Symbolism In The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

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“For a time after its birth, the child does not differentiate between itself and the mother upon whose nurture it relies, or the blanket whose warmth it enjoys, or the pillow whose softness supports its head.” This excerpt from Kaja Silverman’s, The Subject of Semiotics, presents an interesting ideology that can be identified in many adolescent literatures. Some coming of age novels can contain an important character who may cause a disruption to the symbolic order within the text. That is the case with Stephen Chbosky's, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, because one of the main characters is a flamboyant boy by the name of Patrick. Silverman is eluding to a situation that can be twisted into a case of homosexuality since Patrick can be …show more content…

Patrick from this novel is so alienated, he is able to enjoy an unnatural relation to the real that other males do not. Homosexuality is an instance that occurs when a boy experienced so much love and care from his mother that when e enters the symbolic order, he looks to replace that same love with himself. That in turn, influences him to love other boys in the same way that he felt love from his mother. This idea shows how symbolically Patrick is a woman. His infatuation with the quarterback in Wallflower sheds light on how he is his alienated from the norms of society. Silverman notes that, “It must also be stressed that the mirror stage is one of those crises of alienation around which the Lacanian subject is organized, since to know oneself through an external image is to be defined through self-alienation.” The way Patrick does not fit into conventional society explains this self-alienation. While he is a great friend who brings out the best in his companion Charlie, he experiences an alienation due to his homosexuality. Patrick’s alienation allows him to take his place in the symbolic order in that of a female's. The way Lacan uses the term “phallus” shows how it is possible for Patrick to be positioned as a female in the symbolic order so when he discusses male and female it is not exclusively pertaining to the idea of

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