"Perks of Being a Wall Flower": Disconnection, Via Vocabulary

In a review of the film adaptation of the Stephen Chbosky's best-selling novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, New York Magazine film critic David Edelstein asks, "Has there ever been a time when you were among friends and felt as if you truly belonged, yet were aware at the same instant that the joy was fleeting and you’d soon be alone—and that the pain of loss would be almost as intense as the bliss?"

He answers the question with "That’s the feeling Stephen Chbosky captures in The Perks of Being a Wallflower," and suggests that the loneliness inherent in the novel's pre-Internet 1990s setting,"when alone meant unconnected, and misfits had no instant access to others of their ilk," is heightened by the film's attention to fading technologies of the time such as 45 RPMs and typewriters. 

In just the way all those early tech sightings create an overall impression of nostalgia and disconnection in the film, so do words like smug, regret, stumble, muffle, and paranoia dropped into the language of the novel. Which we've gathered in three new Perks of Being a Wallflower Vocabulary Lists: 

Perks of Being a Wallflower Vocabulary Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4-Epilogue

Teachers: Find more literature-based Vocabulary Lists, as well as news, historical, and speech-based Vocabulary Lists in our featured lists. And check back often! Our curriculum development team adds new lists every week.