Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes is not your average book. It is written in a progress report format, and from the point of view of a mentally challenged man named Charlie Gordon. During the book, you follow Charlie's life before, during, and after he has an operation to make him smarter. It contains a lot of themes, but the theme that stuck out the most was both harm and good can come from technology. One reason as to why this is the theme that sticks out the most is because the operation harmed Charlie’s social life. He had a lot of people to call friends, like Joe Carp, Frank Reilly, and Gimpy, but after he had the operation, he realized that they weren’t really his friends. “April 22- People at the bakery are changing. I can feel the hostility.” Charlie had become smarter than the people who worked at the bakery, and they started to push him away, and Charlie started to feel upset and hurt by their actions. He thought that he had lost all of his friends were lost, and that upset him. This is one of the many reasons why technology was a bad thing for Charlie. …show more content…
His mother had taught him to not look at girls, and after the operation when he started to develop more feelings, he had a hard time talking to Alice Kinnian because he had the thought that he liked her, and that he shouldn’t. Due to the hard nature of his mother, Charlie’s emotional life was not maturing with his new-found intelligence. Emotionally, he was still a little kid. “I knew she would give herself to me, and I wanted her, but what about Charlie?” Whenever he would get near Alice, he would start to panic because he felt that there was still a part of his old self within him, keeping him from taking his relationship further with
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.
He became irritable and edgy around people at the university. He grew into a short-tempered person and would yell at them. Most people stayed away from him because he was becoming a madman and they were afraid of what he was capable of. Because of this, Charlie became lonely. In essence, Charlie struggled with basic social skills, which means he did not know how to deal with his peers and decisions. Therefore, after the operation, Charlie may have become a very intelligent human being but he had to pay the price for it. He went through psychological traumas, which lead to his worst fear of
Through the memories the Charlie Gordon has had since his surgery, he has revealed many new and exciting feelings in himself that he has never felt before. When he got upset at one of the doctors during his second inkblot test, he described his anger as exciting. Another emotion that we also noticed in Charlie is love and compassion. On page 82, he goes on a date with his teacher, Alice and he soon realizes that he has feelings for her but can’t seem to build up the courage to kiss her. When he finds out that Alice doesn’t have the same compassion for him, he starts to hate her. Since feelings are all very new to Charlie, he does not know how to react to them. One of the important memories that Charlie had was when he was listening to his parents argue. Charlie was sitting on the floor playing with one of his toys while his parents were fighting about Charlie’s
Imagine the possibility of a surgery that could dramatically increase your intelligence. Imagine what a change of life that could mean if you were a mentally handicapped person. This is exactly what happens in the story, Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes. Charlie Gordon, is a mentally handicapped man living alone in New York City. He who undergoes an operation that increases his intelligence he realizes how poorly he was treated by people including his family and friends. Although most mistreated Charlie there was one who was kind and caring towards Charlie and that was Alice Kinnian. The story follows the rise and gradual fall of his intelligence and with that the awareness of how poorly treated he has been treated
Flowers for Algernon is about a man named Charlie who is mentally slow and not smart. Charlie had an operation to make him smart. What the doctors did was unethical.
The surgery made Charlie see the things his friends did to him. Before Charlie had the surgery people at work picked on him and he didn't understand what was happening “Sometimes somebody will say hey look Joe or Frank or George , he really pulled a Charlie Gordon. I don't know why they say that but i always laff.” (Keyes 227) if Charlie wouldn’t have had the surgery he would have been made fun of and picked an and even hurt by his so called “friends”.
This part of the story is really ironic because Charlie talks about how he wants to get the operation, primarily because he wants to be more social and have friends. Later on in the story, when Charlie only gains intellectual intelligence, he finds out that he still cannot get any friends. Charlie realizes that just because his IQ is high, doesn’t mean that everyone will like him. Another crucial literary element that Daniel Keyes uses is dramatic irony. In progress report 9 Charlie wrote down, “They were all around in a circle watching and laughing at the way we were doing the steps.
Initially, Charlie was not aware of what was going on around him. He thought that everyone liked him and was his friend. He also was not very intelligent, which is why he was oblivious to what was happening around him. After Charlie had the surgery he was able to now notice that the people he worked with at the factory were not actually his friends. He found out April 20, “I never knew that Joe and Frank and the others liked to have me around all the time to make fun of me” (33-34). Now that he got the procedure he can now tell that his so-called friends, just liked him because they could make fun of him. Another example of him noticing things for the first time is when the doctors were arguing Charlie felt that he know saw them for the first time. He realizes about their personal life, how one has a wife that wants him to be successful and the other wants some of the glory to. Once again, due to his intelligence, he notices more about the people he interacts with almost every day. He noticed things that he has never realized, let alone thought about.
“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things”, -Henry Miller. When one reads this quote, it may have a different meaning to them than to others. To Charlie Gordon, it practically defines his life journey. In the shorty story “Flowers for Algernon”, Charlie Gordon is a main who obtains an IQ of 68, and desires to be smart. Charlie finally gets his dream one day by partaking in an intelligence enhancing operation. His perspective of life is much different before and after the surgery. Although Charlie seems happy before the surgery, Charlie is able to apprehend reality through a “pair of new eyes”, regarding the operation. Three arguments why Charlie’s emotions are happier following the surgery are: He learns about lies he had in life, Charlie had a positive learning experience, and Charlie discerns his full potential.
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
As a result, Charlie grows cold and arrogant, destroying his previously happy relationships with everybody except Algernon and Alice Kinnigan, two relationships that were insufficient in keeping Charlie
Flowers for Algernon is a story with hope, humor, defeat, sadness, and disappointment. Charlie is your average joe with a mental disability. He writes through a series of journal entries about his journey of coming out of the darkness of ignorance and into the bright light of intelligence. At the beginning of his trek, he was working hard to become smarter on his own but was chosen for a experimental surgery that makes people smarter. He underwent the operation and gradually his intelligence surpassed his teachers. Unfortunately the effects were not permanent and Charlie digressed into the person that he once was, knowing he was going to die like his mouse friend Algernon. He moved to New York and It is assumed that
There were many differences and similarities between the short story, “Flowers for Algernon” and the movie, “Charlie”. A huge similarity was that in both Charlie had an operation done on him that would make him smart. He also lost his intelligence in both. One of the first major differences was that in the short story Charlie worked in a plastic box factory and in the movie he worked in some type of bread factory. This changed the way his ‘friends’ would prank him and how he would show his intelligence at work.
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
Following a series of journal like entries, Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes, is about a fictional character named Charlie Gordon. Born developmentally disabled, Charlie Gordon was recruited to undergo a neurosurgery that increases his mental capabilities. In a successful turn of events, Charlie was the first human subject to gain artificial intelligence. As he gradually expanded his knowledge, changes in his writing, his beliefs and perspective became prominent as he achieves “genius status.” The humbling nature of Charlie Gordon transformed into a socially deprived, arrogant man. Due to the lack of social intelligence, Charlie was self-centered, his difficulty to establish human relationships only lead to violence and pain. Finally,