Literary work is a replica of our lives. There are many aspects of our lives that are mostly shown in literary work, one of them is psychology. Literature and psychology studies about human lives. Not only study about the same object, but psychology also can contribute to the literature in four categories, there are: the psychology of the writer, the psychology of the creative process, the study of behavior, and the responses to literature.
This study is analyzing about childhood trauma and the effect of childhood trauma in the novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. This study used a psychological approach focusing on the study of behavior of character in literary work. The purposes of this study are to describe the portrayal of childhood trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder experienced by Charlie, the main character in the novel. This study used a descriptive qualitative method to analyse childhood trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. The data are taken from the novel, such as monologue and dialogue, and supported by secondary data such as journals and articles. The steps were also used to collect the data for this study, including, reading the novel, identifying the data, classifying the data, and reducing the data.
In this study, the novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower showed the causes of childhood trauma in Charlie, there are traumatic grief after losing his best friend and his aunt and also sexual abuse done by his aunt. The writer also found that Charlie has experienced some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in this study namely intrusive, avoidance, and arousal symptoms.
Keywords: Childhood Trauma, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Grief, Sexual Abuse, Psychology.