He views himself as being the only dumb person that ever did anything important for science. However, he cannot remember what important thing he did. But the knowledge Charlie Gordon has gained abstains him from remaining unchanged. Charlie Gordon, in Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, has learned that if one opens his heart, he will have more friends. Originally, 32 year old and mentally retarded Charlie Gordon thought that friends and popularity came along with being smart. Therefore, Charlie was very eager to learn from Alice Kinnian, Charlie’s teacher at Beekman College Center for Retarded Adults. This eagerness led Alice to volunteer Charlie for a new, experimental surgery in which intelligence would be boosted. Prior to the surgery, scientists, Nemur and Strauss, performed multiple tests on Charlie. During the first test, Charlie is presented with white cards that have ink spilled on them. He is, then, asked to say what he sees in the spilled ink. Charlie scrutinizes the spilled ink on the white card. Then, dumbfounded, Charlie replies that he sees ink. Nemur and...
I Dr. Strauss, chose Charlie for the surgery, it got me a lot of grief from Dr.Nemur but I knew it was the right choice. Charlie is a man of low intellect but he is very cooperate, motivated, and not hostile. These traits are exceptionally rare in a man of 68 IQ. Another reason that Dr. Nemur and I chose Charlie was that he worked extremely hard in Miss Kinnians class. Working hard got him to be the best because he picked up spelling and writing faster than others in the class. Some other reasons I chose Charlie was because he did all the tests without much complaint. We almost lost Charlie when he tested against Algernon in the maze and didn't write the progress reports for 2 weeks. When the tests were to
Charlie lived in a paradise-like world, he though he had many "friends". The only thing he felt he was missing was brains. When he was offered the chance to become 'smart' he jumped at the chance to be like everyone else. Unprepared for the changes intelligence would bring, Charlie lost his innocence. When he realizes his 'friends' don't actually like him they just liked to make fun of him.
Charlie Gordon is a thirty-two year old man who is diagnosed mentally challenged but, is very eager to be smart. In order for this to happen Charlie will have to have surgery. There will be two doctors assisting Charlie; Dr.Strauss and Dr.Nemur. In the novel the two doctors are to totally different in how they motivated Charlie, treatment for Charlie and their reasoning for helping him.
What makes a book successful? Perhaps it is the characters and their varying personalities that make them memorable and realistic, or maybe it’s the thought-provoking plotline with its many twists and turns. One of the elements to a good book is most definitely the characters, and a good number of main characters gain their characteristics when the author encounters someone similar in their life. This encounter makes the character seem real, someone the reader can relate to. The same inspiration can be said happened for Flowers for Algernon. Specific events in Daniel Keyes’s life led to the formation of many main characters.
Charlie’s story began with the surgery, the biggest decision he made in his life. Although he was a guinea pig in 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. 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 relationships between Charlie and everyone he knew would take a drastic turn.
One important idea the doctors had to consider was whether or not Charlie was a suitable candidate to use for the experiment. Even before the operation was confirmed, the doctors had performed tests on Charlie such as the inkblot tests and the maze races against Algernon. Charlie eventually won the two doctors over by expressing his motivation to learn and become smart. The doctors knew that other patients with Charlie's mentality were uncooperative, which was unlike this candidate they were considering. This decision was especially important for the doctors because if they did not choose a fitting candidate, their experiment may not have been as easy to analyze.
Charlie Gordon is the main character in "Flowers for Algernon." He under goes an operation to enhance his level of intelligence preformed by two doctors, Dr. Nemur and Dr. Strauss. Since Charlie has an IQ that is below average and is the first patient to agree to commit to this surgery, his side affects could include loss of memory, unable to complete certain tasks, poor grammar and spelling, and even fatality. Charlie wants to proceed with the operation since he believes that he should as intelligent as normal human beings and he is sick of others making fun of him because of his disabilities. The experimental surgery that Charlie underwent to triple his intelligence had three major effects on his life.
One may have heard the simple saying that “Love can make you do crazy things.” Many adults can confirm that the saying proves true; one could even spend a few hours watching CSI type of shows that portray the stories of two love-struck people becoming cold-hearted killers just to be with their significant other. Why would they be so desperate to be together that they would kill anyone who got in between them? Desperation so serve that they would even kill a loved one? It could be that as children they were deprived of love and nourishment that children normally receive. This deprivation of love led them to cling to anyone that made them think they were being love. In A Rose for Emily and Tell-Tale Heart a character murders someone who they love. The two works, share similarities and differences when it comes to the characters, the narratives point of view and reason for killing a loved one.
Algernon is a smart mouse, who has undergone the same operation as Charlie. Charlie's victory shows his increase in knowledge. This also shows that his brain is developing. Charlie then gains more knowledge. After writing a few more progress reports, one can see a huge change in Charlie's writing, especially in his grammar.
Charlie?s experiment was temporary, and overtime his IQ regressed. Algernon, a mouse that went through the same surgery as Charlie, died. If Charlie?s hypothesis proves correct, then he will die as well. Charlie?s life was better before the experiment because he was not exposed to the risks and consequences of the surgery. Without the experiment, Charlie would still be living his ignorant but happy life.
In the end, Charlie is returned to his previous mental state proving that scientific experimentation leads to a destructive nature of man. In Flowers for Algernon Daniel Keyes shows the reader a destructive nature of man through stereotypes, absence of family, and the various IQ levels needed to mature. Therefore, science experiments should be left for chemicals and labs not humans and animals.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to pick your baby? What it would be like to choose his or her eye color, hair color, skin tone, bone structure; basically everything about your child. You can't yet, but advances in genetic engineering are allowing us to come close. This raises the question of whether or not we should be allowed to pick these things for our descendants, and how far should we go with changing nature. In the short story, "Flowers for Algernon" themes of human engineering, ethics and whether it is morally correct to play at being God or not, run rampant. In this story, Charlie Gordon is the subject of a human engineering experiment. I believe that this experiment was good for Charlie's mental health for the most part; it was not good for his emotional or physical health. In this essay, I will show you how it helped Charlie experience new things, and how it expanded his understanding, at the cost of his emotional health.
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...
“Flowers for Algernon, first published in 1959, is considered a landmark work on both science fiction and disability literature,” (Werlock 2009). The American Library Association reports that this novel was banned as an obscene for its love scenes. When the main character, Charlie Gordon, increases his IQ from 68 to a level that makes him a genius (after received experimental brain surgery), his maturity leads him to fall in love with his teacher, and a sexual encounter ensues. This caused Flowers for Algernon to be banned and challenged in many places (Plant City, Florida- 1976, Emporium, Pennsylvania- 1977, Oberlin High School (Ohio) - 1983, among others). Most people consider the sexual scenes fairly mild, but there are those who consider any mention of sexual behavior inappropriate for teens or pre-teens, hence the attempts at censorship. Many of the challenges have proved unsuccessful, but the book has occasionally been banned from school libraries including some in Pennsylvania and Texas. Flowers for Algernon has won numerous awards, even for the film, and it is regularly taught in schools around the world; therefore, it should remain on shelves.
Relationships between people are important to maintain. During one’s lifetime, these relationships will change for the better or worse. In the novel, Flowers for Algernon, the author, Daniel Keyes, presents a change in the main character’s relationship with many people. Charlie Gordon, a 32 years old man who is mentally disabled takes the risk of undergoing a surgery that will make him intelligent. As Charlie’s intelligence increases, he finds out a lot about himself and becomes a different person. He learns the meaning of love, and experiences this newfound feeling with Alice Kinnian. Charlie’s teacher at Beekman College for Retarded Adults, Miss Kinnian, is one of the only people who is concerned and genuinely cares about him. When they part