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Character analysis essay on flowers for algernon
How charlie gordon got smarter in flowers of algernon
Character analysis essay on flowers for algernon
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If you had the chance to have your IQ tripled, would you take it? In the science fiction story “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes, Charlie Gordon was faced with this same question. Charlie is a 37 year old man with a measly IQ of 68. However, Charlie has a strong passion to learn and really, all he ever wanted were some true friends. So, Charlie decides to take that chance, and you know what? Charlie was eternally grateful after he got the AI surgery. He contributed immensely to science, was able to have feelings such as love, and had the chance to be smart. First of all, when Charlie had the AI surgery, he contributed to science. When Charlie gets smarter, he does an experiment and finds out about the Algernon-Gordon Effect. Even if he doesn’t remember exactly what he did after he regressed, he is still happy he did it. An example of this from the text is, “Anyway, I bet I'm the first dumb person in the world who ever found out something important for science. I remember I did something, but I don't remember what. So I guess I did it for all the dumb people like me.”(Keyes 245). This proves that Charlie was grateful to be able to help science and was happy about it. Even though he might not remember, he helped science a lot and the other people that might have the same surgery he did. …show more content…
After progressing in his learning, he falls in love with his night school teacher, Miss Kinnian. He takes her out to dinner, and then writes in his progress report, “I knew that this was only the beginning. I knew what she meant about levels because I’d seen some of them already. The thought of leaving her behind made me sad. I’m in love with Miss Kinnian.”(Keyes 234). This shows that Charlie actually thinks of Miss Kinnian as the 34 year old woman she is instead of a much older teacher. Charlie was happier because he could fall in
To start, it is a good feeling to feel normal and everyone should feel that way. In the story, Charlie wants to be smarter and Dr. Strauss can do that for him. Charlie wants to be smarter so he can just be normal like other people. The thought of his I.Q. being tripled was amazing to him. At one point in the story Dr. Nemur said,“remember he will be the first human being ever to have his intelligence tripled by surgical means” (page 518). Anyone who has wanted just to be normal would understand what Charlie was feeling. If Charlie didn’t have the operation he would not be able to experience the benefit of being normal.
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
Soon however, Charlie would encounter challenges he never faced with the intelligence of a 6 year old. Before his surgery, Charlie had great friends in Miss Kinnian and the bakery workers. After the surgery, the relationship between Charlie and everyone he knew would take a drastic turn. A growing problem for Charlie’s is his extremely mixed emotions toward the opposite gender. He starts a serious relationship with Alice Kinnian, his former teacher.
Charlie’s intelligence started to fall. Slowly he lost it all, from foreign languages to math equations to reading and writing.
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.
The scientists finally decide Charlie is the perfect subject for the experiment due to his motivation and his eagerness to be smart. As Charlie's IQ begins to grow, so does his ability to understand how cruel the world around him really is. While Charlie's knowledge grows, his attitude changes along with those around him. Charlie loses his job, friends, happiness, and even his willingness to care or learn. On the contrary, Charlie also experiences and learns a lot from this experiment.
...ss cannot be deprived from increased intelligence, particularly without emotional maturity. Throughout the beginning of the Novel all Charlie Gordon wants in life is to become smarter so which will in turn make him happier and help him gain more friends. Not even fame or worldwide recognition could overcome his will to become happier from intelligence. However as the book progressed and Charlie did receive his wish to become smarter he realized, without emotional maturity he was even worse off than before which then may have caused his relapse and loss of memory bringing Charlie back to his previous condition. Expecting to be happy from the respect from other people by being intelligent is neither reasonable nor logical. Happiness needs to be derived from within, and cannot be won from other people, and those who believe it can are not yet emotionally stable.
In the story "Flowers for Algernon", the main character, Charlie Gordon is a mentally retarded 37 year-old man with an IQ of sixty-eight. Although he might not have been smart, I believe that Charlie was the definition of happiness. He worked happily as a janitor, was motivated to learn, and had a great time with his so called ?friends.? After Charlie undergoes an experiment that triples his IQ, his life changes for the worse. With intelligence does not come happiness.
In this novel, Flowers for Algernon, written by Daniel Keyes, a man named Charlie Gordon has an operation done to increase his intelligence. He started as a mentally retarded man and slowly became a genius. He seemed to soak up information like a sponge and he was able to figure out the most complex scientific formulas. The only problem with the operation is that it does not last for ever and in his remaining time he tries to figure out why it is not permanent. He will eventually lose everything he learned and become worse off than when he started, so Charlie was better off before he had the operation.
...stly, Whenever Charlie got intimate with women, he suddenly panics and feels extremely agitated. Alice Kinnian is the first women he ever tried to get intimate with, but failed due to panic attack. But he did recall a unpleasant memory, he mentions in the end of his eleventh progress report, Rose screeches "He's got no business to think that way about girls... I'll teach him so he never forgets. Do you hear? If you ever touch a girl, I'll put you away in a cage, like an animal, for the rest of your life. Do you hear me?" (112). Rose Gordon's words have left him truly horrified. The fear of being put away in a cage still haunts him and it has an huge impact on his sex life. After the operation, the emotional stress and trauma which Charlie goes through when he recalls his childhood memories prove that his childhood have truly been unpleasant for the most part of it.
Although it is helpful in some situations, being smart can be very challenging. In Flowers for Algernon for example, Charlie becomes less content with life as his IQ is increased. He begins to overthink everything, making him slightly paranoid. According to Anna LeMind, “Intelligent, deep thinking individuals often analyze themselves and their own behavior in such a rigorous manner like if they are intentionally seeking out things to blame themselves for.” This is true for many intelligent or even talented individuals such as Meryl Streep, Ellen DeGeneres, Charles Dickens, Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Hawking, and of course, Charlie Gordon. In his case, Charlie’s intelligence comes with some arrogance. This arrogance gives Charlie very high expectations of himself, leading to a bit of anxiety when he can’t live up to those standards. For example, when Charlie catches his coworker Gimpy stealing money from the bakery, he simply cannot decide whether or not to tell his boss. Because Charlie happens to be a poor decision maker, he makes himself miserable trying to fix his problem. This issue could have been avoided altogether if it had happened prior to the surgery, and Charlie couldn’t overthink it. Intelligence can unfortunately come with some self-trust
He proved the operation was a failure Algernon-Gordon effect. The quote is saying (which is next)that Charlie is telling the doctors that their experiment was a failure.The quote is “I recall your once saying to me that an experimental failure or disproving of a theory was important to the advancement of learning as a success would
At the start of the story, Charlie is very hard on himself, he is disappointed anytime he does badly on a test or anything he can fail at. He states in the text" I was very skared even tho I had my rabits foot in my pockit because when I was a kid I always faled tests in school and I spillled ink to"(Keyes). The text shows how that Charlie has little confidence in doing a simple task such as taking a test or solving a maze.