Shouldn’t all people have the same rights and choices in life? Charlie was put under a huge decision, whether or not he wanted to have surgery to be smart. Charlie is mentally disabled and has lots of problems. In the book Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, Charlie is put through a series of test and exams to decide if he was the right candidate to go under a procedure to triple his intelligence. When Charlie is chosen he is given the ultimate choice to decide if he really wants to go on with the surgery. I think Charlie made the right decision in becoming smarter and undergoing the surgery. Ever since Charlie was told he could become smarter he wanted it. Charlie tried as hard as he could to be smart without the help of the surgery. He would go into each exam and try to understand what each meant and did. When he raced Algernon for the first time he thought it would be easy as he realized that is was actually hard for him. Charlie kept losing to the mouse, but he kept trying to understand why. Until his mind came to a simple solution saying that the mouse was just very smart. With the rorschach test his brain couldn’t understand what he was supposed to do. He came to another …show more content…
He was always nice to the scientist and his “friends” at the factory. What he got in return was disturbing. He was made fun of for his disability. He was made fun of for the way he talk and how oblivious he was to most situations. He couldn’t comprehend people being mean to him he thought they were laughing with him but in reality he was just a joke. Charlie didn’t deserved to be laughed at and made fun of and to understand what was really going on he needed to become smarter. If he didn’t he would’ve gone the rest of his life thinking everyone was his friend no matter how poorly he was treated because he would always think of it as a joke. Without being smart he would be forced to live his life in a narrow point of
If Charlie didn’t have the operation he would not be able to realize that Joe and Frank were making fun of him. Joe and Frank would just keep making fun of him and he would not be able to stick up for himself. Once in the story Charlie said,“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. Now I know what it means when they say "to pull a Charlie Gordon.” I'm ashamed” (page 524). Somebody who has been made fun of before should know that anybody would want to stick up for themselves. This shows that it was a blessing for Charlie to have this operation because now he can stick up for
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.
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
He was able to see the world through the new eyes that he had gained from the operation learning new things about the world and being able to talk and interact with the people around him as a normal person. For a moment in time Charlie was normal ,and even after he had lost everything Charlie still learns in the end that even though he may have lost everything he was still happy to be able to finally fulfill his dream of being normal. In conclusion I still think Charlie should have undergone the operation for these reasons ,because in the end if he hadn’t he would have experience these many great things and finally fulfilled his lifelong dream of becoming smart and
On page 31, Charlie writes, “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.” He was able to see that they were actually being mean to him. This is a good thing because people won’t get to make fun of him anymore.
Dr. Nemur, Dr. Strauss, and Miss Kinnian were severe opportunists. They realized that Charlie did not have any friends or close family, which made him the perfect candidate for their experiment. If an unfortunate event occurred, no one would miss Charlie; furthermore, they used this to their advantage. In addition, if Charlie’s operation succeeded, mentally impaired people would be fixed. Society rejects the “Charlie Gordons;” though after the surgery, there would not be any more people like him anymore. Society would benefit from Charlie as an experiment. Moreover, no one told Charlie the potential side-effects of the operation. To ensure Charlie’s participation in the surgery, the doctors told Charlie the optimistic results instead of the negatives. By doing this, Charlie enthusiastically agreed to become the experimental applicant. Ultimately, the opportunity that Charlie was presented surpassed everything else in Charlie’s life. With the desire to become intelligent, the doctors said that they would fulfill his fantasy. In reality, they wanted to become nationally known, with Charlie as their ticket to success. The doctors did not care about what happened to Charlie, as long as they became famous. All in all, Charlie Gordon’s ambition and determination to be intelligent unknowingly led him to be a human experiment to fix mentally challenged
Charlie’s intellect increases as the book continues where as his emotional level stays the same creating somewhat of a nightmare for Charlie. However, his intelligence then decreases as the book concludes and his emotional level continues to stay put. This trait gives off a vibe that Charlie is very immature and it shows more and more as the book goes on. Charlie, at the beginning of the book seemed very innocent and unaware of why people laughed at his actions and words, so he laughed along with them. “We had a lot of fun at the bakery today. Joe Carp said hey look where Charlie had his operashun what did they do to you Charlie put some brains in. I was going to tell him about me getting smart but I remember Prof Nemur said no. Then Frank
One reason, I say is the main reason why Charlie should not have had the operation, is it didn’t even work! Charlie did get more intelligent, yes, but how long did it last? One maybe two months? Do you know how much it probably hurt to realize you were becoming “dumber”? Charlie said, “Its a good feeling to know things and be smart.”(Keyes, 85) Charlie said it felt good to be smart,
He was happy to have an operation like Algernon. The operation made him smarter it really did. But, I do not think he should've had the operation.. Charlie was getting so smart after the operation. He was starting to spell correctly and it was coming easy to him he even read the grammer book and understood it.
One main reason that I believe that Charlie was better off before is that he had nothing to lose. Before he had the surgery he was already low in intelligence and he could not understand much. In Progress Report 2 he says, “ Ill get it in a few minits becaus im not so fast sometimes. im a slow reader in Miss Kinnians class for slow adults but im trying very hard.”
To begin with, Charlie wanted to be smart like everyone else around him. According to the test, it says, “ I cant wait to be smart like my best frends Joe Carp and Frank Reily.” ( Page.6) He attended a school for adults with low intelligence in order to progress and become smarter. Charlie took many tests each day to see where he was. He was very convinced that an operation would help him become smarter.
Another way that Charlie having the A.I. surgery was a bad idea is that people started becoming afraid of him. After A.I. was in effect with Charlie, and he started to get smarter people became more and more afraid of him making his life harder to handle, because he felt as if he had nobody that cared about him for example Charlie said “Now I’m more alone than ever before….” that clearly shows that Charlie was better of not having A.I. surgery. Another way charlie was better off not having A.I. surgery was that after A.I. Charlie started pushing people
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.
“How strange it is that people of honest feelings and sensibility who would not take advantage of a man born without arms or legs or eyes- how such people think nothing of abusing a man born with low intelligence. It infuriated me to think that not too long ago, I, like this boy, had foolishly played the clown. But today in looking at that boy, for the first time I saw what I had been.” (Keyes, 237) Before Charlie had gotten his intelligence, he was just like that boy and didn’t realise that people were making fun of him. Now that he’s done the operation, he is aware of how other people treated him and how other people treat others and he knows that not everyone is a good person.
We can all sympathize with Charlie on the surface, we have all made mistakes that we have to live with. Charlie is attempting to move forward with his life and erase the mistakes of his past. The ghosts of his past torment him repeatedly throughout the story, his child's guardians despise him and his old friends do not understand him.