The Perks Of Being A Wallflower Literary Analysis

Psychoanalytical Literary Essay

Childhood sexual abuse can have some long term effects on someone’s life. For example, being a victim of sexual abuse as a child can result in developing trust issues, or eventually be involved in an abusive relationship themselves. In some cases as the victim grows older they start to develop anxiety, depression, flashbacks, and sometimes can repress memories that were stimulated and brought back up by some sort of gesture, or phrase, causing them to remember that they’ve been sexually abused when they were children. In the book, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, the choice that Charlie made by being intimate with Sam had some big repercussions that impacted his life, by having very vivid dreams, which helped him remember the molestation that he went through when he was younger. Although he experiences a severe panic attack, this ultimately leads to emotional and mental healing

While in the hospital he realizes that he doesn’t blame his aunt, or himself, “I’m not the way I am because of what I dreamt and remembered about my aunt Helen. That’s what I figured out when things got quiet.”(211) Charlie, like most other childhood sexual abuse victims, go through different stages of recovery. The specific stage that Charlie is going through is stage two and three. During this stage of the healing process victims don’t forget about their experience, nor do they start believing that it was okay in any way, rather they recognize what they’ve been through and don’t let it control them any longer.(Louise Behiel, 4 stages of Healing from Childhood Abuse, louisebehiel.com)(Phases of Trauma Recovery, trauma-recovery.ca) Charlie doesn’t forget about his molestation, he learns to cope with his experience and finds ways to move on and not let it define