The Perks Of Being A Wallflower Essay

An unsocial teenage boy enters a new year of many beginnings, good and bad. This is the premise behind Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being A Wallflower. The novel offers a unique yet blunt perspective of the main character, Charlie, through letters that he writes to a mysterious character. He writes about his experiences in high school, family drama, and his social life. Since its publication, Chbosky’s novel which spent more than two years on the New York Times best seller, has received critical acclaim, sparked many discussions and debates of social issues, and went on to be made into a film. I will be analyzing the novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower under a psychoanalytical lens in order to explain Charlie's unusual personality, the aunt’s

Many times, he is shown to have denial, anxiety, excessive anger, and flashbacks, many of which are somehow connected to his Aunt. These are all signs of PTSD, or post traumatic stress disorder, which is later shown in the book that it is caused by his Aunt. For instance, on page 52, Charlie wrote that “I used to play sports when I was little, and I was actually very good, but the problem was that it used to make me too aggressive, so the doctors told my mom I would have to stop.” This shows that he had a considerably large amount of anger pent up inside of him, especially because he had to be directed by a doctor to stop playing sports, which is very unusual. He also shows many cases of flashbacks and mental breakdowns. For instance, on page 94, he wrote “I just want it all to stop spinning. If this gets any worse, I might have to go back to the doctor. It’s getting that bad again.” In this quote, we see that Charlie’s mental state is deteriorating, and he is hinting that he is having flashbacks. As the book progresses, he is showing more and more signs of PTSD. Maybe Charlie feels so guilty that he is letting his flashback control his