Teenagers often feel depressed and sad because they do not have friends or they can not fit in so they start to establish new personality and a new looks so they can fit in. In Flower for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (1959) a 32 year old retarded man named Charlie Gordon undergoes a surgery to get smarter so that he can fit in his community and have a lot of friends. Unfortunately, the operation has side effects because nothing good lasts forever and a new Charlie gets reborn with a new personality. By looking at Charlie's personality as he gets smarter, he becomes more arrogant, selfish and he starts losing his friends. Initially Charlie is a humble man, but after the operation he becomes arrogant. The operation made Charlie lose most of his good characteristics. After the operation it seems that Charlie has expected that everyone would have the same intelligence as him and that they all would have the capability of having so much information stored in their brains like him. He explains to Dr. Strauss who is Charlie's therapy and "French, German, Spanish…No Russians, Chinese, and Portuguese. He reminded me that he had very little time for languages…Physics nothing beyond the quantum theory of fields…Little in mathematics beyond the elementary level of calculus of variation"(150). Through history people have learned that money and power make people blind, selfish and arrogant, the same happens with Charlie. He begins to show off because he is smarter than everyone else. He wants revenge on the people who were making fun of him when he was retarded. There is a time when Charlie though that Professor Nemur and Dr. Strauss are not treating him as human but as a mouse so he managed to embarrasses them. Now he is making fun of them because... ... middle of paper ... ...tes the opposite of Charlie wanted. Charlie was born to smile which most people cannot do. It is evident that the operation made Charlie loses friends because it was not his true personality. The new Charlie is getting more selfish and selfish as he is getting smarter. Charlie has been a self-centered, He does not care about anyone else. All he wants is not to lose his intelligent and keep reading and writing without any interrupting. "Just leave me alone. I am not myself…and I do not want you here. That made her cry…She packed her bags and left"(301) Charlie shouting at Alice. Charlie cannot control himself anymore. The idea of him losing his intelligence makes his anger uncontrollable. It also makes him blind that he starts shouting at people without no reason and convincing them that he does not need any help in a time that he really needs a big help.
The first reason why I think this is that the operation makes Charlie realize how mean his friends were and loses them, causing him to feel bad. For example, on page 209 it says, “It’s a funny thing I never knew that Joe and Frank and the others liked to have me around all the time to make fun of me,” and later Charlie says, “I’m ashamed,” which shows how realizing the truth about Joe and Frank makes him feel.
Firstly, Charlie grows emotionally and physically as a human being: growing and becoming more complete with every experience. Starting off, Charlie grows physically as he develops into a more of a complete man. Joe and Frank invite Charlie to a party, during the party he is forced to dance with a girl named Ellen. After waking up the next morning, Charlie says, “I dreamed about the girl Ellen dancing and rubbing up against me and when I woke up the sheets were wet and messy” (Keyes 43). Charlie has his first wet dream, he is slowly going through puberty after the operation and becoming a more complete man. Adding on, Charlie is always happy and thinks all is good in the world, before the operation everything seems fine to him. He is like a child: naive. After the operation, Charlie has therapy sessions with the doctor, where they do tests to measure growth. During one of these therapy sessions, Charlie says, “I had reached a new level and anger and suspicion were my reactions to the world around me” (Keyes 57-58). Charlie grows emotionally, he adds another aspect to his cha...
He was able to see the world through the new eyes that he had gained from the operation learning new things about the world and being able to talk and interact with the people around him as a normal person. For a moment in time Charlie was normal ,and even after he had lost everything Charlie still learns in the end that even though he may have lost everything he was still happy to be able to finally fulfill his dream of being normal. In conclusion I still think Charlie should have undergone the operation for these reasons ,because in the end if he hadn’t he would have experience these many great things and finally fulfilled his lifelong dream of becoming smart and
Before the operation, he exhibited some clear strengths such as determination, a positive attitude, friendly with people and some weaknesses such as education and inability to understand the adult world. After the operation, he begun to change in numerous ways. Charlie started out as being not really intelligent. Being around with “smart” people made him want to change and became “intelligent” just like his “friends.” I think its all crazy. If you can get smart when your sleeping why do people go to school. That thing I don't think will work. I use to watch the late show and the late late show on TV all the time and it never made me smart (Keyes 118). This part of the book led Charlie’s flashbacks takes place of how he was raised or nurtured through his childhood, Of how he wanted to try to become smart. However Dr. Strauss believes that his sleep would help Charlie be able to learn. However in his nature, his disability cannot help him at all, doesn’t matter how much he tries to watch TV and tries to go to sleep, I wouldn’t allow him to learn anything at all. The nurture of this is having the doctor recommend Charlie to do this. His disability also not just affects him but his family as well. His disability kind of makes his sister miserable as well, jealous over how the parents focus on Charlie due to his disability, despite the successes the sister achieves in school. Thus Charlie’s nature towards others has a negative effect which is towards his sister. Charlie was raised by his parents but through a condition that would then follow him probably for the rest of his life as well as being mainly raised through this experiment, which possibly wouldn’t help him at all in the near
He is then judged even harsher which is why you shouldn’t try to be someone that you’re not. You should stay true to yourself. In the story, it says “Their going to use me! I am so exited I can hardly write” (Keyes page 351). This implies that Charlie is anxious to undergo the surgery that will make him smart. Another part says “If you volenteer for this experament you mite get smart”. (Keyes page 351) This shows that the operation will make him more intelligent so he can fit in with everyone else. This proves that Charlie is trying to be someone he is not in order to fit
The experiment starts to work and Charlie gets smarter and he starts realizing new things. Before the operation his imagination and his brain weren’t working that well. His imagination started to work for the first time when he got this operation. Now that he was smart, he could quit his old job of working as a janitor at a bakery and start working for the hospital full time.
As a result of the operations, Charlie gains the experience of what it is like to be intelligent. Therefore, he sees the world as it is. “Only a short time ago, I learned that people laughed at me. Now I can see that unknowingly I joined them in laughing at myself. This hurts most of all” (76.) He can now truly understand how the outside world functions and how he is truly treated.
For Charlie, Ignorance is bliss. He realizes that his so called ?friends? were just using him to entertain their perverse humor. Also, he was also fired from the job that he loved so much because his new intelligence made those around him feel inferior and scared. This sends Charlie into a short depression. His life was better before the experiment because he had a job he looked forward to and ?friends?.
He doesn’t lack of encourage anymore, he has overcome his fear and despair. “I have to go. I have to disobey every impulse and leave her for Jasper Jones, for Jack Lionel, for this horrible mess.” We see a different Charlie from his determination. From escape to face up, he shows us more responsible. From helpless to assertive, he comes to realize what he really wants. He knows the dark side of human nature and this unfair and cold world. His innocent, his perfect world has been destroyed by those horrible things; because of these, he knows the part of real world, he knows how the ‘dark’ actually changes this world, his friends, his family, included
Before Charlie had the operation preformed on him, he had friends at the bakery he worked at. They were not really his friends because they always made jokes about Charlie, but he was not smart enough to realize it. As he gets smarter he loses his friends because they think he is just trying to act smart.
What are some things in Charlie’s writing that suggest he has low mental abilities?There are multiple errors in his grammar, spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure.What changes can be seen in Charlie’s attitude after the surgery?Charlie claims he hates racing Algernon and feels it stupid to have to take the same tests over again. He is showing opinion.Based on the events on April 1st, what is an example that shows Charlie still lacks sensitivity?When Joe’s plan backfires and Charlie proves he can work the machine, Charlie can’t notice he has made them appear foolish. How does Charlie’s “friends” react to Charlie’s increasing intelligence?Charlie’s “friends” are completely confounded and startled to see Charlie be able to do things he
Was Charlie better off without the operation? Through Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes sends an crucial message to society that man should never tamper with human intelligence or else the outcome can be personally devastating. After Charlie's operation, he felt isolated and lonesome, change in personality made him edgy around people or (lack social skills), and suffered from traumas due to past memories.
One's greed and their viciousness can demoralize the human and transform them into someone completely different from what they originally were. In Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger, the main character, Balram, starts off as a caring and considerate young boy. After moving to Delhi, Balram's greed for money changes him into a disrespectful and vicious man. In other words, Balram's arrival to Delhi modifies him from an affectionate and respectful character into a vicious individual.
We can all sympathize with Charlie on the surface, we have all made mistakes that we have to live with. Charlie is attempting to move forward with his life and erase the mistakes of his past. The ghosts of his past torment him repeatedly throughout the story, his child's guardians despise him and his old friends do not understand him.
During his decline he doesn't “know what’s worse: to not know what you are and be happy, or to become what you’ve always wanted to be, and feel alone” (279). The farther he goes with his intelligence, the more he realises that “intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love”(249) showing that because he has become smart he has put off his search for love, like the one he had at the beginning for his teacher. Close to the end, Charlie locks himself away in isolation from everyone else so they wouldn’t