Charlie Gordon Flowers For Algernon Essay

“I think it's a good thing to find out how everybody laughs at me. I thought about it a lot. It's because I'm so dumb and I don't even know when I'm doing something dumb. People think it's funny when a dumb person can't do things the same way they can. Anyway, now I know I'm getting smarter every day. I know punctuation and I can spell it well. I like to look up all the hard words in the dictionary and remember them. I'm reading a lot now, and Miss Kinnian says I read very fast. Sometimes I even understand what I'm reading about, and it stays in my mind” (Keyes 293). Charlie Gordon is a 37-year-old male with an IQ of 68, and the protagonist of “Flowers for Algernon”, written by Daniel Keyes. In “Flowers for Algernon”, Charlie undergoes surgery

To be able to give consent, a person must be competent. A person must be deemed legally competent if there is a question of competency for any reason, including mental delay. If a person is deemed incompetent, then they are unable to give consent themselves. Oftentimes, competency is determined by extensive psychological tests. In Flowers for Algernon, Charlie is only given tests to determine his intelligence, and his ability and willingness to learn. He was not given any tests to determine if he was competent to give consent. In an article on consent and capacity by StatPearls, a leading professional healthcare education and technology company, it is noted that “Competence is determined by a judge”. This legal determination is never determined by medical providers” (Libby et al, 2023). No judges or any type of court of law were ever involved in Flowers for Algernon, as Charlie never mentions one in any progress reports. In addition, any type of legal action often takes quite a while, and there are only two days from the beginning of the story and when Charlie had his surgery. Taking into account the rapid surgery time, and no mention of any court of law, it can be assumed that no legal action was taken to determine Charlie’s competency. Due to this, Charlie was unable to give consent to have the surgery

Charlie did have a mental disability, as his IQ was 68. The Arc of Aurora, which is a non-profit organization which advocates for people with intellectual disabilities, defines a mental disability as follows “Intellectual Disability is a below-average cognitive ability with three characteristics: 1. Intelligence quotient (or I.Q.). is between 70-75 or below.” (The Arc of Aurora, 2024). As Charlie has an IQ of 68, he already falls into the category of having an intellectual disability. The next person to make medical decisions for Charlie would’ve been a family member. As there is only a reference to his family in passing and no mention of a current relationship, one must assume no family was available to give consent. As Charlie did not have a guardian to give consent, it was illegal for the surgery to be performed on Charlie. The University of Oregon, a public University in Oregon with strengths in health sciences, states, “A mentally disabled person may not be the subject of research unless permission is obtained from the person's guardian” (University of Oregon, 2024). Charlie lived alone and did not have a guardian, however, it is possible to have a medical guardian appointed, but there is no evidence that this took place. For a