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Essay about Flowers for Algernon

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Flowers for Algernon

Flowers for Algernon is about a middle-aged man suffering from mental retardation. The man is Charlie Gordon. The exposition of this novel is rather intricate. Flowers for Algernon takes place in the nineteen-fifties. Charlie is chosen to participate in an experiment that will supposedly raise his IQ. But it turns out that they turn him into a genius, and it is only temporary. Along the way he falls in love with his teacher, Miss Kinnian. But he grows so intelligent that they grew farther apart as Charlie gets smarter. There are also two doctors in the novel, Dr. Strauss and Professor Nemur. There are many complications in this book. One is his mental retardation and his desire to overcome it. …show more content…

The antagonist is Charlie's intelligence. Charlie's intelligence gets in the way of his social life and also pulls him away from Miss. Kinnian, his first love. Charlie's intelligence also turns him on his "creators", Dr. Strauss and professor Nemur. Charlie's teacher from the Adult School, Miss. Kinnian, is a sincere woman who took interest in Charlie for his charm and kind heart. Dr. Strauss and professor Nemur are both psychologists trying to find a cure for mental retardation. They test their method on Charlie. They eventually end up struggling to remain superior to him.
The conflict in Flowers for Algernon is a man vs. himself type. Charlie's conflict is his intelligence. Whether it is when he is retarded or when he is a genius, his intelligence worked against him. Charlie solves his conflict by surrendering to it. But before he does he tries to do some good. He contributes to the experiment and that is when he finds out that he will eventually deteriorate. There was no way that he could stop it, so he gave in. Charlie was content with that, not happy that he had to go back to the way he was, but that he did things he never would have been able to do when he was retarded. The problem was solved in a believable way, and happened as if this story was a non-fiction novel. But ideally, Charlie should not have gone back to being retarded, and rather should have been able to reverse the process. He was a genius after all.
Flowers for Algernon

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