“No one loses their innocence; it is either taken away or given away willingly.” – Tiffany Madison. In Flowers for Alger non, by Daniel Keynes, Charlie Gordon had his intelligence taken away by scientists, but also given away by himself. The theme goes along with this as it is the question if innocence is better than realization and knowledge. In the beginning, all Charlie wants is to shed his mental disability and become intelligent like the people around him. A surgery is conducted to raise his IQ, and everything goes as planned, until Charlie’s past comes back to haunt him and the people that know Charlie are terrified of his new self. Intelligence seems to not be what Charlie had hoped for after he loses his former friends, job, and life. …show more content…
There is nothing he can do but stand by and watch everything around him crumble. Charlie tries to write this down but even writing is becoming hard for him as shown here, “Deterioration progressing. I've given up using the typewriter. Coordination is too bad,” (301). Charlie is writing in short fragments and it is hard for him to even complete sentences. He has given up on typing because his coordination is terrible. But, there is nothing he can do except for just letting it happen. More of his troubles are explained as Charlie explains, “Motor activity impaired. I keep tripping and dropping things. I thought she was changing things around.” Charlie cannot even remember where things are placed in his apartment and cannot move around without tripping or dropping something. How can a human live a happy life knowing that soon they will deteriorate completely and watch themselves not being about to do all the things they once were able to do. Charlie is not living a good life and is very lonely. He has no choice other than to sit around and do nothing all day but, without the surgery this would not have been the
In the novel 'Of Mice and Men', by John Stienbeck, a mentally challenged man, Lennie, loses his innocence and his dream, of owning his own ranch with rabbits, when he accidentally breaks a woman's neck. In the novel 'Flowers or Algernon', by Daniel Keyes, another mentally challenged man, Charlie, loses his innocence and dreams, of being like everyone else, when, through the aid of an operation, realizes people were making fun of him rather than being his friends. Although, in both cases innocence and dreams were the loss, their innocence was also the underlying cause of the loss. Lennie is a very loveable character, who has hope and dreams. He wants to live on a ranch with George and raise rabbits. He looks at his plans as reachable even when it seems impossible because after he kills Curleys wife, Lennie still thinks he can have a ranch and rabbits, with the assurance of George. Although Lennie never reaches his dream, he dies with the thought of achievement. Charlie on the other hand, has dreams of being smart just like everyone else. He tries very hard in school and when offered the chance of having an operation to make him 'smart', he jumps at the opportunity. Although his teacher influences him, she had little impact. Unlike Lennie, Charlie reaches his dream but ends up broken hearted when his dream doesn't last.
“Ignorance is bliss,” is an old saying used throughout time and can be applied to the tragic yet inspiring (5) story know as Flowers for Algernon. Author Daniel Keyes creates a mentally challenged character, Charlie Gordon, who has went through his life completely unaware of his disability is given an opportunity to change everything. As the story progress Charlie is faced with a constant battle between intellect and emotion or happiness, which leads to some dire situations and choices he may not be ready to make.
In The Catcher in The Rye, by J.D, the main character, Holden, can be seen as a troubled teenager growing up in a less than perfect society. Throughout the novel Holden struggles with the fact that many young and innocent kids will grow up and see the world from a different perspective. He naturally becomes worried for all future generations who will one day grow, as he did, and loose their innocence. The fixation of youth and innocence can be seen in the title of the book, as well as throughout the novel.
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...
In the first place, Charlie’s colleagues are taking advantage of Charlie’s disabilities. They call him names because they are aware the he does not know they are insulting him. In one of the progress reports, Charlie stated, “Everybody laffed and we had a good time and they gave me lots of drinks and Joe said Charlie is a card when hes potted. I dont know what that means but everybody likes me and we have fun” [SIC] (205). Charlie does not know that Joe and Frank are insulting him. If he was intelligent, he would get upset and hurt. After the operation, Charlie started to realize that Joe and Frank were calling him names and made him embarrass himself in front of people. For example, when Joe and Frank made him dance with Ellen, he used trip over someone’s foot. Charlie had mentioned, “It’s a funny thing never knew that Joe and Frank and the others liked to have me around all the time to make fun of me. I’m ashamed,” (209). He was embarrassed and hurt. Before the operation, Joe and Frank used to
The famous quote from Alfred Lord Tennyson, “'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” is particularly relevant to the story “Flowers for Algernon.” Charlie Gordon is a 37 year old man with an I.Q. of 68 his one goal in life was to become smarter so he could be normal. This chance comes to him as he is selected to undergo an operation that should in theory increase his intelligence. This procedure has already been performed on multiplies animals most notably on a mouse named Algernon. After undergoing the operation, Charlie rapidly gains intelligence until he reaches an Iq of about 200 or more. Then tragedy strikes when Algernon starts to mentally regress to his former state after which he dies. From this Charlie learns that soon the same will happen to him all of the things he’s learned will soon disappear soon Charlie finds himself in a downward spiral as he quickly forgets everything he’s learned after the operation. In the end
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
After the surgery, Charlie learned that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, and that many of his old friends wouldn’t see the same person in him. Charlie suddenly had to experience drastic changes in his lifestyle, and the story revolves around these complications. Charlie’s story began with the surgery, the biggest decision he made in his life. Although he was a guinea pig during the procedure, he wasn’t worried at all about the surgery, but rather on becoming smart as fast as he could. Supposedly these doctors were doing Charlie the greatest favor he would ever receive, and he was so eager to learn as much as he could.
If there were one word to tell what the theme of the book was it would be innocence. How we are all innocent at some point, how to try to keep our innocence, and how no one can keep their innocence forever. We all fall from our innocence. Adam and Eve fell from grace and innocence and set the tone for all of our lives. Throughout the whole book Holden is trying to make people keep their innocence and he wants to hold onto it himself. What he needs to learn and does learn through the course of the book is that no one can keep his or her innocence. We all fall at some point, but what we have control over is how hard we fall.
In Daniel Keyes’s Flowers for Algernon, the protagonist, Charlie Gordon, struggles with validation and the acceptance of others regardless of his various intelligence levels. This is one of the few instances in the novel where I can empathize with Charlie considering his situation parallels mine approximately three years ago. When I got accepted to the Collegiate School and started my preparations for the transfer, my friends believed that I viewed myself as superior to them. For fourteen months before that I had been growing and learning through Prep for Prep and the changes in my priorities caused my friends to become envious and nervous around me. Just as Charlie has I occasionally speculate about what would happen if I went back to my
Intelligence is a powerful force. In the novel Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, the main character, Charlie Gordon, goes through different levels of intelligence. Keyes wrote Flowers for Algernon to show that perception of people and events change as one's intelligence changes.
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.
The plot of both the novel and film version of Flowers for Algernon share common similarities. They both feature a retarded middle-aged man, Charlie Gordon, who receives an operation to heighten his intelligence. Charlie’s IQ eventually surpasses human normalcy to reveal that the experiment did prove successful. In both the film and novel, Charlie became even more intelligent than the professors who worked with him. In the film, Dr. Strauss was embarrassed to reveal that Charlie was smarter than him. That played a milestone event in Charlie’s identification of himself. Slowly his intelligence began to decrease and he eventually returned to his original state of mind. Throughout the story, Charlie encountered many different emotions that he had never experienced before because he didn’t have the common knowledge to understand them. The episode when he was at the nightclub with his co-workers gave him the opportunity to experience betrayal and anger. “I never knew before that Joe and Frank and the others liked to have me around just to make fun of me” (Keyes 30). The plot for both versions also carefully depicted Charlie’s psychological traumas that he suffered after his operation. These outbursts were often caused by romantic anxiety and the painful memories he would recall. Whenever Charlie got intimate with Alice he would tend to get extremely nervous or have a hallucination, causing him to ruin the moment. “I dropped a fork, and when I tried to retrieve it, I knocked over a glass of water and spilled it on her dress” (56). One of Charlie’s most painful memories was the one about the locket incident. Both versions did a great job of emphasizing this particular moment. “His clothes are torn, his nose is bleeding and one of his teeth is broken” (38). These flashbacks occurred many times in the novel yet the f...
Siegler, M., and W. Winslade. "Ethics in Medicine." Clinical Ethics. By A. R. Jonsen. 7th ed. N.p.:
The loss of innocence is an occurrence that happens in every life, and it is so easily taken. A traumatic moment is often the thief of innocence, leaving the victim scarred from the experience. Events like these are often the process of paving the road into adulthood, and aid in the metamorphosis of a child to an adult. In “My Father’s Noose” by Grace Talusan, “Dothead” by Amit Majmudar, and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, each of the characters do not understand the concept of negligent personages. Once the protagonist knows that society is not composed of perfect people, their character and personality changes, as it forces them to take a look at their own morals. This prepares the protagonist for the lives