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Charlie Vs. Gordon Effect In Flowers For Algernon

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Flowers For Algernon
In the story Flowers for Algernon, Charlie, our main character, is presented a choice to triple his IQ for a short time and possibly forever, or to stay the way he is. It wouldn’t be a good story if he turned down the offer so of course he chose to have the operation. Later on in the story he slowly becomes smarter, and then back to his normal self. I believe that Charlie should have had the operation because he helped make a scientific breakthrough, It was a good experience for him, and it made people respect him more. If we look at how he made a scientific breakthrough just think about it. Charlie was the first human to have a successful brain operation that made him learn quicker and overall smarter than he was. Through the course of the book, toward the middle Charlie is at his mental peak, he begins to write a paper titled the Algernon-Gordon effect. As the readers of the book we don’t know what is exactly written in that paper so we will have …show more content…

In the book, the story is composed of “Progress Reports”, as a way of keeping track of Charlie's thoughts and how he progresses after the operation, he probably has some of his progress reports in the paper. He also has some of how the operation works as Charlie states “I have included in my report all my formulae, as well as mathematical analysis in the appendix.” (Daniel Keyes, Page 218) That means in his report he has a formula of some type that connects with the operation in some sort of way. If we take a look at the other side of the coin we find that, later on in the book, Charlie loses his intelligence and goes back to normal which some would say is why he shouldn’t have the operation but think about it, the first model of something new, let's say the

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