The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“One thing I do know is that it makes me wonder if I have ‘problems at home’ but it seems to me that a lot of other people have it a lot worse.”

Charlie’s friend Michael commits suicide at the start of the novel. While no one knows why, the school counselor suggests that maybe Michael had problems at home. Charlie wonders what this could mean, and how it could make someone take their own life. This idea also makes Charlie question his own home life and the possibility that one could unknowingly not be okay.

“I have finished To Kill a Mockingbird. It is now my favorite book of all time, but then again, I always think that until I read another book.”

Bill, Charlie’s English teacher, continually gives him extracurricular books to read and write essays about. Each book Charlie reads becomes his favorite and helps him discover or understand a part of himself. This illustrates how impressionable Charlies is, as he immediately identifies with whatever is before him. Like victims of abuse, Charlie opts to blend in and accept what is before him as opposed to standing out.

“And he wound up and hit her hard across the face. I mean hard. I just froze because I couldn’t believe he did it. It was not like him at all to hit anybody. He was the boy that made mixtapes with themes and hand-colored covers until he hit my sister and stopped crying.”

This is an important moment because it’s the first time that Charlie’s understanding of a person is completely thwarted. Before this moment, Charlie’s sister has been denigrating this boy that has a crush on her. Charlie has always viewed this boy as being sensitive and kind. These assumptions are based on the fact that he makes her mixtapes with thoughtful songs on them and takes the time to color the covers. However, after Charlie’s sister yells at the boy for being weak, he hits her. This moment calls into question everything Charlie assumed about the boy, something that happens with other characters throughout the novel.

“When I was very little, I remember going to sleep, while my brother and sister and Aunt Helen watched Love Boat and Fantast Island. I could never stay awake when I was that little, and I wish I could, because my brother and sister talk about those moments sometimes. Maybe it’s sad that these are now memories. And maybe it’s not sad. And maybe it’s just the fact that we loved Aunt Helen, especially me, and this was the time we could spend together.”

For most of the novel, Charlie fondly recalls the memories of the time he spent with Aunt Helen. However, at the end, he realizes that he suppressed the memory of her molesting him during the time mentioned above. This calls into question the nature of memory and how one is supposed to feel about past events. Charlie doesn’t know if this memory is sad now because it’s just a memory, or if it should still be happy because the remembered moment was happy. This is a constant theme throughout Charlie’s life.

“Do you know what ‘masturbation’ is? I think you probably do because you are older than me. But just in case, I will tell you. Masturbation is when you rub your genitals until you have an orgasm.”

In this coming-of-age novel, this moment signifies Charlie’s first awareness of his sexuality. Here, he masturbates for the first time, but more importantly, he deliberately chooses not to think of anyone he knows when he masturbates. This is important to him because he doesn’t want to disrespect any of the girls in his life, especially Sam.

“By the way, I figure you are probably curious about my dad. Did he hit us when we were kids or now even? I just thought you might be curious because Bill was, after I told him about that boy and my sister. Well, if you are wondering, he didn’t. He never touched my brother or sister. And the only time he ever slapped me was when I made my Aunt Helen cry. And once we all calmed down, he got on his knees in front of me and said that his stepdad hit him a lot, and he decided in college when my mom got pregnant with my older brother that he would never hit his kids. And he felt terrible for doing it. And he was so sorry. And he would never hit me again. And he hasn’t.”

This moment reveals a good portion of Charlie’s dad’s character. While his dad has a strong sense of justice when something is wrong, as witnessed here and when he confronts the parents of his daughter’s abuser, he is also willing to admit when he is wrong. Charlie and his dad have a strong relationship throughout the novel, which is important considering his dad comes from a broken home.

“And Sam and Patrick looked at me like I said the greatest thing they ever heard. Because the song was that great and because we all really paid attention to it. Five minutes of a lifetime were truly spent, and we felt young in a good way. I have since bought the record, and I would tell you what it was, but truthfully, it’s not the same unless you’re driving to your first real party, and you’re sitting in the middle seat of a pickup with two nice people when it starts to rain.”

Right before this moment occurs, Charlie says he feels “infinite” (33). This excerpt demonstrates the importance of music in Charlie’s life and how music functions to both create and capture memories. Charlie feels simultaneously human yet timeless, and the idea of a polar existence colors Charlie’s transition from childhood to adulthood.

“When we hit the tunnel, all the sound got scooped up into a vacuum, and it was replaced by a song on the tape player. A beautiful song called ‘Landslide.’ When we got out of the tunnel, Sam screamed this really fun scream, and there it was. Downtown. Lights on buildings and everything that makes you wonder. Same sat down and started laughing. Patrick started laughing. I started laughing. And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.”

This is one of the most important moments for Charlie, when he first feels a sense of oneness to the people around him. His shared laughter with Sam and Patrick and the feeling of being “infinite” symbolize a sense of belonging for Charlie. And again, this moment is intimately linked to music.

“It’s like he would take a photograph of Sam, and the photograph would be beautiful. And he would think that the reason the photograph was beautiful was because of how he took it. If I took it, I would know that the only reason it’s beautiful is because of Sam.”

This moment describes the difference between Craig, Sam’s boyfriend for most of the novel, and Charlie. Here, Charlie is saying that Craig doesn’t recognize Sam’s worth. Instead, he filters Sam through his own ego. However, Charlie does the opposite. He values Sam so much that he doesn’t act on his feelings for her until the very end, after she gives him permission, because he respects that she doesn’t want him to.

“I think about all this sometimes when I’m watching a football game with Patrick and Sam. I look at the field, and I think about the boy who just made the touchdown. I think that these are the glory days for that boy, and this moment will just be another story someday because all the people who make touchdowns and home runs will become somebody’s dad. And when his children look at his yearbook photograph, they will think that their dad was rugged and handsome and looked a lot happier than they are.”

Charlie constantly thinks about his past and future, and how his present moment will eventually be the past. He wonders how he will look back on his life, and what his future children might think about him. He wonders what his “glory days” will be since he doesn’t play sports. He wonders if it will be the things he thinks about on his walk home, or maybe his volunteerism with the fanzine, Punk Rocky. Throughout the novel, Charlie grapples with the significance of memories and how memories can change based on one’s perception.

“I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I don’t know it it’s better to have your kids be happy and not go to college. I don’t know if it’s better to be close with your daughter or make sure that she has a better life than you do. I just don’t know.”

Right before this moment, Charlie’s grandfather tells him that he had a difficult life growing up. He had been forced to quit school and take care of his family at a young age. As a result, he wanted better for his own children, which is why when his daughters came home with bad grades at school, he beat them to ensure that it never happened again. Here, Charlie doesn’t know what’s right or wrong in this situation. His mom ended up going to college and turned out to be a great person, but she always had a strained relationship to her dad. Charlie doesn’t know if this is better than his mom not having gone to college but having been close to her dad.

“I had an amazing feeling when I finally held the tape in my hand. I just thought to myself that in the palm of my hand, there was this one tape that had all of these memories and feelings and great joy and sadness. Right there in the palm of my hand. And I thought about how many people have loved those songs. And how many people got through a lot of bad times because of those songs. And how many people enjoyed good times with those songs. And how much those songs really mean.”

This moment demonstrates two constants in Charlie’s life: music and gifts. Charlie has put a painstaking amount of time and thought into creating the perfect mixtape to give Patrick for Christmas. He explicitly articulates how he correlates memories and feelings with music, and just how influential music is in his life. Because Charlie is passive throughout most of his life, he relies on music and gift-giving as a means of expression.

“When I was done reading the poem, everyone was quiet. A very sad quiet. But the amazing thing was that it wasn’t a bad sad at all. It was just something that made everyone look around at each other and know that they were there. Sam and Patrick looked at me. And I looked at them. And I think they knew. Not anything specific really. They just knew. And I think that’s all you can ever ask from a friend.”

This moment occurs after Charlie reads a poem that his old friend Michael gave him. The poem was about a little boy who used to be innocent, but he grew up to discover that the world is a harsh place. At the end of the poem, it’s implied that the boy kills himself because he recognizes the nothingness of it all. While Charlie never finds out who the author of the poem is, it’s implied that Michael might be the author, considering he committed suicide. This poem is especially important considering its content. Like the boy in the poem, Charlie could have very well discovered the nothingness of it all after his repressed memory about Aunt Helen resurfaced. But instead, unlike the boy in the poem, Charlie finds a sense of closure and hope. While Charlie’s ending is different than the boy in the poem, the above-mentioned moment demonstrates that everyone in Charlie’s friendship circle has at one time or another been able to relate to the boy in the poem.

“I knew that she meant it in a friend way, but I didn’t care because it was the third time since my Aunt Helen died that I heard it from anyone. The other two times were from my mom.”

This moment occurs after Sam tells Charlie that she loves him, and it demonstrates how Charlie feels starved for emotional engagement. Although he has a good relationship with his parents, this quote reveals their lack of verbal affection towards him.

“And I thought that all those little kids are going to grow up someday. And all of those little kids are going to do the things that we do. And they will all kiss someone someday. But for now, sledding is enough. I think it would be great if sledding were always enough, but it isn’t.”

This moment reflects Charlie’s awareness that he’s not a little kid anymore, and he begins to understand what this really means. As a child, sledding was enough to bring fulfillment, but as a teenager, friends, sex, and girls become the focus.

“It’s kind of like when you look at yourself in the mirror and you say your name. And it gets to a point where none of it seems real. Well, sometimes, I can do that, but I don’t need an hour in front of a mirror. It happens very fast, and things start to slip away. And I just open my eyes, and I see nothing. I then I start to breathe really hard trying to see something, but I can’t. It doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, it scares me.”

This moment describes what happens when Charlie has an “episode.” He first experienced this after his aunt Helen died. It was so bad that he had to be hospitalized. Now, every year around his birthday, which was also the day she died, he must fight to not feel this way.

“They spent the rest of the afternoon playing old video games like Donkey Kong and feeling nostalgic, which as a general statement, I found sad and sweet.”

After Charlie’s brother describes how he and his girlfriend played old videogames and it made them feel nostalgic, Charlie thinks that the idea of nostalgia is simultaneously sad and sweet. What’s important here is the idea of nostalgia, or looking back fondly on someone’s past, and how it relates to Charlie. Charlie, who, for most of the novel is caught between childhood and adolescence, interprets the feeling of nostalgia as sad because it’s a longing for what has passed. He can never get back the innocence of childhood, and he isn’t sure how to find fulfillment in the present.

“As I was walking up the stairs to my dad’s old room, and I was looking at the old photographs, I started thinking that there was a time when these weren’t memories. That someone actually took that photograph, and the people in the photograph had just eaten lunch of something.”

Here, like in many other moments, Charlie contemplates the past in relation to the present, and thinks about the nature of memories. When looking at the photos, he’s aware that they aren’t just static images—they are representations of a life lived.

“I remember when I was just about to say good-bye to my aunt Helen, I started crying. It was the real kind of crying, too. Not the panicky type, which I do a lot. And I made Aunt Helen a promise to only cry about important things because I would hate to think that crying as much as I do would make crying for Aunt Helen less than it is.”

Charlie cries in many moments for various reasons, whether he’s happy or sad. Here, he acknowledges how much he cries and tells himself that by crying in more mundane moments, his tears lose their meaning.

“Sometimes, I look outside, and I think that a lot of other people have seen this snow before. Just like I think that a lot of other people have read those books before. And listened to those songs. I wonder how they feel tonight.”

It’s New Year’s Eve, and Charlie has taken LSD at a party. He’s in a bad place mentally because he heard Sam and Craig having sex. Like in many previous moments, Charlie contemplates how the past and present are connected by objects and experience. Charlie is deeply empathetic, yet he is also generally detached from his life experiences.

“But the best part was the scene with Janet where we had to touch each other. It wasn’t the best part because I got to touch Sam and have her touch me. It’s the exact opposite. I know that sounds dumb, but it’s true. Just before the scene, I thought about Sam, and I thought that if I touched her in that way on stage and meant it, it would be cheap. And as much as I think I might want to someday touch her like that, I never want it to be cheap. I don’t want it to be Rocky and Janet. I want it to be Sam and I. And I want her to mean it back. So, we just played.”

Craig doesn’t show up to play Rocky, so Mary Elizabeth asks Charlie to fill in. Rocky and Janet frequently touch each other in the production, which means Charlie and Sam must do the same on stage. However, Charlie makes it clear that it’s not an intimate moment between them, rather, they’re just playing their parts. In this way, he’s saying that if they ever do touch each other off stage one day, it will still be special because he will really mean it then.

“It almost feels like of the three things involved: Mary Elizabeth, me, and the great things, only the first one matters to Mary Elizabeth. I don’t understand that. I would give someone a record so they could love the record, not so they would always know that I gave it to them.”

Charlie and Mary Elizabeth date for a short period, but her self-centeredness annoys him. She shows him new places and gives him new things in order to be the first one to do so, not because she genuinely wants him to have those experiences. Here, Charlie is pointing out how different they are in this regard.

“I know that I brought this all on myself. I know that I deserve this. I’d do anything not to be this way. I’d do anything to make it up to everyone. And to not have to see a psychiatrist, who explains to me about being ‘passive aggressive.’ And to not have to take the medicine he gives me, which is too expensive for my dad. And to not have to talk about bad memories with him. Or be nostalgic about bad things.”

This moment happens after Charlie essentially breaks up with Mary Elizabeth in front of everybody. While playing truth or dare, Patrick dares Charlie to kiss the prettiest girl in the room. Instead of kissing his girlfriend, Mary Elizabeth, he kisses Sam because he’s tired of lying to everyone and himself. In the quote above, he admits that he feels like something is wrong with him, but he doesn’t know what or why it is. Later both he and the reader find out that he was sexually molested as a child, but he remains adamant that he can’t blame his problems on the past abuse.