A False Opportunity In Flowers For Algernon By Daniel Keyes

Charlie was lucky because Algernon got the surgery a long time before so they could tell Charlie if something was going to happen to him. "He was unusually disturbed and vicious."(216). In this sentence, it shows how they found out that Algernon was acting weird, so they researched on him and they found out what was happening. This way they could tell Charlie what will happen to him and if they had any way they could stop it from happening. "Algernon died two days ago. Dissection shows my predictions were right. His brain had decreased in weight and there was a cerebral convolutions as well as the deepening and broadening of brain fissures."(219). This sentence is describing what happened to Algernon and how he died. This shows that this will soon happen to Charlie. And just like Algernon, Charlie will die. This is why Charlie shouldn't have taken the surgery to become

Once Charlie is at the peak of his intelligence, he starts regressing. He then writes a report to try and figure out what went wrong with the operation, so maybe he can fix it and stay a genius, or maybe if he can’t help himself, at least know what went wrong so he can prevent future operations from failing, too. He writes the Algernon-Gordon Effect, which states that human-made intelligence deteriorates at a rate of time directly proportional to the quantity of the increase. On page 333, he says, “These and my people. Let me use my gift to do something for them.” Charlie mentions that he is the only person who had both been smart and dumb in the world. Therefore, he is more knowledgeable than everyone who is working in this field. He will now be able to work out problems with the procedures so they can use it for many people, and make other people in Charlie’s predicament smarter. Other people may say, “Charlie just became stupid again, so what’s the point in the procedure? They just gave him what he wanted his whole life, only to have it forcefully taken away from him, and he could do nothing.” This is a valid point, but I believe that Charlie gets what he wants, so who cares if he becomes stupid again. All of his life, he wants to become smart, and he gets this chance through

After the surgery, Charlie’s mind thought completely different than what it had before the A.I. surgery, obviously,

As a consequence, having the operation created the chance for unpredictable and unwanted outcomes. Charlie was the first human patient for the experiment. Since the doctors have never tried the operation on a human being before, the chances for making mistakes are higher. This was proven as Algernon soon experiences side effects as his intelligence regresses and he eventually passes away. Soon, Charlie also regresses back to his original intelligence state. In conclusion, having the operation created unpredictable and unwanted outcomes. I inferred that Charlie wouldn’t die like Algernon did because the last line in the book in which he asks that someone puts flowers on Algernon's grave shows that he hasn't lost 100% of his memory of what happened. The fact that he remembers Algernon and his meticulous ritual of placing flowers on his grave shows that with repetition and reminders, he does have the capacity to recall details about the time he spent with intelligence. It's there somewhere in his subconscious, just like his childhood memories were before. While Charlie maintains most of his intelligence, 16 days after Algernon bit Charlie, Algernon died. And even after 13 days realizing his intelligence is regressing, he isn't showing signs of sickness, just showing that he is absentminded. Having all these different factors influenced all these different outcomes. In

Strauss said that Dr. Nemur was more interested in the Chair of Psychology at Princeton than he was in the experiment. Dr. Nemur said that Dr. Strauss was nothing but an opportunist who was trying to ride to glory on his coattails” (295). This argument between the two doctors proves that Dr. Nemur especially was only invested in the surgery for his own personal gain-- and not for the benefit of Charlie. Because he was so eager to get his results out to the world and so paranoid that someone may discover a way to complete the surgery before him, he decided to rush into the surgery and didn’t take the guidance given to him by Dr. Strauss who said that they should wait. Instead, he goes ahead with the surgery and ruins Charlie’s life. REASONING? Additionally, we witness Algernon’s strange behavior which is concluded as a side-effect of the surgery. “May 23 It happened today. Algernon bit me. I visited the lab to see him as I do occasionally, and when I took him out of his cage, he snapped at my hand. I put him back and watched him for a while. He was unusually disturbed and vicious. May 24 [Algernon] is less co-operative; he refuses to run the maze any more; general motivation has decreased. Everyone is upset about what this may mean. May 25 They 're all pretending that Algernon 's behavior is not necessarily significant for me. But it 's hard to hide the fact that some of the other animals who were used in this experiment are showing strange behavior. I 've got to find the

In the story "Flowers for Algernon," by Daniel Keyes, Charlie Gordon had a brain operation that would boost his IQ by 3x the amount he had already had. Charlie, being a man with an IQ of 68, had a major change in thought. He not only grew intellectually, but he grew emotionally too. That is what I am here to prove to you today. Now there may be some controversy on this topic but, based upon the context we can only assume that over all, the operation was more beneficial to Charlie than it was harmful, this is mainly because it gave Charlie a chance to have a taste of intelligence, which is what he had always wanted, and it strengthened his friendships, that is beneficial because any strong relationship is worth so much more than a simple one.

Charlie was very happy that he was becoming smart, "Anyway, now I know I'm getting smarter every day. I know punctuation and I can spell good. I like to look up all the hard words in the dictionary and I remember them" (Keyes 231). All of his life, he had wanted to be smart, and now he finally is. Not only did the operation make him smarter, it also made him much smarter. This was new for everyone, "You're accomplishing in days and weeks what it takes normal people to do in half a lifetime. That's what makes it so amazing" (Keyes 233). He was doing things that no one else had ever done, which is amazing for him. This made Charlie finally feel like he was a normal person, which he had never felt before. Charlie had everything he had ever want for a short period of time, which the operation gifted to

However, that's still not acceptable for doctors to do, especially with experimenting certain tests and operations on the patient. Also, Doctor Nemur and Strauss did proceed with the operation, but later gave him an unstable limbic system and failure in the nervous system. Which shows that the doctors weren't thinking of any future conflicts that would put Charlie in a harmful state of mind. They also kept Algernon dying confidential to Charlie since they both got the same operation, and the doctors weren't thinking ethically if they couldn't even share it to Charlie (Dobrin). Overall, Doctor Nemur and Strauss did motivate him to start making himself smart again in the end, but they should've thought about future conflicts that the operation would put on Charlie that would effect his mental health.

Charlie Gordon should not have surgery due to the experimental nature of the surgery as its effects have not been fully analyzed. For example, Doctor Strauss and Doctor Nemur told Charlie that there is a possibility that the experiment could fail and that the outcome could be returning to his original mental status. Gordon remains indifferent to the statement and says, “They said you know it will probly tempirery. I said yes. Miss Kinnian told me. I dont care if it herts” (112). Charlie’s positive outlook on life and lack of reasoning leads him to make the decision to have the surgery performed on him. He is desperate to become smart and fit in with the rest of society.Additionally, Algernon’s testing had not been completed when Doctor Nemur and Doctor Strauss started the test on

After Algernon began to behave strangely, Charlie was given a lab of his own from Dr.Nemur and Dr.Strauss to conduct research to see if what happens with Algernon will happen to him. “As I review the records and data on Algernon, I see that although he is still in his physical infancy, he has regressed mentally” (239). Algernon had egressed mentally, which meant that Charlie soon would too. Charlie went through so much to be where he is at this point. Now, it was all for nothing. All the intelligence he gained will soon be gone. He would not even be the same person he was before the operation. This is one of the big reasons why Charlie got

Algernon, the mouse they tried the experiment on right before Charlie, should have been allowed to live longer and develop before testing the project on a human. Algernon began to express odd behavior and lost his intelligence, as well as died, as time went on. Therefore, the operation could have had a dangerous end and even could have resulted in Charlie's death. For a time, Charlie was damaged, psychologically, when he realized his IQ was dropping rapidly and may not stop. On September 1 Charlie wrote, "Soon there will be signs of emotional instability and forgetfulness, the first symptoms of the burnout. Will I recognize these in myself?" Clearly Charlie was beyond nervous about his "burnout" as he called it. He was even scared that he would not recognize obvious things in himself because of his IQ

In the first place, Charlie became so smart, it started to destroy his brain. When Algernon died, Charlie knew that the same thing would happen to him, so he started conducting research. He dedicated all of his time to find out what happened to Algernon and what will happen to himself. In the story, “I’ve got to know if and when it will happen to me.” (Keyes, 78) The text implies that he knows it will happen to him and he is determined to learn more about it. He finds out that the operation is killing him, he is dying. He became so smart that his brain started to malfunction; his brain no longer worked.

Critics argue that Charlie shouldn’t have gotten the A.I surgery because he regressed more than his normal I.Q of 68. Nevertheless, Charlie was very happy to have contributed to science and doesn’t regret a thing about it. In a letter Charlie wrote,”Yet for sake of science I am grateful for the little bit that I here to add to the knowledge of the human mind and of the laws governing the artificial increase of human intelligence” (Keyes 239). In addition to that Charlie now is more knowledgeable of the world around him. “I have reread my progress reports and seen the illiteracy, the childish naivete, the mind of a low intelligence peering from a dark room, through the keyhole, at a dazzling light outside”(Keyes 237). This evidence proves that Charlie’s life became substantially better after the surgery.

“The true method of knowledge is experiment.” — William Blake. Charlie Gordon was an adequate choice for the scientists, Dr. Strous and Dr. Nemur, to choose since Charlie’s gains from the surgery overrides his loses. The surgery was to try and triple Charlie Gordan’s IQ from 68 to 204, which was a success. Charlie indeed gained several things from his surgery including: understanding of true friendship, emotional maturity, and he finally got his dream come true. In Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, the doctors made a great choice for picking Charlie Gordan as their test subject.

Charlie “learn[s] so much and so fast … [that] now [his] mind is deteriorating rapidly” (31) much the same as Algernon. The experiment was first executed on a wise mouse named Algernon, who died after also having its I.Q. increased exponentially. Charlie discovers his own fate after studying Algernon’s brain, it proved that his “predictions were right [and] the same thing is or will soon be happening to [himself] (30) as well. In his last report, Charlie is clearly gone back to how he was prior to the surgery, and he writes his farewell, “[g]oodbye [to] Miss Kinnian and Dr. Strauss and … Dr. Nemur … [and] [p]lease … put some flowrs on Algernons grave” [sic]