Supporting and Breaking the Chain of Abuse 1

Taylor Downs

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chbosky is a modern coming of age tale in
the point of view of Charlie, a fifteen year old boy beginning his freshman year of high school.
The novel has very in-depth perceptions of the trials and difficulties of Charlie, as well as those
around him; it offers a different insight than most coming-of-age tales and has the ability to
allow the reader to begin thinking in different, previously unmatched ways. The Perks of Being a
Wallflower shows the vicious cycle of abuse in a family, and the ability to break it.

The story is set in present day at a public high school in a small county of Ohio. If the
story had not taken place modernly, Charlie would not have gone to a Psychiatrist; consequently,
not remembering the terrible event of sexual abuse of his childhood. All of Charlie’s extended
family lives close enough for them to get together for holidays, because of this Charlie is
exposed to the lives of some in his family that did not break the cycle of abuse. The reader of
The Perks of Being a Wallflower reads the letters Charlie writes to an anonymous correspondent;
Charlie doesn’t write return addresses on the letters, nor does he use real names while talking
about his friends or himself, though Charlie knows who the boy he writes these to is. He does
this so the correspondent won’t know who he’s talking about, because of how specific the details
are that he gives about himself, his family and his friends. Without the first person narration, the
reader wouldn’t become so encompassed by Charlie’s emotions and experiences, and without
Charlie’s anonymity, the reader wouldn’t be exposed to the vivid details of Charlie’s thoughts
and memories of the events or of the similar events of other family members.

Every year Charlie’s family visits his father’s family at Christmas, it’s at this time that
Charlie writes explaining that his father, his father’s sister Rebecca, and his father’s mother were
physically and mentally abused by their stepfather during his father’s childhood. Because of his
Aunt Rebecca’s childhood of abuse, she continues to marry the same type of man that ruined her
youth, thus ruining the youth of her children. Charlie’s grandfather also beat his mother and his
mother’s sister Helen, his mother is very quiet throughout the novel and, in Charlie’s words
“Maybe if my grandfather didn’t hit her, my mom wouldn’t be so quiet. And maybe she
wouldn’t have married my dad because he doesn’t hit” (210). Charlie believes, and is probably
correct, that his mother married his father because his father hated his abuse as extremely as he
did, and because of that neither Charlie nor his sister or brother were abused by their parents.
Charlie’s Aunt Helen died when he was young boy, afterword he became depressed, and
depressed enough to have to see a Psychiatrist for over a year and stay back a grade, which, if he
 Supporting and Breaking the Chain of Abuse 2
Taylor Downs

hadn’t, he would not have met his best friends Sam and Patrick. Charlie explains that his Aunt
Helen had lived with his family, which is why he and her were so close, an confesses the reason
why she couldn’t stay on her own was because she had been molested as a child by a family
friend and could not get her life going successfully. Later in the novel, Charlie must revisit the
Psychiatrist because he returns to that emotional place of guilt and sadness over his Aunt Helen’s
death; he feels guilty because his Aunt Helen would not have been in the fatal car crash if she
hadn’t been driving to pick him up a birthday present. The Psychiatrist asks Charlie the same
questions about his childhood over and over, annoying him because he doesn’t see the point in
them. Eventually, after a kiss with his best friend Sam, Charlie begins seeing flashes of his
childhood again. Over days he is able to piece together everything, and remembers that his Aunt
Helen molested him as a child. Her molestation of Charlie was a direct result of her own
childhood sexual abuse. Neither of these abuses would have occurred had it not previously
occurred and scarred the women’s lives.

Charlie begins the story as a shy boy, throughout the novel he meets new people and
opens up about himself. However, once things seem to be getting better for him, Charlie upsets
one of his friends by trying to be honest (an outcome of the secrecy of the abuse in his
childhood), consequently being left alone by the rest. In this time, Charlie has nothing to keep his
mind off of thoughts he doesn’t want to think nor remember and takes up both smoking and
drinking. He steadily deteriorates until his friends accept him again. Soon after, Patrick’s
boyfriend breaks up with him, leaving Patrick distraught and using Charlie as comfort. Every
night Patrick brings Charlie out, just to keep his own mind off of his issues, and every night
Patrick kisses Charlie; though Charlie is not gay, Charlie accepts it because he had grown to
tolerate unwanted behavior as a child. Towards the end of the story, Sam kisses Charlie, causing
Charlie to begin to slowly remember the horrors of his childhood. When it becomes too much to
handle, Charlie is submitted to the hospital by his parents and slowly becomes himself again,
remembering his days and remembering his existence, and through time and therapy he feels
better after a few months. He writes his last letter saying “So, if this does end up being my last
letter, please believe that things are good with me, even when they’re not, they will be soon
enough” (213). Charlie’s year was a rollercoaster of emotions because of his constant coping
with a past of which he doesn’t remember until the very end, but by the end of the story, Charlie
feels good.
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Taylor Downs

Although Chbosky writes the story representing the generations of carrying abuse, he
also shows those who don’t act negatively because of their hardships. Charlie is optimistic by the
end of the novel, not only because he learns what happened, but because he understands it, and
he understands that he as the choice of who he wants to be, regardless of the people his Aunt
Helen and his Aunt Rebecca became; he has his parents as role models of those who experience
years and years of abuse, but come out okay and come out never hurting their children. Charlie
writes, “I’m not the way I am because of what I dreamt and remembered about m Aunt Helen.
That’s what I figured out… I think that’s very important to know… Don’t get me wrong. I know
what happened was important. And I needed to remember it… But even if we don’t have the
power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there” (212).
Chbosky is sure to make the reader understand, through Charlie, that regardless of the
experiences we must fight through, we are in control of who we become, and we don’t have to
become the next cycle of abuse or anger or neglect when it can end with us.

Although the idea of both branches of Charlie’s family being descended from childhoods
of abuse may seem unlikely, it is not surprising that at least one on each side chooses to mimic
what they saw, creating a chain reaction. It’s like when it snows a car is driving behind a car
creating tracks that the car could easily follow, but the car ahead isn’t driving safely; the grooves
in front of them are already cleared, but they have a choice. The car behind has the choice to
either choose the easy path and follow the swerving tracks, or make reliable tracks on their own
through the difficulty. Charlie’s Aunt Rebecca and Aunt Helen chose to follow the cleared
tracks, the tracks that had been shown to them, while his mother and father drove through it on
their own, not taking the example given to them; thus proving Chbosky’s belief that we are who
we want to be.