Is Charlie's Operation a Success?
Many medical operations are performed everyday, and sometimes they can change a person’s life forever. They can alter the way a person thinks or their personality traits.
Picture someone who is so determined to become smart, that they risk their own life for it. It could be just for a moment, their whole life, or it could not even work. In the book, Flowers for Algernon, Charlie Gordon did just this. He was a 32-year-old mentally challenged man, who worked at Donner’s Bakery as a janitor. Charlie risked his life in order to have an experimental operation, which could potentially make him smart forever and raise his IQ to above average or to the level of a genius. The operation that Charlie underwent had many consequences, and he had to pay a sad price for trying to get smarter. Charlie’s operation was unsuccessful because he experienced painful flashbacks concerning his childhood, it caused a dramatic change to his personality in comparison to what he was prior to his operation, and he also suffered from loneliness.
Firstly, Charlie’s operation made him have many upsetting nightmares, like remembering painful memories of his childhood. As a child, children took advantage of Charlie, because he was mentally challenged. Even his mother and sister made fun of him, and were ashamed to be related to him. One particularly painful memory happened on Valentine’s Day. All the boys, including Charlie, had feelings for a girl named Harriet. Charlie wanted to give Harriet a card, so he asked one of his schoolmates, Hymie, to write, “Dear Harriet, I think you are the most prettiest girl in the whole world. I like you very much and I love you. I want you to be my valentime. Your friend, Charlie Gordon.” Hymie took advantage of the situation and wrote something dirty to make Harriet think that Charlie was a perverted person. Charlie did not realize what Hymie had done, and he gave the card to Harriet. She got mad at him, and her two older brothers, Gus and Oscar, beat up Charlie and knocked his teeth out. This incident caused Charlie to move to a new school. (Keyes 37-38). Charlie was an innocent boy, and his fellow schoolmates took advantage of him. They caused him to move schools for no fault of his own. Similar to that situation, was a flashback Charlie had of his mother and sister who treated him like trash. Charlie’s mother, ...
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...lity in comparison to what he was before he had the operation, and it also caused him to suffer from loneliness. Due to all of the negative effects of the operation, Charlie’s intelligence deteriorated, and he made the wise decision to stay at the Warren Home School. Charlie would have been better off without the experimental operation to make him smarter, because he would not have lost his friends, he would maintain his friendly personality, and he could continue to live the life he liked to live. The operation messed up Charlie’s life and caused him to lose everything he possessed. He always thought that people who were smart had more friends, but it turned out that after his operation, he lost all his friends and this proved his statement wrong. He describes this well when he says, “When I was retarded I had lots of friends. Now I have no one. ” (Keyes 174). He realized that it is who ‘you are’ that takes to have a lot of friends. It is best not to tamper with God’s creation and let things happen naturally. Whether good or bad happens in your life, you must have faith and trust in the plans that God has in store for everyone, or one day, people could end up like Charlie Gordon.
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.
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.
In conclusion, the science fiction short story by Daniel Keyes “Flowers for Algernon” tells how Charlie needed the operation, and is better off with the operation than without it. Before the surgery, Charlie struggled greatly communicating
“Who else has lived in both worlds?” Before the operation enhanced Charlie’s intelligence, he was living in a world where everything had limits, from the events he could comprehend to the words he could read. However, after the operation, Charlie lived in the real world, where the sky’s the limit and he could truly do anything. “I'm in love with Miss Kinnian.” Charlie never had the mental or emotional capacity to feel and understand love prior to the operation. Once the operation was complete, Charlie was able to discover the sensation of love, and it came in the form of Mrs.
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...
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
Due to experience with technological advancements, we have learned that there can be several drawbacks to something that may seem like a way to make our daily lives easier. This is especially true in the case of Charlie, as the operation did not give him the exact results he was expecting. Although he did get everything he wanted out of the procedure, Charlie's intelligence was not permanent like everyone had hoped. Instead, he lost all the knowledge he had gained which returned him back to square one. However, we know for certain that much thought was put into deciding whether Charlie should undergo the operation and the pros and cons of the procedure.
Charlie Gordon has all his life been mental disabled, but for just as long time wanted to be a geni-ass. One day he is given that opportunity and he agrees to let the doctors operate his brain. Before the operation Charlie is a very friendly man, who only sees the good things in life and trusts everybody. His lack of intelligence makes it impossible for him to see that his best friends are in fact victimizing him. (Report 8, page 117) He can’t imagine things. “I tryed hard but I still…” (Report 2, page 112) Another important quality he hasn’t got, besides intelligence and imagination, is: Feeling. He is only able to be happy, he can not feel anger and love. One of Charlie’s best qualities is his motivation and what seems like his eternal strive for normal intelligence.
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.
It succeeded, but the outcome was not what they were expecting. When Charlie started to die, he also got dumber and dumber. He said he wishes he could have another chance to be smart again, and he “doesn't know why im dumb agen,” (Pg 18). If he have never did this surgery, he would not have to deal with this pain and suffering of missing to be smart again. Even if he was going to be forever smart, he was going to die very soon. Is a few weeks of joy worth dying early and not living a fulfilled life? Due to this operation, he wasn’t able to do many things that he could have accomplished. Charlie also said, “ Please let me not forget how to read and write…” (Pg 17). Charlie would never be this sad if he never learned how to read and write. Charlie was already happy with his jobs, his friends, and life was easier when he was not smart. To conclude, Charlie’s life was clearly better off before the
They made fun of him for his little amount of intelligence he possessed. After the surgery, he was able to distinguish why his “friends” were laughing at him and what had happened to him. His mind after the surgery made him more aware of his actions and spared him all the embarrassment, shame, and humiliation. He states, “Sometimes somebody will say ‘hey look at Joe or Frank or George he really pulled a Charlie Gordon’. I don’t know why they say that but they always laugh.” “He [Amos Borg] said, ‘Ernie for god sake what are you trying to be a Charlie Gordon?’ (Keyes 289). Before the surgery, when they said Charlie’s name, Charlie was completely oblivious why they were shouting his name. Furthermore, Charlie did not understand why people, like Amos Borg, would say such a thing. However, after the surgery, he came to finally came to realize what that peculiar phrase meant. When Charlie was invited to another party with Joe Carp and his other “friends” at the factory, Charlie knew this time why they were laughing at him. He recalled that moment as he “didn’t know what to do or where to run. Everyone was looking at me [Charlie] and laughing and I [Charlie] felt naked” (Keyes 293). Charlie knew that time why they were laughing at him and knew that his “friends” only invited him to make fun of him. After that incident, Charlie claimed he knew what it meant to “pull a Charlie Gordon”. Undoubtedly, Charlie was more aware of himself and avoided the terrors of public humiliation, shame, and
Being mentally impaired, Charlie had to be repaired. Charlie wanted the doctors to use him in their experiment. He wanted to know what it felt like to be smart, and to finally understand the things in life that he had not before. Meanwhile Charlie has received this once in a lifetime opportunity, the operation superseded his life. Charlie was a human being but to the
Charlie was better after the surgery because he saw everyone he knew differently like his friends in the book charlie says “ because you remember their not so smart as you once thot they were.”(21) this clearly states that he doesn't think the same way he did about his friends then before the surgery. But this quote also shows that he now sees them as just normal people, not super smart, and he also realizes that they were making fun of him. And he gets to see who his "friends' actually
In the story “Flowers for Algernon” the main character Charlie Gordon is going through and experiment to enhance his IQ to make him a genius. Making his intelligence made him smarter but it has made him too smart. He has become too smart for the woman he likes Ms.Kinnian. In the story Charlie lost his job and is getting rejected for his sudden intelligence. He says “This intelligence has driven a wedge between me and all the people I once knew and loved.” (Keyes 188-221) He cannot tell anyone about the experiment he went through so everyone thinks that he is a freak. He also now knows how he acted in the past so now he feels ashamed. In the story it says “Now I know what it means when they say “to pull a Charlie Gordon.” I am ashamed.” (Keyes 188-221) He feels bad about how he was before and now he feels worse about himself. So when he becomes mentally challenged again he feels worse about himself then before.
If a man does not know of hurt and suffering, he should not have to know. Before Charlie knew the truth of his life and was able to look back on it, he didn’t know of some horrible feelings. He never had to feel ugly, unwanted, alone, and most of all, ashamed. After finding out how all of the men he thought were his friends only used him for free laughs, Charlie feels so humiliated.