Throughout the entire book, The Perks of being a Wallflower, I can’t help but notice how dramatically Charlie’s life changes from a quit, questionable kid to an approachable teen that just does what he’s told. He’s honest, faithful, and passionate and that never changes, but over time Charlie begins to understand how to define those features in a more discerning way. Although Charlie expresses himself by crying throughout the entire book, he also grows to apprehend the importance of cherishing each moment of his life. He’s often very confused but accepts that, and goes on with the exception of questioning anything and everything. He also learns to accept the fact that life isn’t fair you’ll never fully understand why a lot of things happen; and strangely, he seems the handle that well. He often just goes with the flow, sometimes too much, and makes all the burdens of his life seem to grow heavier.
The quote, “So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.” by the author, Stephen Chbosky, describes Charlie’s life so well. Well, atleast his feelings of his life. He struggles with understanding things that just can’t be understood and that leads to him being more and more upset. There’s really only one thing that helps him to forget what made him sad, and that’s reading; so he often just depends on his books for peace or a slight bit of happiness of his life. Personally, although it may seem that he has a great life from the eyes of others, the memories he keeps hidden holds him back in so many ways. Many things remind him of past experiences and that’s often enough to slowly nudge at him till he helplessly yet willingly falls off the edge and back i...
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...ers and never getting one in return. I don’t quite understand how he deals with that, but he does.
In conclusion, I seen very much change in Charley throughout the short years he lives in the book. He experiences love and hopefully someday will find that love again. He writes letters knowing he’s never going to get a reply. He accepts things easily, but not without question. Like Chbosky said, “Things change. And friends leave. Life doesn't stop for anybody.” And surprisingly, he learns to accept that. He’s just Charley. And even though he may be a new Charlie now, no one will ever really change him. “So, I guess we are who we are for alot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.”
He doesn’t want to really move on with his life, He see no reason to. I believe that Charlie does indeed have a Soldier's heart. Believe this because in the forward of the book they describe Soldiers Heat as Coming Out of war with many mental problems. More like being mentally disturbed on what they had to see and live through. That is exactly wrong with Charley, He would think about the battle, He had a gun that reminded him of when he had killed a man with his bayonet. Charley is somewhat glad that he is going to die sooner or later “In some ways it made him sad and in some ways he was near glad of it” the book claims. In conclusion I believe that Charley Goddard indeed does have a Soldier's
Character- The main character Charlie is developed in many ways throughout the story. His whole demeanor changed from page one. He actually started smoking in the middle of the book. “When I light it, I didn’t cough. It actually felt soothing. I know that’s bad in a health class kind of way, but it was true.”-pg 102 His personality was different after that. He always tried to be friendly to anyone he met but if you weren’t nice to his friends he didn’t really respect them after that. His dialogue is very similar throughout the whole book. He is very friendly when he talks and tries to be polite. Charlie is trying to make friends and keep them. He succeeds with some coaching from his english teacher who Charlie calls Bill. Bill gave him books to read and graded Charlie’s reports. “He says that I have a great skill at reading and understanding language.”- pg 9-10. A’s showed on Charlie’s report card but Bill gave Charlie different grades. The books Bill gave Charlie changed his mind about a lot of things. Bill developed Charlie through the whole book.
Through his eyes, we are able to see racism and segregation in the Corrigan community at the time and how Charlie makes sense of all of it. Charlie is still coming of age and through his moral and educational development in the novel Charlie starts to understand what his position is in the community, as well as his relationships with people. Charlie is not subject to racism, but his friends are which enables us to see just how racism worked and how people’s ignorance ignited it. Silvey is using Charlie to teach us to look past labels and to make our own judgment on someone not just by their reputation or appearance.
Growing up, Charlie faced two difficult loses that changed his life by getting him admitted in the hospital. As a young boy, he lost his aunt in a car accident, and in middle school, he lost his best friend who shot himself. That Fall, Charlie walks through the doors his first day of highschool, and he sees how all the people he used to talk to and hang out with treat him like he’s not there. While in English class, Mr. Anderson, Charlie’s English teacher, notices that Charlie knew the correct answer, but he did not want to speak up and let his voice be heard. As his first day went on, Charlie met two people that would change named Sam and Patrick who took Charlie in and helped him find himself. When his friends were leaving for college, they took one last ride together in the tunnel and played their favorite song. The movie ends with Charlie reading aloud his final letter to his friend, “This one moment when you know you’re not a sad story, you are alive. And you stand up and see the lights on buildings and everything that makes you wonder, when you were listening to that song” (Chbosky). Ever since the first day, Charlie realized that his old friends and classmates conformed into the average high schooler and paid no attention to him. Sam and Patrick along with Mr. Anderson, changed his views on life and helped him come out of his shell. Charlie found a
At this stage of the story we are compelled to feel a little bit sorry for Charlie who has been separated from his father.
Charlie’s character transition is an evidence of the saying, “Walk a mile in my shoes. See what I see, hear what I hear, feel what I feel, then maybe you’ll understand why I do what I do. Until then don’t judge me.” His journey with Kanalaaq showed him how important it is for people not to judge other for superficial
Both quotes show the extent of Charlie’s change throughout the novel. Silvey also uses this element to successfully create empathy from the readers and make the book that much more brilliant.
The quotes are significant because they show Charlie's feelings toward the move. In the story Flightsend, Charlie asks what flightsend is supposed to mean. She decides it's an “end to well, to everything that's gone wrong.” It's an end to her old house, a life that Kathy wanted to get away from. But Charlie doesn't want to end that life, she doesn't want to move nor move away from the old life she has already begun. She thought to herself “I don’t want ends. I want beginnings.” It says Charlie wants a beginning but doesn't necessarily want to move and start everything all over, she wants her family to have new hope. She never wants to leave her social life with all her friends. That's why she would always try to convince her mom for them
... mistakes. Charlie is not ready, to change himself, since he repeats his past misdeeds. It seems like he will never be able to change or be happy about what he has or had in his past. There is no money in the world, which can help him. The story "babylon revisited" has anticlimax end, and Charlie left empty handed. In life any person, who tries change has to put a lot of efforts and time, to do it. If a person wishes to change himself, the first step he has to take is to remember his past mistakes and stay away from them. A past of a person will be always a part of him. He can never escape or ignore it, but he can learn from it and change himself. Every person has to learn how to use his/her unpleasant experience of the past as an advantage, to stay away from his past misdeeds, to build a bright future.
... reader. Throughout the book, Charlie unfolds secrets and truths about the world and the society that he lives in; secrets and truths that cause him to grow up and transition into adulthood. He also makes a life changing decision and rebelled against was he thought was the right thing. This reflects his maturity and bravery throughout the journey he travels that summer. Charlie eyes suddenly become open to the injustice that the town of Corrigan demonstrates. He also comes to face the issue of racism; not only shown towards his best friend Jeffrey and the Lu family but to Jasper Jones as well. He realises the town of Corrigan is unwilling to accept outsiders. Charlie not only finds out things that summer about the people that surround him, but he also finds out who he is personally.
In adolescence social interactions are a very important part of young adult development. Within this transitional period the young adult experiences social changes even though such changes vary from youth to youth. In The Perks of being a wallflower Charlie was socially awkward, but intellectually he was a genius. He was faced with a few social extremes throughout the movie. For instance, His social awkwardness is partially due to the death of his best friend Michael. The summer before High School started Michael committed suicide. Dealing with this trauma was no easy feat for Charlie. As a result, he withdrew from the world around him. Upon entering High School Charlie was weary of his surroundings. He tried to reach out to a girl whom was in Middle School with him but she acted as if she did not know him. He was left feeling alone. As the movie went on he was exposed to yet another social
The film starts in Uncle Charlie’s house in New Jersey with a close up on Uncle Charlie lying face-up in bed staring blankly at the ceiling motionless. This way of hopeless minded state is imitated by Young Charlie several minutes later when the setting changes to her home in Santa Rosa. She as well is lying in bed motionless and depressed-like staring up at her bedroom ceiling. However, unlike the scene with Uncle Charlie, we get validation of our assumption that to Young Charlie is dealing with the feeling of hopelessness and sadness. During the conversation with her father while she’s lying in bed she says that she has simply given up and ceases to expect anything, but stagnate sadness going forward. Charlie directs this sadness towards the fact that her and her family seem to just go through the motions day in and day out. By both Charlie’s letting their negative surroundings affect their current state of minds they prove Hitchcock’s theory upon happiness to be true. To elaborate on why young Charlie is stuck in this rut due to the negativity surrounding her we can look at what Alan Watts says about accomplishing happiness or self-fulfillment. Watts explains that humans must have assurance of their future in order to sustain happiness for a lengthy period of time and because of this need for assurance, it is impossible to obtain happiness. Watt’s
In the movie, The Perks of Being a Wallflower the audience learns a great deal about, Charlie, the main character’s life and how his past traumas affect him psychologically (Chbosky, 2012). Charlie is a 15-year-old boy who is coping with his best friend’s suicide, in addition to struggling with Posttraumic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (Chbosky, 2012). When Charlie was younger, his favorite Aunt, Helen, raped him, although he did not seem to fully understand that until he was hospitalized (Chbosky, 2012). However, Charlie was not hospitalized until right after he learned his best friend, Michael, committed suicide. Charlie is also shy, therefore has difficulties making friends. At the beginning of the movie, Charlie is writing to a new friend and
“Once I had believed in father, and the world had seemed small, and old. Now he was gone, and I wasn’t afraid to love him anymore. And the world seemed limitless.” Theroux wrote Charlie to become aware of his father, Allie Fox’s, obsession with becoming a God-like person in a perfect society, in a way that he realizes that this obsession is unhealthy. Charlie, in the beginning of the novel believes that his father is the greatest man alive because of the his inventions and his intelligence, yet throughout the novel Charlie becomes aware that his father is not the greatest. This happens because Allie Fox commits murder using his icebox invention, which in turn caused the natives to become enraged with Fox. At that point Charlie realizes that his father is not the greatest man alive, but instead that he caused great trouble on the island.
Because of the parties he attends with his new friends he has tried using some drugs. These new friends help Charlie see things with a positive perspective, and to be confident in himself. When his friends move away, Charlie experience isolation and has a mental crisis that leads him to be internalized in a clinic.