The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Bill gives Charlie a “B” on his Peter Pan essay and says that Charlie’s “sense of language is improving along with [his] sentence structure” (46). Charlie decides he might want to be a writer when he grows up but doesn’t know what he would write about. Charlie starts participating and gets involved with a publication Mary Elizabeth oversees:“I did start working for a fanzine called Punk Rocky. It’s this Xerox magazine about punk rock and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I don’t write for it, but I help out” (47).

On Halloween night, Sam and Patrick take Charlie to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the theatre. He enjoys the shared experience: “It’s really fun because all these kids dress up like the people in the movie, and they act out the movie in front of the screen. Also, people shout at the movie on cue” (47). Sam plays Janet, and Charlie finds this difficult because she walks around in her underwear. Throughout the production, he struggles not to think about her romantically.

Charlies writes how he loves Sam, but she’s dating an older guy named Craig. Craig likes to drink red wine and models to pay for art school. Charlie doesn’t think Craig is a “bad guy,” but he doesn’t like how Craig seems disinterested in what Sam has to say.

One night and their house, Charlie’s sister tells him that Sam has “low self-esteem” because she heard how Sam, as a sophomore, was considered a “blow queen” (49). She also tells him she’s secretly dating the boy who hit her. She reassures Charlie that her boyfriend will never hit her again and that they’re going to get married after college.

Charlie writes that he loves Twinkies, “and the reason [he’s] saying that is because we are all supposed to think of reasons to live” (50). He then says his science teacher told the class about an experiment where they put a rat or mouse on one side of a cage and food on the other and an electrical current in the middle pathway. The rat or mouse would walk over to the other side until a certain amount of voltage was reached. They did the same experiment, but they replaced the food with something the rat or mouse found intensely pleasurable. The scientists found that the rat or mouse would put up with a lot more voltage for the pleasure. Charlie says he doesn’t “know the significance of this, but [he] find[s] it very interesting” (50).

Charlie again starts a letter with the weather and how “the pretty fall weather is pretty much gone”(51) and it’s getting cold. He’s excited for the holidays because his brother is coming to town. Charlie likes to imagine that his brother is having a college experience like they do in the movies:

I don’t mean the big fraternity party kind of movie. More like the movie where the guy meets a smart girl who wears a lot of sweaters and drinks cocoa. They talk about books and issues and kiss in the rain. I think something like that would be very good for him, especially if the girl were unconventionally beautiful (51).

Charlie’s brother had always covered his room in posters of super models, cars, and beer, and Charlie imagines that his dorm looks the same. His brother doesn’t call home very often, and this makes their mom sad.

Charlie transitions into how he was involved in athletics when he was younger, but the doctors suggested he “stop” because playing sports made him “too aggressive” (52). He explains how his dad once played football but had to stop once his mom got pregnant with his brother.

Charlie’s brother calls and explains that he needs to catch up on schoolwork and can’t come home for Thanksgiving. Their mom is upset, so she takes Charlie shopping for clothes as a distraction. Charlie knows that she is angry because she talks the entire time they are shopping. At school the next day, Sam and Patrick like Charlie’s new look and tell him his mother has “good taste” (54). When Charlie tells his mom this, she invites his friends to dinner after the holiday is season passes.

The idea of having friends over excites Charlie, who has not had a friend over since before Michael’s death. Charlie recalls how he and Michael walked around the neighborhood at night and looked in all the windows. One of the neighbors had been gone a lot, and Michael said it was because she and her husband were probably “getting a divorce” (56). Charlie knows his friend is projecting: “We just kept walking. Michael had a way of walking quiet sometimes. I guess I should mention that my mom heard Michael’s parents are divorced now. She said only seventy percent of marriages stay together when they lose a child” (56).

Charlies asks his “friend” questions, even though the recipient of the letters can’t respond: “Do you enjoy holidays with your family?” (56). Charlies expresses how much he enjoys this family time: “I am very interested and fascinated by how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other” (56). His grandfather always says racist things at family gatherings. Because his grandfather also consumes a lot of alcohol, someone always has to drive him back to the retirement home. Charlie remembers the time that he and his brother drove him back. His grandpa told them how he had to leave school at 16 because his dad had died, and he needed to take care of the family. Intoxicated, he also tells his grandsons how he once beat their mom and aunt when they were little because they got C’s on their report cards. Both girls ended up going to college. He said that he is proud of Charlie’s mom. When Charlie tells his mom this, “she just looked very sad because he could never say those things to her. Not ever. Not even when he walked her down the aisle” (58).

This Thanksgiving, Charlie’s relatives gather around the TV to watch his brother play football. Instead of fighting like usual, the family smiles and feels proud, and his grandfather cries: “The kind of crying that is a quiet and secret. The kind of crying that only I noticed” (59). At dinner, everyone says what they’re thankful for. Charlie says, “I’m thankful that my brother played football on television so nobody fought” (60). When everyone is leaving, Charlie hugs his grandfather and kisses him on the cheek, despite his grandfather not liking to be touched. Charlie writes: “I’m very glad that I did it anyway in case he dies. I never got to do that with my Aunt Helen” (60).

Charlie joins in Secret Santa, and the others explain to him what it entails. Charlie then reiterates this in a letter:

It’s an activity where a group of friends draw names out of a hat, and they are supposed to buy a lot of Christmas presents for whatever person they choose. The presents are “secretly” placed in their lockers when they’re not there. Then, at the end, you have a party and all the people reveal who they really are as they give their last present (61).

Charlie gets Patrick and decides his first present to Patrick is going to be a mixtape he’ll title “One Winter” (61). Charlie details his plan to hand-color the cover and include Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” which is Sam and Patrick’s favorite song, and other songs by bands such as the Smiths, the Beatles, the Moody Blues, and Fleetwood Mac. He spends all night working on the tape: “I thought to myself that in the palm of my hand, there was this one tape that had all of these memories and feelings and great joy and sadness” (62).

Charlie is excited to be included in the group Secret Santa and expresses this in a letter: “Patrick loved the tape. I think he knows that I’m his Secret Santa, though, because I think he knows that only I would do a tape like that” (63). Charlie says that his second present for Patrick is going to be magnetic poetry, which is “a bunch of words on a sheet of magnet and then cut the words into separate pieces. You put them on your refrigerator, and then you write poems while you make a sandwich. It’s very fun” (64). Charlie then mentions how his Secret Santa gift was a pair of socks, which he assumed was from Mary Elizabeth. He expresses a slight disappointment at what he perceived to be an impersonal present.

Charlie received thrift store slacks as his second gift, and then “a tie, a white shirt, shoes, and an old belt” (64)as subsequent gifts. He received a typed letter saying that he should wear these things to the party, and he’s hoping that there is a special reason for this.

Charlie writes how he also gave Patrick water color paints, paper, and a harmonica and how his friend has loved them all. Charlie’s last gift for Patrick is going to be a book called The Mayor of Castro Street, which is a book about the gay rights activist, Harvey Milk.

Charlie writes about the Christmas party at Sam and Patrick’s house: “The outside lights were on, and it was snowing, and it looked like magic. Like we were somewhere else. Like we were someplace better” (65).

They all have dinner with Sam and Patrick’s parents. When the parents leave, the teens are left alone to drink brandy and exchange gifts. Charlie reveals that he’s Patrick’s Secret Santa and says that his last gift for him is a poem his old friend Michael gave him. He doesn’t know who the authored the poem, which is about a little boy who was once happy, but grows up and realizes the nothingness of it all. At the end of the poem he cuts his wrists. The group asks him to read it aloud: “When I was done reading the poem, everyone was quiet. A very sad quiet. But the amazing thing was that it wasn’t a bad sad at all. It was just something that made everyone look around at each other and know that they were there” (66).

Patrick is Charlie’s Secret Santa. For his final gift, Charlie receives a suit coat to complete the ensemble because “all the great writers used to wear suits all the time” (67), and Patrick knows that Charlie wants to be a writer. Then everyone exchanges gifts with the people they didn’t buy for during the Secret Santa: “I have to admit, I felt a little sad because other than Sam and Patrick, nobody got me a present” (68). Charlie gave Bob a tube of bubbles because “it just seemed to fit his personality” (68). He got Alice an Anne Rice book, and she was shocked because she didn’t realize he knew that she loved the author. He gave Mary Elizabeth money to print the next issue of Punk Rocky in color. And finally, he gave Sam an old 45 Beatles record that his aunt Helen had given him. Sam kissed him cheek and whispered in his ear: “I love you” (69).

Sam takes Charlie to her room and gives him an old typewriter as a present. On the first blank sheet of paper, Sam types: “Write about me someday,” and he types: “I will” (69). He also types: “I love you, too” (69). She asks Charlie if he has ever kissed a girl. He responds that he hasn’t, and Sam looks sad. She confides in Charlie about the first time she was kissed: “[I]t was with one of her dad’s friends. She was seven” (70). Sam explains she has never told anyone about it except Mary Elizabeth and Patrick. She starts to cry and tells Charlie that even though she’s dating Craig, she wants to make sure that the first person Charlie kisses is a person who loves him. She kisses him: “It was the kind of kiss that made me know that I was never so happy in my whole life” (70).