Every day, people go through operations and sometimes experience unpredicted and unwanted outcomes. The story, Flowers for Algernon, is exactly like that. In this story, a 37 year old man, named Charlie Gordon, has a mental disability and participates in an operation/experiment to increase his knowledge. After taking part in the operation, Charlie’s intellect gradually escalates to a genius status. Charlie, the man who had an IQ of 68, was slowly maturing mentally and he started seeing the world with a whole new different perspective. However, near the end of the story, his brain regresses back to where he started from. Charlie shouldn't have taken part in the operation: he started seeing the world in a different perspective, he experienced unpredicted outcomes, and the operation changed Charlie's whole personality. Charlie would have been better off if he didn’t undergo the operation and participate in the experiment. To begin with, as Charlie matured mentally, he started seeing the world in a whole new aspect. After the operation, Charlie lost his positive outlook on life. He was oblivious of most negative things in life because as a mentally challenged person, they think laughing is laughing and dispute is dispute but they never know why. He was so oblivious because he couldn’t infer different people’s emotions. Charlie also started to realize that there is a difference between laughing and mocking. Before, Charlie always thought that his “friends” were always laughing with him, now that he understands human nature and sees the cruelty in our world; he understands that his “friends” were actually laughing AT him. After seeing a mentally challenged dishwasher at a local restaurant dropping dishes and making a mess, he saw people... ... middle of paper ... .... As his intelligence advances, Charlie becomes aggressive and hostile after realizing how he was taken for granted. He can no longer tolerate his former coworkers, because he still remembers the humiliation at their hands. His friends at the factory become threatened by his new personality and growing intelligence, and petition to fire him out of the factory. This led to Charlie becoming isolated and lonely. Once Charlie became a genius, he became a little arrogant and even egotistical. This, in turn, makes him lose his friends and all of his happiness in his simple life. Because his progress reports are written in first point of view, you can infer how his personality changed from amiable to hostile. At the end, he hopes someone will continue and fix the error in Dr. Nemur and Strauss's experiment. From this, you can conclude that what he is writing is the truth.
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
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...
He is then judged even harsher which is why you shouldn’t try to be someone that you’re not. You should stay true to yourself. In the story, it says “Their going to use me! I am so exited I can hardly write” (Keyes page 351). This implies that Charlie is anxious to undergo the surgery that will make him smart. Another part says “If you volenteer for this experament you mite get smart”. (Keyes page 351) This shows that the operation will make him more intelligent so he can fit in with everyone else. This proves that Charlie is trying to be someone he is not in order to fit
Charlie’s story began with the surgery, the biggest decision he made in his life. Although he was a guinea pig in the procedure, he wasn’t worried at all about the surgery, but rather on becoming smart as fast as he could. Supposedly these doctors were doing Charlie the greatest favor he would ever receive, and he was so eager to learn as much as he could. Soon however, Charlie would encounter challenges he never faced with the intelligence of a 6 year old. Before his surgery, Charlie had great friends in Miss Kinnian and the bakery workers. After the surgery the relationships between Charlie and everyone he knew would take a drastic turn.
Firstly, Charlie loses his friends. He literally gets to a point where he is too smart for his own good. The people from his work at Donnegan’s Plastic Box Company agreed to sign a petition to get Charlie to quit. Some of the workers, such as Fanny, were questioning how he suddenly became so smart. She and others felt uncomfortable to have him around. Evidence from the text proves that the people felt unsettled. “...there’s something mighty strange about you, Charlie… Who knows what you done to yourself to get so smart all of a sudden. Like everyone around here’s been saying, Charlie, it’s not right.” (Keyes, 72)
They made fun of him for his little amount of intelligence he possessed. After the surgery, he was able to distinguish why his “friends” were laughing at him and what had happened to him. His mind after the surgery made him more aware of his actions and spared him all the embarrassment, shame, and humiliation. He states, “Sometimes somebody will say ‘hey look at Joe or Frank or George he really pulled a Charlie Gordon’. I don’t know why they say that but they always laugh.” “He [Amos Borg] said, ‘Ernie for god sake what are you trying to be a Charlie Gordon?’ (Keyes 289). Before the surgery, when they said Charlie’s name, Charlie was completely oblivious why they were shouting his name. Furthermore, Charlie did not understand why people, like Amos Borg, would say such a thing. However, after the surgery, he came to finally came to realize what that peculiar phrase meant. When Charlie was invited to another party with Joe Carp and his other “friends” at the factory, Charlie knew this time why they were laughing at him. He recalled that moment as he “didn’t know what to do or where to run. Everyone was looking at me [Charlie] and laughing and I [Charlie] felt naked” (Keyes 293). Charlie knew that time why they were laughing at him and knew that his “friends” only invited him to make fun of him. After that incident, Charlie claimed he knew what it meant to “pull a Charlie Gordon”. Undoubtedly, Charlie was more aware of himself and avoided the terrors of public humiliation, shame, and
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?.
It started when Charlie realized how fake his friends really were. Before he had surgery, he thought his friends like him a lot. He didn't feel alone because he thought he would always have his friends to hang out with him and care for him. When he realized they actually hated him, he thought nobody actually cared for him. On page 18 of the PDF, Charlie says, "Dr. Strauss came to see me again. I wouldn't open the door and I told him to go away. I want to be left to myself." He would just stay his room and have thoughts of suicide. Also, Charlie is so much smarter than everyone else that he can't really relate to anyone and it is really hard to make friends for him. Everyone's first impression of him was an adult that couldn't process information and he was known as dumb. Everyone would be super rude to him and Miss Kinnian is really the only one who cared for him a
In conclusion, Charlie is better off without the surgery to make him intelligent because he gains knowledge about the evils of the world, forcing him to realize his past life as a laughingstock and making him depressed. Although he was unaware of being bullied, he still enjoyed his life and happiness, rather than acumen and realism, is vital in an optimistic life. After the surgery, he is alone and even though he gained what he wanted, he lost what he already possessed, leaving him pessimistic. At the end, he even loses his last love, knowledge, leaving him beat up. All in all, Charlie, who had to deal with psychological traumas in the end, was better off before he gained with all these knowledge.
Charlie wanted to be used by the doctors for the operation. The operation superseded his life. When the study was conducted, Charlie was nothing more than a lab mouse; even though he was human. He was treated as if he was an experiment. Society would benefit from the operation; there would be no more “dumb” people in the world. At the hospital, Charlie was nothing more than a human experiment to repair mentally-ill 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.
The story "Flowers for Algernon", by Daniel Keyes, that we read in English was about a mentally retarded person, named Charlie who had an operation to increase his intelligence, but the operation was a failure and Charlie is slow again. He wants to move now so society won’t ridicule him for being slow again. Daniel Keyes wrote this short story for good reasons. Daniel Keyes wrote "Flowers for Angernon" to show people from an outside look on how we treat mentally challenged people. When you treat people as you always do, you don’t see how mean or how cruel it really may be. It could just be your personality or the way you were brought up. By him writing a story on a mentally challenged person wanting to become smart to be accepted by society, and be able to be seen as a "normal" person, at any length or means, was to show us, the society, how we treat mentally challenged people. He could possibly have seen a mentally challenged person being treated poorly, or perhaps was related to one and wanted to tell the society it was not right, but put it in a way by which it touched people in their own way, depending on how they interpret the story. In the story, there was a point where Charlie was at a party and they got him drunk, and made him dance with a girl. Charlie had never been with a girl before and didn’t know what to do. They were tripping him when he was trying to dance with the girl. Later after the operation when he is smart he says "…...
Was Charlie better off without the operation? Through Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes sends an crucial message to society that man should never tamper with human intelligence or else the outcome can be personally devastating. After Charlie's operation, he felt isolated and lonesome, change in personality made him edgy around people or (lack social skills), and suffered from traumas due to past memories.
Charlie struggles with apparent mental illness throughout his letters, but he never explicitly addresses this problem. His friends make him realize that he is different and it is okay to be different from everyone else. This change in perspective gives Charlie new opportunities to experience life from a side he was unfamiliar with. Without these new friends, Charlie would have never dared to try on the things he has. His friends have helped him develop from an antisocial wallflower to an adventurous young man who is both brave and loyal. Transitioning shapes how the individual enters into the workforce, live independently and gain some control over their future
The Flowers By Alice Walker Written in the 1970's The Flowers is set in the deep south of America and is about Myop, a small 10-year old African American girl who explores the grounds in which she lives. Walker explores how Myop reacts in different situations. She writes from a third person perspective of Myop's exploration. In the first two paragraph Walker clearly emphasises Myop's purity and young innocence.