The Perks of Being a Wallflower ¤Part 2¤

[Lars]

Warning, the following text is me nerding out on ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’, literary studies style… Proceed at own risk 😉

This is me trying to answer my questions about what we can learn about Charlie from his relationship to his siblings, Sam and Patrick.

My hypothesis is that the main topic of the book is the resolution of the psychological trauma Charlie suffered because of his aunt sexually assaulting him multiple times. Since this is a psychological theme, I am going to regard his relationships to others as indicators of his psychological development and mental health. The Freudian model of the psyche will serve me as the foundation for this comparison.

The basic elements of the psyche ¬- according to Freud – are the id, which consists of desires, instincts and drives, the super-ego, which contains moral, cultural, and rational elements, and the ego, which must negotiate between these two elements. Taking Charlies cerebral nature into account, we can assume that his psychological injury concerns his id.

Freud divides the id further, into the drive to live (Eros) and the death drive (later referred to as Thanatos) that must be brought into harmony. Eros deals with passion, love, and libido, while Thanatos entails risk taking and aggression. Keeping the drives in mind, we can determine Charlies initial state of mind from his relationship to his siblings: His brother, the football player, is away at college and his sister is in a dysfunctional relationship. Eros and Thanatos are out of sync, and Charlie needs to come to terms with them (which he eventually does when he helps his sister go through with her abortion and comes to terms with his brother’s football career, when his brother offers to take his football money and pay for Charlies education. In the end, Charlies brother keeps the grumpy grandpa in check at his sister’s high school graduation. Harmony achieved.).

Sam (Eros) and Patrick (Thanatos) provide an out of family counterpart for Charlie’s desires. They are the promise of a resolved conflict and the resolution themselves. That is why we have this scene:
“Sam climbed in the back of the pickup, wearing nothing but her dance dress. She told Patrick to drive, and he got this smile on his face. […] Anyway, Patrick started driving really fast, and just before we got to the tunnel. Sam stood up, and the wind turned her dress into ocean waves. When we hit the tunnel, all the sound got scooped up into a vacuum, and it was replaced by a song on the tape player. A beautiful song called ‘Landslide.’ When we got out of the tunnel, Sam screamed this really fun scream, and there it was. […] And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.”

Here we have Charlie’s love interest Sam taking a risk while her brother Patrick is driving, resulting in a moment of unity. This is also why Charlie climbs in the back of the pickup at the end of the final scene, while we learn about his resolved conflicts with literally everyone.

So what do you think, am I on to something here? I'm curious to hear what you have to say about the book.

@Maggie Because of this, I believe the book has a happy end, and everything turns out fine. Charlie definitely matured.

[Lars]

Is anybody even interested in discussing the book? I've come up with answers for the other questions I posed in the initial thread, but I'm not sure if they are even worth writing down, if nobody reads or discusses them.

[Lars]

Well, then I will have to wait for a few weeks.

I feel your pain: Libraries are awesome, but it sucks that other people go there, too. XD