Relationship Dynamics in The Perks of Being a Wallflower Essay Essays

Relationship Dynamics in The Perks of Being a Wallflower Essay Essays Relationship Dynamics in The Perks of Being a Wallflower Essay Paper Relationship Dynamics in The Perks of Being a Wallflower Essay Paper Essay Topic: The Perks Of Being a Wallflower â€Å"My life is an afterschool particular. † These words. spoken by the character. Patrick. sum up the kineticss of the relationships portrayed in the film. The Perks of Bing a Wallflower. The film is a coming-of-age narrative about Charlie. a male child without any friends. as he enters his first twelvemonth of high school. While the film is geared toward immature grownups. the message portrayed about relationships touches everyone: We accept the love we think we deserve. In the film. Charlie has a crush on a fun-loving. party-girl. senior. Sam. who is already dating an older male child in college. Though they become close friends and portion intimate experiences and feelings with each other. Charlie neer asks Sam out. The film upholds traditional high school relationship stereotypes from the Sadie Hawkins dance to prom photo shoots but it besides illuminates the singularity of every close confidant relationship. It is best described by Charlie when he says. â€Å"I know someday our images will go old exposure. † like how a minute captured on camera can be seen but neer experienced the same manner once more. Through the kineticss of Sam and Charlie’s relationship. I will demo how The Perks of Bing a Wallflower depicts a echt. true love narrative that represents cosmopolitan elements everyone experiences in close relationships. Before his first twenty-four hours of high school. Charlie writes. â€Å"I am both happy and sad and I’m still seeking to calculate out how that can be. † He begins his first twenty-four hours entirely. eating by himself in the cafeteria. neer raising his manus in category. and maintaining his caput ducked down in the hallways. One dark he decides to travel to a high school football game. where he foremost meets Sam and her half-brother. Patrick. Together. they watch their school football squad win the game and Sam and Patrick invite Charlie to the diner with them afterwards where they talk about their favourite music and what they want to be when they grow up. This act of sharing positive experiences together that benefits the patterned advance of a relationship is called capitalisation( Reiss. Carmichael. Caprariello. Tsai. Rodriguez A ; Maniaci. 2010 ) . Sam and Patrick portion the experience of Charlie’s first party. his first school dance. and even the first clip he gets high. The most theatrical illustration of capitalisation in the film is when the three friends are driving place and the vocal. â€Å"Heroes† by David Bowie comes on the wireless and Sam demands that Patrick drive through the Fort Pitt Tunnel so she can stand in the dorsum of the pickup truck while blaring the vocal over the wireless. Charlie is so afflicted by the feeling of belonging that he looks at Patrick and says. â€Å"I feel infinite. † Sam and Charlie become closer when they offer each other the comfort of cognizing that they are non entirely. Their relationship grows even deeper when they learn that they can portion their experiences and feelings with each other without being rejected. This happens the first clip at Charlie’s foremost high school party. Charlie. while he is stoned. confesses to Sam that his lone friend. Michael. shooting himself last spring. Sam portions what Charlie told her with Patrick and they subsequently toast Charlie at the party in order to welcome him as their new friend in forepart of everyone. Charlie looks as if he is about to shout because for the first clip. he feels like he belongs someplace. As their familiarity progresses. Charlie demonstrates his fondnesss for Sam by giving her gifts and offering shows of fondness known as care behaviours in relationships ( Stafford. 2003 ) . For illustration. he makes her a assorted tape themed after the dark that they drove through the tunnel together even though he couldn’t happen the particular vocal that made them experience â€Å"infinite. † Charlie besides offers to assist Sam survey for the following Saturday after he sees how defeated she is when she receives her tonss. Charlie’s self-disclosure and attempts to expose fondness encourages Sam to portion the more private parts of her life without fearing she will be rejected by him. Sam’s minute of self-disclosure is after the Christmas party. when she invites Charlie up to her room for the first clip to give him a thank-you nowadays for assisting her survey for the SATs. On her desk is an old typewriter with a bow for Charlie. because she knows that Charlie wants to be a author someday. When Charlie sees the gift on her desk. he says withincredulity. â€Å"You got me a present? † The freshness of felicity off of Charlie’s face demonstrates the physiological reaction of showing gratitude in relationships. Acts of gratitude are known to significantly increase relationship satisfaction ( Demoss. 2004 ) . Not merely does Sam expose gratitude towards Charlie. but she lets him into her room. her private infinite where none of the other party invitees had been invited to travel. In a minute of intimacy. after Charlie confesses he’s neer kissed a miss. Sam portions with Charlie that her first buss was when her dad’s foreman molested her at the age of 10. Charlie responds with proof. stating her that the same thing happened to his aunt Helen and that she turned her life about. When Sam remarks that his aunt must hold been a great adult female. Charlie responds. â€Å"She was my favourite individual in the universe. until now. † Sam. overwhelmed with cryings. Tells Charlie that she knows that he knows she has a fellow. but she wants to do certain that the first individual that kisses him. loves him. Charlie nods. and Sam tilts in and kisses him. For the first clip she says. â€Å"I love you. Charlie. † And he responds. â€Å"I love you excessively. † Charlie and Sam do non go a twosome. but they continue to learn each other that they are meriting of echt love. The greater the impact close relationships have on one’s self-image. the greater satisfaction one will have from the relationship ( Mattingly. Oswald. Clark. 2011 ) . Sam and Charlie do this by perpetuating a positive self-image of each other. increasing the felicity they receive from disbursement clip together. Sam does this for Charlie by admiting that he is non brainsick and that he is person deserving being friends with. Charlie does this for Sam by promoting her to use to colleges and offering the emotional support that he believes in her. Sam and Charlie have a echt concern for each other’s good being. These compassionate. supportive ends are another illustration of how antiphonal they are to each others’ needs ( Conovello A ; Crocker. 2011 ) . Charlie doesn’t merely give Sam his most darling gift because he thinks she’s reasonably and wants her to wish him. He gives her the Beatles record his asleep aunt Helenleft him because he genuinely cares about her. and he wants her to be happy. It is for the same ground Sam gives Charlie his first buss. They have ends to run into the demands of each other. However. like all persons and relationships. Sam and Charlie are non perfect. Despite the echt love and fondness Charlie offers her. Sam continues to day of the month her fellow who is rip offing on her. and Charlie continues to day of the month Sam’s friend. Mary Elizabeth. even though he doesn’t have romantic feelings for her. After Sam eventually dumps her fellow and Charlie is no longer dating Mary Elizabeth. Sam confronts Charlie and asks him why he had neer asked her out. Charlie responds that he didn’t believe she wanted him to and that he merely wanted her to be happy. Sam answers. â€Å"You can’t merely put everyone’s lives in front of yours and think that counts as love†¦I don’t want to be someone’s crush. I want people to wish the existent me. † Charlie restlessnesss nervously and after a long intermission he tells Sam. â€Å"I know who you are. † and he tells her that she’s beautiful and he kisses her. This minute suggests that the impact their relationship had on their self-pride. brought them both to a point where they could accept the love that the other idea they deserved. Despite all the attempts Sam and Charlie made towards the familiarity of their relationship. the film does non stop merrily of all time after. The following twenty-four hours Sam leaves for college. and the intimate sexual experience between Charlie and Sam triggered Charlie to hold flashbacks of his aunt Helen molesting him as a kid and he is hospitalized in a psychiatric ward. Charlie is left entirely inquiring how it is possible to be happy and sad at the same clip and how person he loved and idolized like his aunt Helen could hold done something that hurt him so severely. The Perks of Bing a Wallflower is a love narrative that is told the manner Sam described stone love ballads to Charlie: both kitschy and brilliant. The narrative uses the general scene of stereotyped high school play to portray the human experience of close relationships. Charlie experiences the euphory of first love and besides the hurting of lay waste toing grief. And merely like old exposure. whether the scene was a high school dance or asocietal at a retirement place. the relationships in this film are relatable to anyone who views them. while besides bing as independent alone experiences that will neer be lived the same manner twice. Even though the film doesn’t terminal with Charlie and Sam as a happy twosome. it still ends with an uplifting scene reuniting Charlie. Sam. and her brother. Patrick. Charlie is standing in the dorsum of Sam’s pickup truck while they drive through the Fort Pitt Tunnel and his voice narrates. â€Å"I know these will wholly be narratives someday and our images will go old exposure. but right now. this is go oning. † He acknowledges that the experience of human relationships is something that everyone will see and that all of the minutes shared will go memories. but Charlie shows that the energy that comes from love lives in the minute where you feel like you are the lone 1 who has of all time experienced it before. â€Å"That one moment†¦when you’re listening to that vocal on that thrust with the people you love most in this world†¦I swear. we are infinite. † MentionsCanvello. A. . A ; Crocker. J. ( 2011 ) . Interpersonal ends. others’ respect for the ego. and self-esteem: The self-contradictory effects of self-image and compassionate ends. European Journal of Social Psychology. 41. 422-434. Demoss. Y. ( 2004 ) . Brief intercessions and resilience in twosomes. Dissertation Abstracts International: The Sciences and Engineering. 65 ( 5-B ) . 2619.Mattingly. B. A. . Oswald. D. L. . A ; Clark. E. M. ( 2011 ) . An scrutiny of relational-interdependent self-construal. communal strength. and pro-relationship behaviours in friendly relationships. Personality and Individual Differences. 50. 1243-1248. Reis. H. T. . Smith. S. M. . Carmichael. C. L. . Caprariello. P. A. . Tsai. F. . Rodriguez. A. . A ; Maniaci. M. R. ( 2010 ) . Are you happy for me? How sharing positive events with others provides personal and interpersonal benefits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 99. 311-329. Stafford. L. ( 2003 ) . Keeping romantic relationships: A drumhead and analysis of one research plan. In D. J. Canary A ; M. Dainton ( Eds. ) .Keeping relationships through communicating: Relational. contextual. and cultural fluctuations ( pp. 51-77 ) . Mahwah. New jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.