The Perks of Being a Wallflower #2

Whose perspective is missing?

I just finished the “Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky, which is about a boy named Charlie who is writing to a friend about his life. The anonymous friend is one of the many people in this book whose perspective is missing. I think it would’ve been interesting to see what the friend had to say about Charlie’s letters but the fact that Charlie doesn’t get help from this person makes Charlie’s journey stand out more.

            

           This “friend” Charlie’s writing to is “one of those people who listens and understands and doesn’t try to sleep with people even though you could have.” He/she seems to be a person that is kind according to Charlie and I think that this “friend” would try to help Charlie when he/she reads the letters. It would be interesting to see this person hear about how hard life is for Charlie and not having any way to help. Or maybe this person never read the letters or is afraid of reading because of how intense and heart breaking some of them are. I’m sure there was some kind of internal struggle for this person that was receiving the letters and I thought that maybe the author should have included this person’s perspective but he chose not to include it.

           

           I think the reason why the author chose not to include the “friend” is because just focusing on Charlie’s journey and how Charlie see’s the world makes his decisions and path in this story seem more heroic or heartbreaking, and it makes his changes more significant, because he doesn’t get help, he has to figure out the world by himself. He has to figure out what his friends and family mean to him, and maybe if this friend helped him by responding to his letters he may never have figured out how to talk to his family or to figure out his feelings for Sam or his relationship with Patrick. I think that the story could still be a good and heartbreaking story if the person responded to Charlie’s letters but the story would totally different and we might see Charlie in a completely different way.