Around and Around... Statistically, 30% of abused and neglected children will later on abuse their own children, resulting in the cycle of abuse. Charlie, the main character in Stephen Chbosky's Perks Of Being A Wallflower, is a victim of this cycle. Even after being traumatized by someone close to him in his family, he decides that this abusive cycle should end with him. The intro song to Charlie's playlist ‘Around and Around’ is Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, No escape from reality” (0:00) Escapism is a method many people use to cope with their problems. In this context, there is NO escape from this. Queen makes it clear that sometimes we question what's real and what's not in …show more content…
I like to think of this song from Charlie's perspective to his aunt helen. At the end of the book Charlie says, “I guess we are the way we are for a lot of reasons..But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there.” (Chbosky 211) Charlie does not want to be labeled as someone who was sexually abused, but he knows that it IS a small part of him. He also knows that his Aunt Helen was a victim of sexual abuse and even if there is NO acception for sexual abuse, he still feels as if there is no one to blame. “It's like if I blamed my aunt Helen, I would have to blame her dad for hitting her and the friend of the family that fooled around with her when she was little..” (Chbosky 211) The third track on Charlie's mixtape is Motion sickness by Phoebe bridgers. This song represents Charlie's emotions throughout the book. “I hate you for what you did And I miss you like a little kid I faked it every time, but that's alright I can hardly feel anything, I hardly feel anything at all”
Charlie was an observer; he never got involved or talked to people. Soon Charlie was following in his mother’s foot steps.
It’s saddening when Charlie says that he felt he was not good enough for his mother, that he felt like he was only bringing her
Charlie takes in the difficulty to regain his trust with Marion after what he admits to doing. When F. Scott Fitzgerald writes, “My duty is entirely to Helen, “she said. “I try to think what she would have wanted me to do. Frankly,
Then, on page 23, Charlie says “I wanted to get up. I wanted to clean myself off. But I couldn’t muster the strength to move.
In the story, Charlie is aware of the decisions he had in the past. After three years he feels like now it is a time to be a father, to Honoria. He believes he is a changed man and is not same drunken party father he used to be: “I know I’m able to take care of her” (Crane 653). Charlie does believe he can now be a father figure and that is what Helen would have wanted. Marion strongly disagrees about Charlie being able to take care of her.
Charlie puts himself in a predicament after kissing Sam instead of his girlfriend Mary Ellen when he was dared to kiss the prettiest girl in the room. While reading the book, you can tell that the happy mood had been banished. “By the time I had knelt down in front of Sam and kissed her, the silence was unbearable. It wasn’t a romantic kiss.” “What the fuck is wrong with you?” says Sam after being kissed.
He may often be viewed as a loner, quiet, and sensitive. He is intelligent and does well academically in school. Charlie battles with three traumatic events that have had a drastic impact on his life; the suicidal death of his only friend in middle school, molestation in his early childhood at the hand of his Aunt Helen, and the accidental death of his Aunt Helen as a child. Charlie currently experiences flashbacks and
An experience that changes Charlie is when Charlie’s father dies. This experience changes him when he says, “When the undertakers came to wheel my father’s lifeless body out to the hearse, it was as if they took my childhood with them. Like other boys, I still wore ‘Knickerbockers’ in the schoolyard. I played ‘queenies’ and marbles too. But once the lessons were over, I returned home and stepped into the long pants of adulthood.
Charlie repeats this to himself because he thinks hiding Laura’s body was wrong and wishes to fix his mistakes. This shows that each decision Charlie makes is to hide Laura’s body, and Charlie is filled with guilt. “Laura Wishart is dead and I touched her warm body and she’s cursed me with dread and sorrow.” (Silvey, P.83) Dialogue is also another crucial technique used by Silvey to explore Charlie’s ethics and
For example, on page 299, “I felt sick inside as I looked at his dull, vacuous smile, the wide bright eyes of a child, uncertain but easy to please. And I had been laughing at him too. Suddenly, I was furious at myself and all those who were laughing at him.” Here, Charlie was realizing that people were mean and rude to people who weren’t like them. That people looked down to people who were different than them or not as smart.
It was the kind of kiss that I could never tell my friends about out loud. It was the kind of kiss that made me know that I was never so happy in my whole life” (75). In this quote, Charlie’s love for Sam is present. This quote has to do with experimentation because Charlie had his first kiss, which means he it
In an interview, Chbosky explains that The Perks of Being a Wallflower will allow readers to relate with the issues and find a common ground with Charlie and his friends and the problems that they face in the book. Charlie, a teenager has suffered from many problems including clinical depression, bullying, being a victim of sexual abuse and the loss of loved ones. All these problems ‘introduced in the book’ affects Charlie’s psychological state which eventually made him unable to continue living his life as a teen his age supposed to be. Chbosky’s character development within the book will make the readers relate to every aspect in Charlie’s character and his journey from adolescence to adulthood. At the beginning of the story he was broken, friendless and troubled teen eventually developing to a better person achieving his inner peace by the help of the people around him.
1. The Perks of being a Wallflower is a story about a high school freshman named Charlie. Through the entire novel Charlie is writing letters addressed to an anonymous friend. In these letters, he talks about his journey throughout his first year in high school. Where he experiences everything for the first time – first dates, family drama, drugs and new friends. In other words; growing up.
If you haven’t read the book or watched the movie, it tells the story of a boy named Charlie who suffers from multiple mental illnesses and his experiences in high school. The story is full of a multitude of messages that everyone should listen to. The one that stuck with me the most and continues
Charlie would withhold from his calling song, and so fearing to demonstrate it to the rest of the world. The