Theme: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

               Currently I am very close to finishing the book "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky. The book is about a boy named Charlie who is starting high school and his perspective of that year. He explores getting good grades, making friends… and more. In some parts it goes into the very dark (as many parents have been saying) such as void of suicide, abuse, rape, molesting, etc. Through out the book you can tell Charlie is not the most normal person. This is portrayed by the way he acts, the ways he speaks, the way he reacts to things or carefully and silently listens to things. Charlie is also not able to understand events happening around him in a coherent manner. A reoccurring theme is you have to “wake up” to face the past and present so it can help you move on.

One example of this is when Charlie’s sibling hosted a party; they locked him in his room and kept him there. Some time through it a couple stumbled in and saw Charlie and asked, “Can we use the room?” The girl protested and said it could wait because Charlie was there but the boy kept pressing and finally got Charlie to say ok. The boy then forces the girl into doing things with him… if you get my point. As Charlie was retelling this story to his new friends Sam and Patrick, Sam asks him if he was ok and Charlie slowly replays it in his head and realizes that that girl was raped at his siblings party. Charlie was able to face the ugly truth and keep going.

Another example is when Charlie read a “poem” to Patrick for his final secret Santa present that Charlie insisted he didn’t know who the author was. This is the poem,
“Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Chops"
because that was the name of his dog
And that's what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
and a gold star
And his mother hung it on the kitchen door
and read it to his aunts
That was the year Father Tracy
took all the kids to the zoo
And he let them sing on the bus
And his little sister was born
with tiny toenails and no hair
And his mother and father kissed a lot
And the girl around the corner sent him a
Valentine signed with a row of X's
and he had to ask his father what the X's meant
And his father always tucked him in bed at night
And was always there to do it

Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Autumn"
because that was the name of the season
And that's what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
and asked him to write more clearly
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because of its new paint
And the kids told him
that Father Tracy smoked cigars
And left butts on the pews
And sometimes they would burn holes
That was the year his sister got glasses
with thick lenses and black frames
And the girl around the corner laughed
when he asked her to go see Santa Claus
And the kids told him why
his mother and father kissed a lot
And his father never tucked him in bed at night
And his father got mad
when he cried for him to do it.

Once on a paper torn from his notebook
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Innocence: A Question"
because that was the question about his girl
And that's what it was all about
And his professor gave him an A
and a strange steady look
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because he never showed her
That was the year that Father Tracy died
And he forgot how the end
of the Apostle's Creed went
And he caught his sister
making out on the back porch
And his mother and father never kissed
or even talked
And the girl around the corner
wore too much makeup
That made him cough when he kissed her
but he kissed her anyway
because that was the thing to do
And at three a.m. he tucked himself into bed
his father snoring soundly

That's why on the back of a brown paper bag
he tried another poem
And he called it "Absolutely Nothing"
Because that's what it was really all about
And he gave himself an A
and a slash on each damned wrist
And he hung it on the bathroom door

Because this time he didn't think
he could reach the kitchen.” 

When Charlie finished reading it was eerily silent. A sad and depressing kind of silence. Bob, another friend of Charlie, says ‘isn’t that the suicide note that the kid wrote?’ Charlie fully knew what the “poem” was in the back of his head. He just didn't want it to be true so he never accepted it. His best friend from middle school who committed suicide wrote the poem.

            In conclusion a major theme in “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky is that you have to “wake up” to face the past and present to move on. Having watched the movie I know that this theme is going to come up more and a final huge event will uncover Charlie’s past to elaborate why he is who he is.