Steven Chbosky’s “the perks of being a wallflower” has touched millions of hearts with its overall theme of the process of healing from trauma. With touches of loneliness, hopelessness, grief, and recovery, Chbosky delivers these themes in sentimental letters written by Charlie, a young boy in high school, oblivious to a traumatic event that has been weighing down on his shoulders. Navigating through depression, friendship problems, flashbacks, and emotional unavailability, Chbosky reveals a deeper meaning to the book through Charlie’s inner dialogue throughout the story. 

                   Throughout the book, Chbosky leaves hints and symbols of what happened to Charlie, hints, and symbols that most readers wouldn’t have caught on to unless they know the ending. Something you do see a lot though is Aunt Hellen’s name. Even more significantly, the stories about her that Charlie aimlessly writes, not even realizing what she did to him, and how his fondness for her is a poignant representation of how victims feel after their abuse. “I will just say that my aunt Helen was molested”(Chbosky, 90). This is what Charlie shares with us among the countless others about how she was an addict and a drunk. Charlie even mentions when his dad told him about his abuse from his father, and how he confronted and told himself that he would never do that to any of his kids. The fact that this is said right after readers are told about aunt Helen’s abuse is an evident hint Chbosky is trying to make clear. 

                   Further in the book, when Charlie and Sam come close to having intercourse, Chbosky exhibits Charlie getting extremely uncomfortable, especially when Sam starts touching Charlie sexually. Chbosky switches back to Charlie’s inner dialogue, “I shook my head. It felt good actually. I didn’t know what was wrong.” (Chbosky, 202) Charlie then continues to be very confused about why he was uneasy about the situation he was in. Charlie tells Sam, “I can’t do that anymore. I’m sorry,” I said. But I wasn’t talking to Sam anymore. I was talking to someone else” (Chbosky, 203). This heavily signifies that the person Charlie was talking to was, aunt Helen, as well as symbolizing what Charlie wished he could have told aunt Helen during the countless times she molested him. When someone is under this weight of heavy past trauma and abuse, if you put yourself in a similar situation that you were in while abused, it feels like that traumatic situation all over again, likely what Charlie was feeling with Sam.

                   After Charlie’s biggest episode that wound him up in the hospital, Charlie explains how he was able to confront his trauma and heal from it to then move forward with life in an easier manner. Charlie tells us in the epilogue, “A dad who was a bad alcoholic had two sons. One grew up to be a successful carpenter who never drank. The other brother ended up being a drinker as bad as his dad. (…) But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there” (Chbosky, 211). Chbosky illustrates a Charlie that thinks abuse becomes the abuser, but when Charlie finally accepts that he has to stop his cycle of abuse and become a bigger person, he finally has a chance to, in the hospital. Even the fact that Charlie recognized any of these cycles and patterns, and even knew that he could perpetuate all of them, really symbolizes a huge sense of healing.

                    By the end of the book, Charlie realizes that he had been molested, abused, and emotionally manipulated, but he also chose to heal from that trauma. Chbosky embellishes Charlie to encourage readers that they are not alone in their struggles and that other people’s flaws do not define the person you are, and the person you will become. No one could construct a Character as real as Chbosky, and he continuously proves it to us throughout this book. Chbosky’s hints and clues to Charlie’s realizations become more clear to readers, and an authentic and healed version of Charlie shines through, as well as a Charlie that readers can empathize with, if not relate to.