Alienation In Flowers For Algernon

Charlie Gordon has faced isolation his entire life. His family had given up attempting to increase his intelligence. His coworkers laugh at him, but Charlie doesn’t understand that he is

Before Charlie had the operation preformed on him, he had friends at the bakery he worked at. They were not really his friends because

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” One must accept that they might be disappointed, however, one should always hope for the best. In the story, “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes, Charlie Gordon never lost hope. Daniel Keyes was an American writer. He was born on August 9th, 1927. He died on June 15th, 2014. Daniel Keyes also wrote Algernon, Charlie and I: A Writer’s Journey. In this book, Daniel Keyes describes how he wrote “Flowers for Algernon”. The story “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes is an emotional story about a “dumb” 37 year old man named Charlie Gordon. Charlie had a mental health problem that made him less intelligent than other people. His reading speed was slow, his spelling was bad and he did not understand when someone teased him or made fun of him. Dr. Strauss and Dr.

What defines intelligence? Is it how much you know? Or could it be how much you want to learn? These are the questions that Charlie Gordon was probably thinking before his fatal destiny. All he wanted was to know what is was like to be perceptive. He became envious of his peers and the world around him. Charlie thrived to understand the world through the eyes of a genius. However, he truly should've been careful with what he had wished for.

Originally published in 1959 as a science fiction short story for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the novel Flowers for Algernon by an American writer Daniel Keyes is more relevant today than at that time. With more than five million copies in print, this book with its great depth of meaning is still considered to be the most acclaimed author‘s work.

The act of being devoted and being connected to a character in a novel does not occur often. Moreover, this especially does not happen to a character who does not seem to be of kindred spirits to the reader. Alas, the similitude between the reader and the main character, Charlie Gordon, in the Nebula award-winning novel Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes is notable. Keyes’ narrative is a beloved tale of an intellectually disabled man named Charlie Gordon and his pursuit (which soon progresses to possession) of knowledge by means of a brain experiment. The novel Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes brings the reader on a heart-wrenching journey through Charlie Gordon’s life, where he explores the themes of intellectual, social, and emotional

Before the surgery Charlie's “friends” could laugh at him without him even realizing it. “Joe Carp said I should show the girls how I mop out the toilet in the factory and he got me a mop.” (Keyes 290). This quote shows his “friends” being able to make fun of him without him even realizing it. After the surgery he learned his “friends” where not really his friends.

This entire book highlights both the high and low points in Charlie’s life, and how he changed and has not changed all from his constant value of friendship to his many realizations, based on the one experimental surgery that gave him insight on what life would be like if he was “normal”.

Daniel Keyes was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1927. He got his education at Brooklyn College (now CUNY), where he received his B.A. degree in psychology. He also earned a license in teaching English in New York City schools. While he was working as a high school English teacher he wrote the short story, "Flowers for Algernon", which was later expanded into a full-length novel. Keyes died at his home in Boca Raton on June 15, 2014, he dies from a bad case of pneumonia. He was 86 years old when he died.

Now I know what it means “to pull a Charlie Gordon.’’ I’m ashamed.” (Keyes201). He always saw everyone as being his friend and everyone seeing him as an equal. At this moment he saw how people really saw him. For the first time in his life he saw his “friends” for what they really are. Even when Charlie became smart he started to be like everyone else, “I felt sick inside as I looked at his dull, vacuous smile, the wide, bright eyes of a child, uncertain but eager to please. They were laughing at him because he was mentally retarded, and I had been laughing at him too.” (Keyes207). He had been just like that boy once, and now he’s just like everyone who was laughing at him. He realized that he was becoming like the people who once laughed at him. This opened his eyes to how the world will treat people. It was worth the surgery because he got to experience the other side of

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…”

Before the enhancing surgery, Charlie Gordon seemed to have depend and trust others, while those people didn’t have his back. This could be a problem in the future, because people have to learn to be independent so when they lose someone important, they don’t crack under pressure. In the story, Keyes writes, “Sometimes somebody will say hey look at Joe or Frank or George he really pulled a Charlie Gordon. I dont know why they say that but they always laft” (Keyes, 289). Daniel Keyes uses dramatic irony as a way of displaying Charlies perception of his friends. Charlie assumes he has very nice friends, but the audience knows that his

It shows that intelligence doesn’t give you happiness or friends. As Charlie got smarter he became more selfish and more people began to dislike him.

Character development is the core for Daniel Keyes endeavor to convey themes to his audience by developing the character of Charlie Gordon. One way to develop his character is through relationships with other characters, which is critical in conveying the themes in the book. Another way through which Keyes develops Charlie Gordon’s character for his audience is through letting in the audience on the thoughts of the character in the book so they get on a ride with his emotion, conflict, and dilemmas. Flowers for Algernon illustrates how cruel the society treats the mentally disabled with the use of literary elements. Daniel Keyes conveys the message that the grass is not always greener on the other side through character development.

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