Human Intelligence In Flowers For Algernon

Charlie Gordon was fighting, working hard, and struggling for being smart. Charlie had a once in a lifetime to increase his I.Q. three times as much. In the story “Flowers for Algernon,” written by Daniel Keyes, the genre is Science Fiction. Charlie has a low I.Q. of sixty eight, and wants to be a genius. Charlie Gordon’s life is better with the A.I. Surgery.

With his decision to undergo the operation, Charlie is able to experience love for another person who also loves and cares for him. Charlie realizes how beautiful his teacher, Miss Kinnian, is for the first time. He notices her eyes, hair and her youthful beauty. He is able to experience her warm kindness, concern and caring for him. She shows him that she is very dedicated to him too! Charlie exclaims, “I amm in love with Miss Kinnian.” Everyone deserves to experience love at least once in their lifetime and Charlie is no exception! His temporary experience with love alone was well worth his decision to have the intelligence surgery. True love is never selfish or evil. Charlie's attachment to the laboratory

“I reread my paper on the ‘Algernon-Gordon Effect’ and I get the strange feeling it was written by someone else. There are parts even I do not understand” (337). Charlie becomes upset, as his own piece of work he was so proud of, cannot even be understood by the man who had made it; that being himself. Charlie knew he could not read it, which made him understand more about the operation and what it had done to him. The loss in his intelligence also removed some important memories. Charlie went for a walk one night to clear his head, bur as he started to walk back, he could not remember where he lived! Because Charlie could not remember, it caused a big jump in his deterioration, from forgetting grammar skills, to forgetting where he lived. Charlie starts to have mood swings when he could not do previous things that made him happy, like read. Charlie’s mood constantly switches between Neutral, to Angry, to Sad, and repeat. Charlie cannot grasp any one of those emotions to even save his own life, since they are running wild. All other factors mentioned indicate that before the operation, Charlie’s life was amazing.

As Charlie's intelligence increases he thinks that he will be more liked the higher his intelligence climbs, but later Charlie discovers that whether you are of lower intelligence then most of the population or of higher intelligence you still will not quite fit in. "I've discovered that no one really cares for Charlie Gordon whether he is a moron or a genius. (Keyes 172) Charlie's relationship with Alice also shows how whether he is of extreme low extreme high intellect he still cannot communicate with her the way he needs to. " I'm just as far away from Alice with an I.Q of 185 then when I had an IQ of 70" (Keyes 88). In today's society if a persons thoughts slightly differ from those of the majority of the population then they will be scrutinized and shunned from the others. People are not willing to look at an idea through a different perspective and this is shown in Flowers For Algernon, when Charlie discovers the fault in Dr. Nemur's experiment and confronts him about it, Dr. Nemur treats him like the old Charlie who is to mentally challenged to be correct. It is repeated numerous times during the novel that Charlie was "created" by the experiment and was not a "human being" because of his below 100 IQ before the operation. "I'm a human being, a person- with parents and memories and a history- and I was before you ever wheeled me into that operating room." (Keyes 112). Society needs to learn that even those who are different then most of us still are humans and

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 operation, in only a couple of months, Charlie starts showing signs of new intelligence. His grammar, improved, and he is able to reflect on what his does in the past something he wasn’t able to do before. He had finally gotten something use had always desired. Then, everything and everyone turned on him. In “PROGRESS REPORT 12” April 30th (pg. 60) Charlie writes: “now, they hate me for my knowledge and understanding. What in the name of god do they want of me? They’ve driven me out of the factory. Now I more alone than ever before…” Charlie got what he always wanted, and now he lost everything he had. It was a sacrifice it sounded like he didn’t want to make. I can tell just be the tone of his writing. This shows that we should embrace everything that we have. Charlie didn’t embrace everything, although he appreciated most of the thing he never became happy not being able to just enjoy life as it is.

People believed that Charlie was artificial, man-made, a lab rat. Professor Nemur thought that he had created Charlie, and that he was nothing before the operation “It might be said that Charlie Gordon did not really exist before this experiment…”. Charlie was a human before and after the operation “I’m a human being, a person with parents and memories and a history and I was before you ever wheeled me into that operating room!”. (p.161) As Charlie began to grow mentally and become intelligent, his understanding of the world became clearer than before. Although he could understand reality, he couldn't understand his feelings. Charlie thought he could understand his feelings but he really didn't, especially love “Something inside is burning me up, and all I know is it makes me think of you.”. Later, as he continues to grow, he decides that he could let his feelings rule him only during his relationship with Alice but not during anything else. He realized that he really loves Alice because his feelings and emotions go wild when he's with her. Also because he sees the old Charlie when he's with her helping him realize he loves her. Charlie loved her enough to let her go because he didn't want her to see him deteriorate. Charlie decided to go to the Warren Home because he

The award-winning short science fiction, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, digs deep in how society reacts to different levels of intelligence. The book covers a wide variety of society from the creative minds to world-renowned scientists. When a retarded adult becomes one of those brain maniacs through a scientific operation, you get the full spectrum of what it is like personally as a handicapped person and through the minds of a genius. In the reports, you can see the progress and comparison of Charlie’s realization towards other people’s capability of intelligence.

In Flowers for Algernon, the main character, Charlie Gordon is a 32 year old who is mentally disabled. He has been living his life thus far with an IQ of sixty-eight. Although Charlie is not smart, he is very happy, but being happy does not always mean being content, and Charlie is a perfect example of this. Charlies teacher, Miss Kinnian, explained to him that there is a chance for him to get smarter, and that is through a secret surgery. He wants to fit in and be smart like everyone else, but the outcome of the surgery may not be as planned. Charlie’s increased intelligence causes him to lose his innocence. When Charlie loses his innocent mindset he gains experience, which also brings him emotional outbursts. The sacrifices Charlie makes

One thing Charlie repeated many times before the surgery was “I want to be smart” (Keyes 225) also that he would do whatever it takes to become smart he would work really hard so he could be smart and fit in. That is why Charlie should have had the A.I. to give him what he really wanted even if it wasn’t permanent. A common argument against this position is that the surgery wasn't permanent and that it is not worth being smart for a few weeks. But i argue that Charlie was very grateful for being smart even for just a little while. While he was smart he was able to make scientific advances that most people could not od in a lifetime And he did it in a few weeks and he was grateful to give back to the people who made him

Charlie had a chance to learn and do things that most people wouldn't have a chance to do in a lifetime, even if it was for a short time. After Charlie's regression he continued to try to become intelligent again, however, Charlie had said himself that he was grateful when he said, "Im glad I got a second chanse to be smart becaus I lerned a lot of things that I never even new were in this world and Im grateful that I saw it all for a little bit (Keyes 245) [Sic]." You have to understand that, with a mindset like this, you know you have done the right thing. Charlie was grateful for his chance to be smart and was thoroughly pleased with his decision. Nothing can be more favorable than the joyous feeling of gratitude. It can be compared to getting the gift you always wanted for Christmas, or when someone gives you a sincere smile that will brighten any bad day. This must have been what Charlie had been feeling in order to be this grateful. Another piece of evidence to prove this point is when Dr Nermur had said that Charlie was, "trying to cram a lifetime of research and thought into a few weeks (Keyes 238)." Both Charlie and Dr. Nemur both know that he was capable of this, and so much more. After the operation Charlie was super intelligent and grew the ability to understand more things socially, which is what he wanted the most, to be able to understand his friends and be smart like them, two of his greatest desires in one stone.

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

Everyone is perfect in their own way, so you should not change yourself just to be like everyone else. In the story “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes, a 37 year old mentally challenged man named Charlie Gordon, had a very low intelligence quotient (IQ) of 68. Charlie had always wanted to be smart like those around him. Fortunately, he was given the opportunity for this. He was chosen to be in an experimental operation that could triple his IQ. This experiment was successful on a mouse named Algernon. After some time from the experimental operation, Charlie is a genius. As Charlie gets smarter than before, he begins changing as a person. Charlie should not have had the operation because it ruined his relationships, it was temporary, and he fell into depression.

His old friends didn’t like how smart he was, and his intelligence caused a social disconnect between him and his old buddies. “This intelligence has driven a wedge between me and all the people I once knew and loved.” Mr. Donnegan, the owner of Donnegan’s Plastic Box Company and Charlie’s old boss, and his old co-workers, sign a petition that states Charlie has to be fired. Everyone signs it but Fanny Girden, but even she doesn’t like the new Charlie; she finds it strange how he got so smart. Charlie, after being fired, realizes that his intelligence caused people to not like him. This made him feel very alone because he now had no friends that were not included at school and in the lab. “Now I’m more alone than ever before…”

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.