Progress Report 17: October 3

Summary & Analysis

Charlie begins to document his decline and suicidal thoughts; he is irritable and fights with people over insignificant matters. He fights with his neighbor who complains of Charlie playing loud music late into the night; eventually, Charlie smashes all the records and seems to have a sense of despondency and resignation.

October 4

Summary & Analysis

Charlie abuses and incites Dr Strauss by comparing him and his work to that of a barber—only the doctor shaves off egos and anxieties for his patients. Dr Strauss does not react which infuriates Charlie further until he feels isolated and empty.

Charlie faints often and describes his loss of consciousness as a floating away into space. Regaining consciousness is painful and sends him into bouts of nausea and light-headedness. Charlie compares it to being thrown against a wall—which is similar to Algernon the mouse throwing himself against the walls of his cage.

Charlie leaves Dr Strauss’s office with the desire to never return for any more sessions.

October 5

Summary & Analysis

Charlie returns to the lab for tests and is offended that he is being made to take the rudimentary tests he used to take in the beginning. He is more infuriated when he is slow and then unable to solve simple puzzles. He also has sudden memory loss and although it is all happening in flashes, he is well aware of his steady mental decline.

He bids farewell to Burt and asks him to say goodbye to the rest, vowing to never return to the lab again.

October 7

Summary & Analysis

Professor Nemur visits Charlie who does not answer the door. He wants to be left alone and spends his time reading books. He remembers being pressurized to read as a child and in a fit of fury, tears up his present book—because he is unable to read properly. Charlie begs to god to not take away all his intelligence.

He is alone and his intelligence is steadily failing. One feels sadness for him as an individual who rose from retardation to become uncommonly smart and is again, on the decline.

October 10

Summary & Analysis

Charlie wanders the streets at night and even forgets where he lives. He is conned by a stranger and it is also reminiscent of his younger, mentally disabled self. He knows what is happening to him but is unable to do anything about it. His helplessness is real and he shows tremendous courage in trying to accept his fate.

October 11

Summary & Analysis

Charlie returns to his apartment to find it cleaned and with Alice asleep on his couch. He is upset at her pity for him but she convinces him that she is feeling sorry only for herself; she expresses her desire to be with him as long as he is able to live normally. She agrees that she will try to forget him when he is institutionalized.

Charlie and Alice make love and it is a surreal experience for him—beyond just physical intimacy. He realizes why physical love is important—and he understands that his love with Alice is special. He only wishes it would not end soon.

This marks the relationship between Alice and Charlie coming full circle and is an early alarm for things that are about to go downhill.

October 14

Summary & Analysis

Charlie has become forgetful but Alice is an understanding and patient partner to him. He is grateful for her presence but it makes him wish to fight his condition, which he knows is a futile desire.

October 17

Summary & Analysis

Charlie recognizes rapid amnesia setting into his mind and is weary of becoming his old, silly self again. His writing is slowly diminishing in quality as well.

October 18

Summary & Analysis

Charlie is now unable to understand his own research papers and feels terrible for being angry at Alice even though she is looking after him and his apartment. He makes her cry over a house chore and dearly wishes that he could hold on to his intelligence just enough to love Alice.

October 19

Summary & Analysis

Charlie’s motor abilities begin to get impaired and initially he blames Alice for putting things in his way. He realizes his mistake and is apologetic. He spends all his time watching television and makes a philosophical insight that he is always looking at life through a window.

He is torn between wasting his time with silly entertainment and pursuing his academic interests. Charlie is stunned to find out that he has lost his ability to speak or read in foreign languages which he had picked up over the last few months.

Charlie’s decline is fast and wrought with amnesia, motor disabilities and temper tantrums.

October 21

Summary & Analysis

Alice leaves Charlie after an argument. She calls him out on his filthy ways and self-pity and reminds him that his old self, even when mentally retarded, was likeable and loved making friends. In his new mental degradation, he is a bitter and angry man.

Charlie asks Alice to leave and she tries to dissuade him to no avail. He finds the apartment silent and empty without her.

Charlie is trying to push away everyone who cares about him, as he tries to come to terms with his own degradation.

October 25

Summary & Analysis

Charlie’s motor impairment is so bad that he cannot type anymore. He decides that if he continues to read and learn new things, maybe he can slow down his decline to a standstill, at his present state.

Dr Strauss visits Charlie, in an attempt to be helpful, but is turned away. Fay is afraid of Charlie and avoids him. He is also visited by his landlady—who Charlie is clever enough to know, was sent by Alice or Dr Strauss.

Charlie continues to push everyone away and reads voraciously to keep his mental decline at bay.

November 1

Summary & Analysis

Charlie has difficulty in perceiving the passage of time but is brought hot meals by his landlady, regularly.

Charlie’s written language undergoes a subtle decline too, as he misses punctuation marks and writes more simply that he used to. He does still realize that when he reads novels, he misses the hints and the themes and is only able to understand the story for what the author puts on paper. He cannot read between the lines anymore and this makes him upset.

He also has difficulty in writing his progress reports as he cannot remember most of his learnings and needs a dictionary for even the simplest of words.

Charlie is angry with his mental decline, which is completely understandable and it makes the reader feel a very poignant sadness for Charlie—the helplessness of not being able to act for oneself instills desperation and melancholy.

November 2

Summary & Analysis

Charlie shows voyeuristic tendencies in watching a neighbor bathe. He cannot see her face but looking at her body excites him. This is the strongest metaphor for the return of old Charlie—who would watch from windows and corners.

November 5

Summary & Analysis

Charlie now begins to write like his old self. He is scolded by his landlady for being a loafer and Fay puts a new lock on her door, to avoid meeting Charlie. He still puts flowers on Algernon’s grave and remembers the latter to have been special to him.

Charlie seems to be nearly completely back to his old self.

November 9

Summary & Analysis

Charlie forgets to fix things around the apartment and has terrible headaches. His landlady finally believes that he is sick and he cannot watch his neighbor bathing anymore—she pulls the blinds down.

Charlie does not anymore perceive or understand things he used to and merely lists what he has done in the day.

November 10

Summary & Analysis

The landlady brings a doctor to see Charlie who upsets the latter. The old Charlie is fully back as he blames not having his lucky charms—a rabbit’s foot and a horseshoe on him; he reasons that this is why he is struck by bad luck.

He still vaguely remembers being a genius and his association with Algernon the mouse.

November 11

Summary & Analysis

Charlie is visited by Dr Strauss and Alice, who he does not let in. He flatly refuses their charity and considers going back to work at the bakery but is afraid that he will be laughed at, because he used to be smart once upon a time.

The old Charlie is surprisingly more comfortable at losing his intelligent self than his intelligent self was. There is a clash of personalities but the old Charlie is far more amenable.

November 15

Summary & Analysis

Charlie cannot read his own progress reports anymore. He also cannot read much and confesses to having wet dreams—which he considers a sin, when he looks at photographs of beautiful women. He wants to be smart again and is easily influenced by an advertisement for a powder to make people smarter.

November 16

Summary & Analysis

Charlie is visited by Alice who he lies to that he does not like her or want to be smart anymore; but he confesses that he loves her and still wishes to be smart. He begs to the universe that he should not forget to read and write—his helpless plea is a foreboding to worse things to come but also a poignant reminder of his personality, which despite his limitations, is of a man who is diligent, ambitious and good-hearted.

November 18

Summary & Analysis

Charlie’s life comes full circle as he returns to his old job at the bakery and when he is bullied, his old friends stand up for him. He is still hugely empathetic and very happy to return to his old life.

November 21

Summary & Analysis

Charlie returns to his old school, forgetting that he does not study there anymore. He is back to calling Alice Miss Kinnian and when she gets emotional, he blames himself. Charlie decides to get institutionalized so that he can be with new people, who do not know who he was or pity him.

He cares deeply about Alice and writes to her saying she should be happy for him because he got to be person, know his family and experience life like a normal human being. Unlike his smart self, old Charlie Gordon is at peace with himself and his smarter self and does not hold any grudges.

In his last progress report, Charlie vows to make more friends in his new home, thanks Dr Strauss and Alice for being by his side, advises Professor Nemur to be more friendly and requests that they change the flowers on Algernon’s grave.

This is a poignant end to a novel about a man who was born mentally disabled, became a genius and returned to being mentally disabled. He lived a full life, regardless of his intelligence and proved that intelligence cannot trump empathy and love.