Coming Of Age In Stephen Chbosky's The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

The journey of life is not always a straight road, and our travels do not always go as planned. Sometimes there are construction detours. We can be lost because the GPS is on the kitchen counter or the road receives little attention, which makes the road unpleasant to drive on. Whatever the situation may be, the driver has to discover a path that will allow the driver to carry on with life, even if that means working through the unforeseen obstacles. The “coming of age” genre can be looked at as a driving experience. Some people have an easy transition with unforeseen obstacles, or their current route only has slight turns through the process. Others may not be able to function because they have no sense of direction where there end destination may lead them. This is a voyage that everyone will experience in their lifetime, but every person will enter adulthood via a different path. The “coming of age” experience occurs differently for

One of those famous novels is Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The protagonist in this story is a high school freshman named Charlie. Charlie expresses himself and tells his through a series of letters. Another term for “coming of age” is the term bildungsroman. In The Perks of Being a Wallflower we begin to see the transformation of Charlie because the timeline of the story is about one year, instead of the full transition from childhood to adulthood. This novel fits into this genre because of the developmental aspect Charlie goes through even in such a short period of time, which is shown through his letters he writes in the novel. Between Charlie’s letters and the extra writing assignments his English teacher, Bill assigns him captures of the growth of Charlie through the art of writing, and the theme of “coming of age”