Effects Of Isolation In The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

People like to be different and unique, one wants to stand out. But trying too hard to exclude yourself and separate yourself yourself from the rest of society only leaves you lonely and an outsider. Not being able to connect with people is not “cool”. In the bildungsroman novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky we follow the main character, Charlie, through the beginning of high school. The entire year the readers follow his story we also see how this type of isolation effects Charlie's mental health, and the differences in his mood when he is with his friends and when he is alone. Humans are a social species and we need each other's accompaniment to maintain a stable mental health. Dismiss the notion that being an outSIder is cool

Stephen Chbosky uses the title The Perks of Being a Wallflower to display irony, because Charlies life while being excluded by society has everything but good moments in them. After the party where he was dared to kiss the prettiest girl in the room and Charlie didn't choose his girlfriend, Charlie’s friends stopped talking to him. Charlies already poor mental health became worse when he was alone. In a letter on pg 144, about the aftermath of that incident he wrote, “ I don’t know how much longer I can keep going without a friend. I use to be able to do it very easily, but that was before I knew what having a friend is like.” Charlie is clearly unstable when being alone, just like all people would be if they were in a situation where they felt this lonely. Another moment where we can see how exclusion negatively impacts Charlie when he was walking around the mall alone, and saw a girl he used to be friends with, and a group of friends she was with. He went up to her and asked her about Michael, their friend who committed suicide. This was undoubtedly an awkward situation that Charlie puts her in, and she thinks what he did was strange. As they walked away one of the guys whispered,