leave for her
summer pre-college program, she and Charlie begin to make out and start to have sexual contact,
but Charlie suddenly gets extremely uncomfortable. The sexual contact dredges up a repressed
memory of his Aunt Helen molesting him as a child.
In an epilogue, Charlie writes a final letter to his “friend,” dated two months later, saying that his
parents had found him naked in a catatonic state on the couch. They took him to a mental hospital,
where Charlie eventually realizes that Aunt Helen had sexually abused him, but that he had
repressed these memories. Charlie forgives the memory of his Aunt Helen, and the novel ends with
Charlie writing that he is planning to stop writing letters and to start participating fully in his life.
Raphaela De Ascensão Study Notes
, Characters
Charlie
The fifteen-year-old protagonist of the novel. The novel is told through a series of letters that Charlie
is writing to an anonymous “friend,” and the whole story is narrated entirely through Charlie’s
perspective. Charlie is a quiet, withdrawn, intelligent, observant high school freshman dealing with a
lot of trauma in his childhood. Charlie comes out of his shell through the relationships he develops
over the course of the school year, but it isn’t until the very end of the book that he uncovers the
repressed memories of sexual abuse that are at the core of all the trauma he has been processing
the whole time.
Charlie is the eponymous “wallflower” of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. He is the narrator of this
novel, and the book is entirely told through Charlie’s perspective. The reader only knows exactly as
much as Charlie knows about any given situation. When Charlie’s repressed memories of his
childhood molestation are revealed at the end of the novel, the reader is just as surprised as Charlie.
In retrospect, Chbosky leaves several hints throughout the book that indicate something is not quite
right in the relationship between Aunt Helen and Charlie.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a coming-of-age novel, and Charlie matures emotionally,
physically, and sexually over the course of the year. Halfway through the novel, Charlie turns sixteen
and gets his driver’s license, and these external markers of maturity also represent Charlie’s internal
growth. As Charlie changes, the term “wallflower” comes to have much deeper and more nuanced
meaning over the course of the novel. At first, Charlie is a wallflower because he has no friends and
does not try to connect with people. At dances, he is literally a wallflower because he stands off to
the side instead of joining in. When Charlie witnesses disturbing things, like the date rape at his
brother’s party, he generally tends to watch passively rather than speak up. However, as the novel
progresses, Charlie learns how to be a wallflower but not a doormat. Confessing everything in his life
to his anonymous “friend” enables Charlie to gain the confidence he needs to participate more fully
in his actual life. As Charlie continues to push himself to be part of life rather than using the coping
mechanism of letting things wash by him, he discovers his own talents. Charlie realizes that he can
become an artist such as a writer or a deejay in order to take advantage of his capacity for looking in
from the outside while simultaneously being involved in the action from within.
Raphaela De Ascensão Study Notes
Overview
Charlie, the fifteen-year-old narrator of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, has just entered his
freshman year of high school when the book begins. Charlie is the eponymous “wallflower.” He is
quiet and withdrawn, but he is also extremely observant and thoughtful, always paying close
attention to everything going on around him, even if he is only a silent witness. Charlie writes the
entire book as a series of letters to an anonymous “friend.” The reader never learns who this “friend”
is, and the “friend” never writes back. Each letter begins with the greeting “Dear friend” and ends
“Love always, Charlie.” Because the recipient of the letters never writes back, the novel reads like a
series of diary entries.
When the novel opens, Charlie is grappling with two major traumatic deaths of loved ones in his
past. The most recent death occurred last spring, when his only friend from middle school
committed suicide. When Charlie was seven, his beloved Aunt Helen was killed in a car crash on
Christmas Eve, which is also Charlie’s birthday. Although Charlie is nervous about entering high
school, he soon finds acceptance from two main sources. First, his English teacher, Bill Anderson,
recognizes Charlie’s talent for literature, and he takes him under his wing, assigning him extra books
to read and essays to write over the course of the year. Also, Charlie begins to participate more in
events, and he becomes friends with Patrick and his stepsister, Sam, who integrate him into their
friend group. Charlie develops an enormous crush on Sam, which he tells her about, but Sam treats
him affectionately. Patrick, who is gay, is having a closeted relationship with Brad, the quarterback of
the football team. Sam kisses Charlie so that his first kiss can be from someone who loves him.
As the school year progresses, Charlie begins to come out of his shell somewhat, but Charlie’s life,
his family life, and his friends’ lives become more and more complicated. The holidays are always a
difficult time for Charlie’s family, because they bring up memories of Aunt Helen’s death. This year is
no exception. Even though Charlie finds some solace in reading and re-reading The Catcher in the
Rye, he still struggles to cope with his depression and with flashbacks of his time with Aunt Helen.
However, Charlie’s acceptance by his friend group helps him become more at peace with himself. As
Charlie becomes more mature, his relationship with his sister also deepens. Charlie’s sister has an
abusive boyfriend. Charlie tells Bill about the boyfriend, and Bill reports it to their parents, which
,makes his sister mad at Charlie. But when Charlie’s sister becomes pregnant, she decides to have an
abortion, she trusts Charlie to drive her to the clinic.
After Charlie performs as Rocky in one of his friend group’s regular viewings of the film The Rocky
Horror Picture Show, Mary Elizabeth, a smart, pretty senior in their friend group, starts dating
Charlie. However, Mary Elizabeth is far more interested in Mary Elizabeth than in having a
relationship. During a game of Truth or Dare, Charlie is dared to kiss the prettiest girl in the room,
and he kisses Sam. Mary Elizabeth stalks out of the room in a rage. In solidarity, the rest of the group
sides with Mary Elizabeth, and Patrick advises Charlie to stay away from everyone for a while until
tempers cool down.
Brad’s abusive father discovers Patrick and Brad’s relationship, and Brad is sent to rehab. When Brad
returns, he refuses to speak to Patrick. Patrick confronts Brad in the cafeteria, Brad makes a
derogatory comment about Patrick’s homosexuality, and Brad’s football teammates beat up Patrick.
Charlie jumps in and, in a whirlwind, breaks up the fight. His defense of Patrick wins back the respect
of Sam and his friend group. Patrick is thoroughly depressed and he leans on Charlie for emotional
support. Patrick gets drunk and kisses Charlie, but he apologizes, and Charlie understands that
Patrick is lonely and doesn’t know how to handle it. Eventually, Patrick sees Brad kissing a strange
man in the park, which helps Patrick pull himself together and move on.
At the end of the school year, Charlie becomes increasingly anxious as the prospect of all his senior
friends moving away becomes more and more imminent. When Sam is packing to leave for her
summer pre-college program, she and Charlie begin to make out and start to have sexual contact,
but Charlie suddenly gets extremely uncomfortable. The sexual contact dredges up a repressed
memory of his Aunt Helen molesting him as a child.
In an epilogue, Charlie writes a final letter to his “friend,” dated two months later, saying that his
parents had found him naked in a catatonic state on the couch. They took him to a mental hospital,
where Charlie eventually realizes that Aunt Helen had sexually abused him, but that he had
repressed these memories. Charlie forgives the memory of his Aunt Helen, and the novel ends with
Charlie writing that he is planning to stop writing letters and to start participating fully in his life.
Raphaela De Ascensão Study Notes
, Characters
Charlie
The fifteen-year-old protagonist of the novel. The novel is told through a series of letters that Charlie
is writing to an anonymous “friend,” and the whole story is narrated entirely through Charlie’s
perspective. Charlie is a quiet, withdrawn, intelligent, observant high school freshman dealing with a
lot of trauma in his childhood. Charlie comes out of his shell through the relationships he develops
over the course of the school year, but it isn’t until the very end of the book that he uncovers the
repressed memories of sexual abuse that are at the core of all the trauma he has been processing
the whole time.
Charlie is the eponymous “wallflower” of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. He is the narrator of this
novel, and the book is entirely told through Charlie’s perspective. The reader only knows exactly as
much as Charlie knows about any given situation. When Charlie’s repressed memories of his
childhood molestation are revealed at the end of the novel, the reader is just as surprised as Charlie.
In retrospect, Chbosky leaves several hints throughout the book that indicate something is not quite
right in the relationship between Aunt Helen and Charlie.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a coming-of-age novel, and Charlie matures emotionally,
physically, and sexually over the course of the year. Halfway through the novel, Charlie turns sixteen
and gets his driver’s license, and these external markers of maturity also represent Charlie’s internal
growth. As Charlie changes, the term “wallflower” comes to have much deeper and more nuanced
meaning over the course of the novel. At first, Charlie is a wallflower because he has no friends and
does not try to connect with people. At dances, he is literally a wallflower because he stands off to
the side instead of joining in. When Charlie witnesses disturbing things, like the date rape at his
brother’s party, he generally tends to watch passively rather than speak up. However, as the novel
progresses, Charlie learns how to be a wallflower but not a doormat. Confessing everything in his life
to his anonymous “friend” enables Charlie to gain the confidence he needs to participate more fully
in his actual life. As Charlie continues to push himself to be part of life rather than using the coping
mechanism of letting things wash by him, he discovers his own talents. Charlie realizes that he can
become an artist such as a writer or a deejay in order to take advantage of his capacity for looking in
from the outside while simultaneously being involved in the action from within.
Raphaela De Ascensão Study Notes
