Perks Of Being A Wallflower Essay

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In Stephen Chbosky’s “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” we are first introduced to Charlie, a shy boy who is beginning his freshman year in high school. Shortly after school begins, Charlie makes two upperclassmen friends, Sam and Patrick. Befriending these two people open up a different world for Charlie. Charlie is introduced to many new things in this movie, the most important being literature, music, relationships, love, and sexuality. Experiencing these new things shape him into a different person. The overall argument or message of this story, which is focused on young adults, is about finding yourself. Literature and music are two very important things to Charlie in this movie. Literature is given to him, in the form of novels, by a teacher that he is very fond of, Mr. Anderson. Through these novels Charlie learns lesson about life and about the people around him. Charlie is introduced to music mainly by Sam and Patrick. They have a very eclectic music taste, and this rubs off on Charlie. Charlie easily understands and can interpret the lyrics of the music;…show more content…
He is faced with sex personally in his relationships. However, he is also faced with sexuality when it comes to Patrick; Patrick is gay. Charlie watches Patrick’s pain when Patrick’s boyfriend, Brad, breaks up with him. Brad’s father beats him when he finds out that he is in a relationship with another man, and Brad breaks up with Patrick for this reason. After the break-up, Brad and his friends start tormenting Patrick with homosexual slurs, and Charlie takes up for him. After this altercation, Patrick tells Charlie that he wishes he could find a guy like him, and kisses him. Charlie feels nothing towards Patrick, but he does not get angry when Patrick kisses him. I think this develops Charlie into a person that not only does the right thing when it comes to his friends, but also develops him into someone who accepts
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