Flowers For Algernon Intellect Quotes

Oscar Wilde famously states in his satirical play, A Woman of No Importance that, “The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all.” He reasons that society’s tendency to glorify the concept of intelligence is inherently flawed—for intellect is only a facet of one’s overall existence. Nowhere more acutely is this theme displayed than in the science fiction novel Flowers for Algernon (1966) by Daniel Keyes. In its entirety, through a series of progress reports, the novel narrates the existence of Charlie Gordon, a 32-year-old man with an IQ of 68 who undergoes an operation to artificially raise his intelligence—and ultimately follows him through the rise, the height of, and eventual

Initially, Charlie’s narration begins with his first “progris riport”, the commencement of a series of journal entries spanning the length an experiment that is intent on increasing his IQ. In one of the initial progress report written prior to the operation—an experiment that has thus far been successful in a mouse named Algernon—Charlie muses the possibility of becoming smarter in which he confesses, “I just want to be smart like other pepul so I can have lots of frends who like me” (Keyes 15). This manner in which Keyes presents Charlie’s initial mindset and his view towards “becoming smart”, is critical—for in this desire to be smart, to possess his preconceived idea of what intelligence brings forth, Charlie’s true yearning is recognized: to belong amongst his

As this mental degeneration occurs, readers are capable of viewing Charlie’s panic, his anger at his regression into a mental state in which he will no longer understand the intellectual facets of life he now values, seen when Charlie proclaims to Alice in the intermediate stages of his deterioration, “You’re making it harder for me. You keep pretending I can do things and understand things that are far beyond me now. You’re pushing me…” (Keyes 276). Yet while this frustration is present, so too is the irony that presents itself in Charlie’s fall, for the anger he has in being spoken to intelligently and subsequently not understanding is a mirror image to the experiences of those he interacted with at his peak—ultimately corroborating the reality that when one realizes and understands intelligence and the influence it holds in society, and knowingly loses it, the cause for loathing, for animosity is great. Nowhere more is this idea of progression and regression emphasized than in “The Allegory of the Cave” in Plato’s Republic in which he states, “Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two