Narrator and point of view

The first-person narrator of The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky is Charlie, the main character. Charlie narrates his experiences of a single year of high school through a series of letters, written to an unknown recipient. Charlie addresses this person as a “friend”, but he also implies that he doesn’t actually know this person. This technique makes it seem like Charlie is directly addressing the reader, involving them in the story. This makes it easy to identify with him and what he is going through.

At times, Charlie may be seen as an unreliable narrator. From the beginning, Charlie comes across as emotionally unstable and immature. As the narrative unfolds, Charlie has moments where he gets so angry that he scares himself, ...