Charlie Gordon In Flowers For Algernon By Daniel Keyes

In the book “Flowers for Algernon” written by Daniel Keyes consisted of a character named Charlie Gordon, a mentally handicapped man. This man underwent many challenges in his adult experiences. At one point, he had an operation performed by neurosurgeons named Dr. Nemur and Dr. Strauss. The end result of the surgery turned out to be temporarily successful, but did not withstand long as Charlie began to mentally regress, similar to how a mouse named Algernon experienced, leading to his rapid regression and ending in an unfortunate death. In turn, the same or quite similar was expected to happen to Charlie as well. Charlie should not have gone through with the surgery, despite his intense excitement about if he would be used for the operation.

As Charlie was a genius, he realized how Frank and Joe actually were mistreating him at his occupation as a factory worker. It turned out these two men were not actually his friends as they repeatedly ridiculed him at the factory daily and even once at a local bar. A petition at work was filed to have him exiled from his career: to add to this petition, all but one co-worker at the factory signed this document to have him fired! Charlie later discovered what the phrase “Pulled a Charlie Gordon” meant. This commonly used phrase among his co-workers and his ‘friends’ was a direct insult to Charlie implying that someone did something embarrassing or negative, which stated that this is the kind of thing Charlie would do. Later in the book and the movie as he was at a bar without being accompanied by Frank and Joe, he was a waiter drop lots of glasses on the ground by mistake. The entire bar was laughing at him, humiliating him, and Charlie related this event to himself and his experiences in the past before he had the opportunity to have an operation done and his mental progression. Charlie began to see the world as it actually was for him and how people treated him and the other ‘Charlie Gordons’ in the

He wanted to end up being used for the operation that could have advanced his intellectual progression through a further, more rapid process; in the end, the doctors did use him to test the operation, which has never been experimented on another human being before. Drs. Nemur and Strauss had the opportunity to change the world for Charlie Gordon; the end result was Charlie’s saddening intellectual regression and possible, potential demise. Charlie was obviously 100 percent human, but equivalent to lesser than human. He was treated as a disruption and obstacle in the way at work and was treated similarly to how lab mice were at the laboratory and the hospital room where the surgery was done. If the surgery had been permanently successful, society would benefit from Charlie’s improved, risen intelligence. Charlie Gordon was one of the millions of mentally impaired people living, and for once, felt success in his life. Both intellectually and socially; unfortunately, as a result, his confidence and intellectual success