The Perks Of Being a Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chbosky

Character relationships by :Maya MacDougall

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is about a damaged boy named “Charlie” who goes to high school and finds out who he is, through the struggles he experiences in his relationships. He meets new people with struggles as well. He relates to them and starts finding out what love is. Charlie’s inability to express his feelings, affects his relationships with his friends and family. The reason why this happens, is because his past relationship with his Aunt Helen psychologically and emotionally damaged him, and now he has trouble expressing his emotions, as well as trouble in bonding with others.

For example, Sam and Charlie’s relationship is complex, because Sam easily talks to him about how she feels, but Charlie doesn’t.  Because of this, their relationship is confusing to Sam. Is it love? Or is it just a friendship? This question mostly hits Sam, because Charlie can’t tell her how he really feels about her. On page 201 Sam says, “It’s just that I don’t want to be somebody’s crush. If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don’t want them to carry it around inside. “ This shows how Sam is telling Charlie that she wants this relationship to be real and not a “crush” or a “mushy” relationship. She’s showing Charlie that he should realize that their relationship should be hones,t and they should be able to open up to one another. Also Sam says, “You can’t just sit there and put everybody’s life ahead of yours and think that counts as love.” This is an example of how Sam wants Charlie to realize that love isn’t just about putting others ahead of yourself, and that love isn’t about completely losing who you are. It’s about knowing yourself and what you want and being able to express this to the other person.

Candace and Charlie are another example of a complicated relationship. Charlie’s relationship with his sister is also complex because Candace is confused about what their relationship is about. Is it just a typical and stupid sibling relationship? Or is it real and about honesty, care and loyalty? In the book, Charlie and Candace argue about a lot of things. But at the end, Charlie realizes how much he cares about her. For example, “She hugged me so tight and wouldn’t let go. So I hugged her back. It was weird, too, because I’ve never hugged my sister. Not when I wasn’t forced to, anyway…” This shows that they both realized that they are able to tell each other anything, the most personal things you can ever tell a person. When Candace thought that she was pregnant, she immediately turned to Charlie. On page 116, “My sister hasn’t told anybody else about it because she doesn’t want it to get around. The only people who know are him, her, and I. I’m not allowed to tell anybody. And I won’t ever.” This expresses that at the end of the book, both Candace and Charlie noticed that when they were gloomy, they could lean on each other.

The last relationship in the book that Charlie is unable to express his feelings in is with Patrick. Their relationship is also complex. Patrick has a tough life and puts it all down on Charlie. They are both confused about how to be honest with each other. Charlie struggles with being honest and direct with his friends.  On page 201, Sam is telling Charlie how he is supposed to be a friend toward Patrick. “Like when you guys went to that park? Or when he was kissing you? Did you want him to kiss you?’ I shook my head no. ‘So, why did you let him?’ ‘I was trying to be a friend’ I said. ‘But you weren’t, Charlie. At those times, you weren’t being his friend at all. Because you weren’t honest with him.” This passage shows that the reason why Patrick and Charlie’s relationship didn’t work out,  was because they weren’t being truthful to each other in how they felt.

An example of the problem with their friendship is seen on page 160, when Charlie says to Sam, “Patrick and I have been spending a lot of time together. We drink a lot. Actually, it’s more like Patrick drinks, and I sip. It’s just hard to see a friend hurt this much. Especially when you can’t do anything except “be there”. I want to make him stop hurting, but I can’t.” This is an example of how Charlie is afraid of being direct to his friends, even when he sees that they are putting themselves in harms way. His fear of telling them what he thinks and feels, holds him back from helping them. And in this way, he isn’t a truly good friend. Charlie doesn’t realize he should be telling Patrick that he needs help, and he needs to stop dumping all his anger and stress onto Charlie.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower relates to the world because it shows people how to be a great friend. It shows people how important it is to be an honest, kind, and confident friend. In the real world, teenagers don’t always know how to be a good friend. They aren’t always confident, they are not often kind, and they can sometimes, not be especially, honest within their relationships with either friends or family. The reader who is reading this should realize that no matter what, a good friend is someone who expresses himself honestly in whatever conflict or good experience he has with that friend. Being honest means being honest with yourself, knowing when you are holding back your feelings, knowing that holding back can sometimes confuse the other person.  Not expressing yourself honestly to the other person is, in a way, not respecting yourself or your friend. You specifically should respect everybody, even people you dislike. There is no reason why somebody shouldn’t be kind to another person, especially, if that person is being a true and honest friend to you. You can’t be a good friend if you’re not true to yourself. Sometimes you have friends that can help you become true to yourself. You just have to listen and not hold back what is inside.