Perks of Being A Wall Flower- The Struggle

I Recently finished the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. In the book a boy named Charlie is a freshman in high school and his best friend Michael has just committed suicide. Although this may seem like a huge, huge deal to some, Charlie accepts it as an obstacle of his life, and this book, to me, represents his journey to climb over it and somehow move on and grow as a person. Although he faces many more obstacles throughout the course of his ninth grade year, I feel like a really big issue for Charlie was the conflict of acceptance, and fitting into the school after losing the one person who really understood him.

The issue of acceptance and how hard one strives to fit in is an issue at any school of any age level. I feel like in this story, though, the issue of acceptance wasn't really a main idea of the story, but one that was weaved throughout the book. Charlie shows that he wants to make friends and be accepted when he meets some seniors in his school. These seniors were the misfits and the kids who didn't really "fit" into their grade, and I think Charlie had feelings like those too. When Charlie joined forces with those seniors, I feel like he lost himself in bad decisions, and started to do drugs, sneak out, and disobey his parents, although all Charlie wanted to do was make friends. I think Charlie learned here, firsthand, that fitting in may mean taking actions that you're not really comfortable with in the long run. Charlie never wanted to get addicted to cigarettes at such a young age, but because he wanted to be accepted into that group, he had to take measures such as those.

I feel as if fitting in and being accepted is a really big issue nowadays in our society, a bigger issue than it should really be. I am writing my foreword on the effects of verbal bullying and the effect of school social standing point takes a really big role in many teenagers lives. Opinion is to not push your own limits, and just do what you're comfortable with and be with the people you know make you happy. Almost everyone has been face-to-face with a decision like the ones Charlie has, and had to ponder how much it means to them to fit in. I feel like this may be a way of dealing with the grief that Charlie was.