If you were mentally challenged, would you want to become intelligent and feel emotions? The book Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes is about Charlie Gordon, a man 32 years of age, with an intellectual disability. He gets an opportunity to improve his intelligence through an experimental operation. Through this opportunity he is then able to express emotions, grows mentally, fosters relationships and becomes intellectually smarter. Charlie works at a bakery in New York City and some of his co-workers make fun of him because of his retardation but intellectually he doesn’t understand, he thinks they are good friends. Charlie then takes part in all kinds of tests, one involved a maze and a mouse named Algernon. Algernon had the surgery that Charlie is going to have. Charlie has the surgery, and slowly his reading, spelling and memories improve with help from his teacher, Alice. Over time …show more content…
Rose, Charlie’s mother isn’t quite right and has a flashback and attacks Charlie with a knife. He leaves crying but feels he now has some closure to this part of his life. After eventually falling back into retardation, he forgets about Alice and the feelings of love, his mind regresses and his intellect and memories aren’t there anymore. He goes back to work at the bakery. They accept him back as the old Charlie. People that came to know the new, smarter Charlie are sad for what he has lost, and probably what they have lost too. But Charlie doesn’t remember and doesn’t really have any feeling about it and decides to live in a group home for disabled adults. So again I will ask, if you were mentally challenged, would you want to become smart, feel emotions and have relationships only to have it all taken away again? I think it is Tennyson who said “Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at
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.
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.
After weeks of testing Charlie is selected and has the procedure performed. There are no noticeable changes immediately, however after some time Charlie begins to have flashbacks and mixed emotions of his childhood for example, Charlie’s first flashback begins with him standing in front of the bakery as a child and it goes blurry and cuts out. (2) As Charlies intellect increases so does his perception of the world around him and the way people act toward him. Charlie finally begins to realize guilt and shame along with all other natural human
Charlie is chosen for an operation(after taking many tests) that could increase his intelligence level. Algernon(a white mouse) had the same operation done on him. The first test Algernon has to run through a maze while Charlie does one on paper. After Charlie has his operation he becomes insanely smart and can beat Algernon without even trying. Months after the operation things start to go downhill for Charlie and Algernon. They both experience a decrease in their intelligence level and show aggressive actions. Weeks later Algernon dies because of a brain shrinkage. Charlie is now worried about his fate so he publishes the experiment(The Algernon-Gordon effect) which shows how the operation fails. After the publication, Charlie moves to New Nork and is never seen again. Daniel Keyes uses point of view to reveal Charlie's transformation using his mental ability and emotional
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
A growing problem of Charlie’s is his extremely mixed emotions toward the opposite sex. He starts a serious relationship with Alice Kinnian, his former teacher. Charlie begins to learn of how society treats the mentally retarded. He realizes his old friends at the bakery just make fun of him. After watching the audience laugh at video of him before the operation, Charlie runs away from a mental health conference with Algernon after learning that his operation went wrong. Charlie does research on himself and learns that intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown.
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 first try this experiment on a mouse to see if it might work. The mouse did improve on how fast he learned and was made smarter every time the scientists taught the mouse something new. Since the experiment was a success they decided to begin to test Charlie to see if he was the right type of person . They begin with tests such as inkblot, raw shok test, and they had him race the mouse named Algernon, by seeing who was able to complete the same maze first. 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 willing to care or learn. On the contrary of things, Charlie also experiences and learns a lot from this experiment. He experiences love, freedom, being able to read and write, and the ability to be able to remember what has happened to him all of these years.
From being laughed at to being treated like he was a baby. All of this happened to him just because he was mentally challenged. The worst part is that Charlie didn’t know that he was laughed at and nobody told or tried to help him. This went on until Charlie got the operation and got smart. However things became worse after the operation. A while after the operation Charlie understood that he was laughed at the hard way. After this he became lonely and depressed. People didn’t like changes. When he got smart people thought that he was playing got and made a petition for him to get fired. Later on when Charlie went to a bar, the dishwasher dropped the plates down and broke them and everyone started laughing at the dishwasher. When Charlie saw what was happening he yelled and said that it isn’t his fault that he is mentally disabled and that it isn’t funny to laugh at someone who is mentally handicapped. After this event Charlie got a paranoia of people laughing at him and treating him like a child. This shows us how cruel mankind can be to his own
Charlie Gordon is the protagonist and the author of the progress reports in the story “Flowers for Algernon”. He is 37 years old and a mentally retarded man. Charlie work as a janitor at Donner’s Bakery. He faced an experimental surgery to increase his intelligence so his IQ can be the level of A erudition. Since Charlie is a bit special, he had a teacher named Alice Kinnian. She was cool. A professor named Nemur was in charge of the whole experiment for Charlie, so he can be intelligent. But Sometimes Nemur treats Charlie like he’s unreservedly nothing. He is kind of tormented by his wife. Dr. Struass is the one who who does the experimental operation that raises Charlie’s Intelligence. Dr. Struass is the opposite if Nemur, He cares about
Charlie loses Algernon which was a friend after the operation because he became too smart and they did not like the changes. In the text it says, “I put Algernon’s body in a cheese box and buried him in the backyard. I cried.” (Keyes,240). Since Algernon was one thing that Charlie really cared for it upset him to see Algernon die. It was scary for Charlie because it adds on top of his depression that he is worried what will next happen to him. Anyone could tell that Charlie was really upset because Algernon died suffering and that was one of Charlie's only friends. This proves that Charlie loses a close friend, and is only one of the many horrific costs of the
Growing up, Charlie faced two difficult loses that changed his life by getting him admitted in the hospital. As a young boy, he lost his aunt in a car accident, and in middle school, he lost his best friend who shot himself. That Fall, Charlie walks through the doors his first day of highschool, and he sees how all the people he used to talk to and hang out with treat him like he’s not there. While in English class, Mr. Anderson, Charlie’s English teacher, notices that Charlie knew the correct answer, but he did not want to speak up and let his voice be heard. As his first day went on, Charlie met two people that would change named Sam and Patrick who took Charlie in and helped him find himself. When his friends were leaving for college, they took one last ride together in the tunnel and played their favorite song. The movie ends with Charlie reading aloud his final letter to his friend, “This one moment when you know you’re not a sad story, you are alive. And you stand up and see the lights on buildings and everything that makes you wonder, when you were listening to that song” (Chbosky). Ever since the first day, Charlie realized that his old friends and classmates conformed into the average high schooler and paid no attention to him. Sam and Patrick along with Mr. Anderson, changed his views on life and helped him come out of his shell. Charlie found a
For Charlie, Ignorance is bliss. He realizes that his so called ?friends? were just using him to entertain their perverse humor. Also, he was also fired from the job that he loved so much because his new intelligence made those around him feel inferior and scared. This sends Charlie into a short depression. His life was better before the experiment because he had a job he looked forward to and ?friends?.
Charlie soon becomes aware that his smartness may not stay forever, that he might lose his genius. He starts to research the experiment himself. He studies a little mouse named Algernon who they did the experiment on first. Charlie starts to become attached to the little white mouse. Together they are the smartest of their species. When Charlie and Algernon have to go Chicago for an interview, Charlie gets so frustrated at how all the scientists are talking as if before the operation Charlie wasn’t a real person. In his frustration he accidentally on purpose let Algernon go.