Charlie’s fondness for Aunt Helen and his prolonged grief over her accidental death is a poignant representation of the convoluted emotions many survivors of sexual assault experience towards those who abuse them. The fact that Charlie’s abuse was committed by a trusted and beloved family member is also consistent with reality – more than 90% of juvenile sexual abuse victims know their perpetrators. And while the majority of these young victims were assaulted by adult men, the existence of sexually abusive adult women is receiving increased attention. In actuality, it is likely that more than 16% of men have survived sexual abuse by the age of 18. Chbosky’s decision to feature a male victim of sexual violence along with a female perpetrator erodes the persistent female victim / male offender paradigm. With this unexpected plot twist, Chbosky encourages readers to reflect back on Charlie’s letters and view his eccentricities and tribulations in a different light.Ĭharlie concludes in his final letters in Perks that he was sexually abused in early childhood by his Aunt Helen, who is now deceased. As readers of Perks, we’re unaware that Charlie is a survivor of sexual abuse until the book’s conclusion, when Charlie is hospitalized following the emergence of repressed traumatic memories from his childhood. Perks is constructed as a series of letters penned by Charlie – the novel’s narrator – to an anonymous recipient. In an age in which more than half of all sexual assault victims are under 18, and damaging myths about sexual violence abound, true-to-life representations of survivorhood in popular fiction can serve as vital beacons for youth struggling in the aftermath of sexual trauma. Chbosky’s depiction of the enduring impact of childhood sexual abuse on his central character is particularly accurate. Chbosky tackles many hard realities of adolescent life in this coming-of-age tale – suicide, substance abuse, abortion – all of which are explored with a rare blend of sensitive pragmatism. Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999) has been celebrated as an affecting yet unsentimental novel with an exceptionally endearing narrator.
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