Child sexual abuse in The Perks of Being a Wallflower The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a book written by Stephen Chbosky. The story is narrated in the first person point of view of Charlie, in the form of a letter to tell the story of his daily life. The story focuses on three main characters, which are Charlie, Sam and Patrick and their friendship in high school. The story of their coming of age in this book reveals a lot about American teenagers’ life, which is full of sex, drugs, and alcohol. This led to the book becoming banned in the USA. Somehow it is not the main idea of the book. After reading it, readers may well wonder or have questions on their minds on what happened to Charlie. What happened when he was a child? And what is …show more content…
The Perks of Being a Wallflower uses the form of letter to tell the story, in which the writer is Charlie. When Charlie writes his letter, he feels relaxed and relieved. It is like he is able to share his stories through those people who he can trust and can be friend. He writes everything he wanted to say and he is very honest in his writing. Another way to recovery is through support from friends and family. When Charlie starts high school he has no friends. Then Sam and Patrick come to be his friends and he doesn’t feel so lonely anymore, which helps him getting away from the memory of Helen sometimes. When Charlie gets sick, his family is always with him especially his mother and sister who are like best friends to him. The family support helps Charlie a lot and he finally recovers from the suffering of his memories of Helen. Charlie is the representation of those children who suffer from child sexual abuse, showing the way he suffers and the way to get over it. The Perks of Being a Wallflower also represents the social problem of child sexual abuse, which happens almost every day in society, but it shows it with a twist by portraying a male victim instead of a girl to show that it is not only girls who suffer from child sexual abuse. There are boys too and how they suffer is not different from the