Over
spring break, I read Perks of Being a
Wallfower by Stephen Chbosky, a book about a
freshman in high school named Charlie and how he develops both socially and
psychologically throughout that year. Charlie is one of the most observational
characters I have ever become familiar with. He absorbs the environment around
him, understanding or making inferences about some of the situations he
experiences or memories he recalls, while leaving other things open-ended. Charlie
pays particular attention to his social environment and his relationship with
others as well as relationships between other people. One of these
relationships is between his sister and one of her boyfriends. Interestingly,
these two characters, as well as the rest of his family besides his Aunt Helen,
are never named in the book.
This particular relationship started
out one-sided, where the boyfriend would dote on Charlie’s sister, making her
mixed tapes and following her around like a puppy. Charlie would observe fights
between his sister and her boyfriend, which started when his sister kept
nagging and teasing him about never standing up to his bullies. One particular
time, her boyfriend got so angry that he hit her face. Charlie interpreted this
as the boyfriend finally standing up to his bully—his sister. Ever since that
incident, his sister’s behavior completely changed and she was inseparable from
this boy, claiming that he was her life. Needless to say, she made Charlie
promise not to tell their parents. Charlie, however, did tell his English
teacher whom he had a good relationship with. His teacher said something that
really struck me and which resonated with concepts we had learned in social
psychology. Charlie’s English teacher told him, “We accept the love we think we
deserve,” right before Charlie left and the teacher called and told his parents
about the incident.
This statement, so simple yet so
profound, both exemplifies one of the themes throughout the book and also
reflects the ideas of the self-enhancement and self-verification theory in
social psychology. This theory explains how people try to balance these two
phenomena, the first of which is the motivation to seek and interpret
situations to maintain a positive view of the self and the second of which is
the motivation to seek and interpret situations to maintain a consistent view of
the self. The relationship between these two motivations creates an interesting
dynamic when considering self-esteem and how individuals with high or low
self-esteem will seek or interpret situations differently. The theory goes to
suggest that an individual with high self-esteem will seek positive information
because it both self-enhances and confirms the concept of the self. However,
there is a conflict for individuals with low self-esteem. When such an
individual encounters positive information, self-enhancement is met, but self-confirmation
is not, since the individual does not have a positive view of the self. On the
other hand, an individual with low self-esteem will accept negative information.
Even though self-enhancement isn’t met, self-verification is. Unfortunately,
self-verification seems to be more pervasive, continuing the cycle of low
self-esteem.
In Charlie’s sister’s case, she
might stay with her abusive boyfriend because his actions validate her sense of
self. She accepts the love that she believes she deserves. Another theory could
involve attitude and behavior. According to S&M, the more we put into
something, the more we seem to value it. This “something” could even include
pain. It may be the case that people in abusive relationships might stay in the
relationships because of the amount of pain that they experience. The harder
things get, the more effort they put into the relationship and the more they
value it. This phenomenon in particular could stem from both attitude and
self-esteem. Perhaps individuals with lower self-esteem will be more likely to place
a greater value on their abusive relationship while those with high self-esteem
would leave the relationship.
From what Charlie tells us, I can
sense a change in his sister’s self-esteem throughout the book. Later on, Charlie’s
sister becomes pregnant and her boyfriend breaks up with her as a result (they
had been secretly dating). After getting an abortion and telling him that it
was a fluke and she was never pregnant in the first place, she refuses to get
back together with him, which he had wanted. While I can’t tell exactly what is
going through the head of Charlie’s sister, she seems to have developed
throughout the book. Charlie tells us that she had been reading self-esteem
books, which may have worked considering that she must have realized that she
did not deserve the “love” she had been accepting from her boyfriend, finally
ending things.
