Perks Of Being A Wallflower Movie And Book Comparison Essay

The Perks of being a Wallflower vs. The Catcher in the Rye

After reading the first two pages of J.D.Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye I put the book down, I began dreading the idea of having to read it. My first impression was that it was going to be about some boring rich kid who had a passion for complaining, but one hour and two cans of coke later I had read almost 150 pages. The reason I picked the book up was that earlier that day I had finished reading Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of being a Wallflower and decided to give Salinger a second chance. I did not think that I was going to enjoy The Perks having had seen the film but I was wrong. Both books come under the coming of age genre; ‘coming of age’ is a vague term used describe

The book is full of inspiring thoughts, ideas and themes and this makes it really relate to so many people. The Perks is structured as a series of letters that all begin with ‘Dear Friend’. Set in the 1990’s it tells the story of Charlie a shy, emotionally unstable fifteen year old boy who is struggling to cope with his best friend Michaels suicide, his aunt Helens death and the inability to fit in. Charlie’s aunt Helen died in a car crash when Charlie was little, Helen died while on her way to collect Charlie's birthday present. Charlie begins freshman year and his English teacher over the course of the year assigns him books to write essays on, as he is very passionate about reading, writing and music. In shop class, he meets Patrick who he later approaches at a football game. At the football game Charlie meets Sam, Patricks step sister. Charlie becomes friends with Patrick, Sam and their group of friends; they introduce Charlie to drugs and alcohol. They drive down a large tunnel, this is when he really feels like he is living, “And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.” During a party, he sees Patrick and Brad kissing, Brad is one of the ‘popular’ kids and is on the football team and Charlie is sworn to secrecy. Charlie starts dating Mary Elizabeth one of Sam’s best friends, he will

In Holden’s case, the word phony is used often “You never saw so many phonies in all your life, everybody smoking their ears off and talking about the play so that everybody could hear and know how sharp they were.” To Holden phoniness is everything that is wrong with the world, and he believes that becoming a phony would mean becoming an adult. Holden is very judgemental and is constantly calling people who are too conventional phonies. Another technique used in the book is symbolism and I think this is the reason many people find the book boring. At first, the plot seems uninteresting but once you think over all the events in the book and what they symbolise it shows the bigger picture. For example, the idea of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ sounds peculiar but it represents coming of age. The field of rye symbolises childhood and if the children fall of the cliff it is as if they are falling into adulthood, Holden wants to protect them from the adult world and all the phoniness that it contains. Holden’s red hunting hat symbolises his individuality and allows him to hide or show his emotions easier. At the start of the book, Holden used the hat more often in certain emotional situations but by the end he has grown up and realises he no longer needs it and gives it to phoebe. He bought the hat after getting kicked