Within our science fiction unit, two stories in particular have left the biggest impression. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes and Timo Vuorensola’s take on life on the moon and its inhabitants involvement in an implied World War III, Iron Sky, both contain aspects that compel and also propel readers and viewers, but they also include facets that leave the audience guessing and incorporate two specific characters that while on the surface do not have much in common, but their shared ignorance to social queues allows them to be categorized together.
The story of Charlie Gordon’s miraculous transformation from mental retardation to intellectual genius is self narrated in Flowers for Algernon. Keyes’s address characterizes Charlie as a friendly and trusting man, and he assumes that the people in his life are as well intentioned and kind as he is. Unfortunately, his naivety and mental deficiencies prohibit him from identifying his friends, coworkers, and doctors for who they truly are. As his intelligence grows, however, Charlie uncovers the reality of his social life. He discovers that his “friends” at work had often taken advantage of his inferiority and manipulated him into doing things for their own personal entertainment. Similarly, he realizes that those who have been kind to him, the doctors who administered and oversaw his operation, have usually been acting out of selfishness, only furthering Charlie’s advancements in order to gain scientific recognition and wealth. These realizations evolve into constant suspicion, and Charlie is unable to trust, inadvertently distancing himself from everyone, similarly to how his disability had. He was once again out of the loop and failed to fit in. Charlie even forces himself to cut o...
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...on of Adler’s real motives: genocide. She had been deceived by the power of the Reich. Returning to the moon, Renate confronts Adler, how has declared himself the new Führer, after killing the previous, Kortzfleisch. Terminating him with a simple stiletto heel, Renate breaks free of her deception. While international nuclear warfare consumes the Earth, Renate is reunited with Washington (who has reversed the aryan process) and stabbing her devotion to the Reich further, kisses him before a group of astonished Nazi refugees.
While Charlie Gordon and Renate Richter do not have a lot in common, they both held onto false beliefs in the goodness of others and with their naivety, were easily manipulated by those they advocated most for. Their strength to overcome these components unite their stories and make them the most likeable characters of our science fiction unit.
In this novel, Flowers for Algernon, written by Daniel Keyes, a man named Charlie Gordon has an operation done to increase his intelligence. He started as a mentally retarded man and slowly became a genius. He seemed to soak up information like a sponge and he was able to figure out the most complex scientific formulas. The only problem with the operation is that it does not last for ever and in his remaining time he tries to figure out why it is not permanent. He will eventually lose everything he learned and become worse off than when he started, so Charlie was better off before he had the operation.
Charlie is chosen for an operation(after taking many tests) that could increase his intelligence level. Algernon(a white mouse) had the same operation done on him. The first test Algernon has to run through a maze while Charlie does one on paper. After Charlie has his operation he becomes insanely smart and can beat Algernon without even trying. Months after the operation things start to go downhill for Charlie and Algernon. They both experience a decrease in their intelligence level and show aggressive actions. Weeks later Algernon dies because of a brain shrinkage. Charlie is now worried about his fate so he publishes the experiment(The Algernon-Gordon effect) which shows how the operation fails. After the publication, Charlie moves to New Nork and is never seen again. Daniel Keyes uses point of view to reveal Charlie's transformation using his mental ability and emotional
While Daniel Keyes in “Flowers for Algernon” portrayed hope for the mentally impaired man Charlie Gordon, the experiment backfired with devastating consequences. Charlie thought his world would be perfect with no flaw. Intelligence was Charlie’s only hope to blend in with society; however, this operation opened up to a dark time period worse than the beginning. The truth found its way around and gradually revealed everything that was hidden from him. A human, Charlie Gordon was an object in the opportunist eyes, he was the key to their success! Moreover, as a genius, Charlie Gordon understood the failure of the surgery himself.
Everyone knows that every story has two sides, but the tricky part is figuring out which side to believe. In the short story “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keys, Charlie Gordon, a 37-year-old man with a mental handicap, has an operation performed on him to artificially increase his intelligence. Before and after the operation, there were drastic changes in the lives of Charlie and all those around him. While the operation caused many twists and turns for Charlie and his peers, the pros far outweighed the cons.
...beginning, he becomes more complete by every situation he has to deal with and the way he handles it shows him developing into a complete person. With his evolution as a person and his better understanding of the world: Charlie Gordon is a complete person. Daniel Keyes exploits the many flaws in today’s society regarding the mentally challenged. He tells the reader: being smart is not everything and no matter what ones does, some people will never like them. One should always be themselves and do not try to change, we are all special the way we are. No matter how much we try to change ourselves, we will always we who are because that is the way nature intended us to be, changing it is trying to go against a much superior power in which we will fail in the end. Accept who you are and be happy with that you have because changing yourself will not make you happier.
Charlie Gordon is a thirty-two year old man who is diagnosed mentally challenged but, is very eager to be smart. In order for this to happen Charlie will have to have surgery. There will be two doctors assisting Charlie; Dr.Strauss and Dr.Nemur. In the novel the two doctors are to totally different in how they motivated Charlie, treatment for Charlie and their reasoning for helping him.
Firstly, Charlie loses his friends. He literally gets to a point where he is too smart for his own good. The people from his work at Donnegan’s Plastic Box Company agreed to sign a petition to get Charlie to quit. Some of the workers, such as Fanny, were questioning how he suddenly became so smart. She and others felt uncomfortable to have him around. Evidence from the text proves that the people felt unsettled. “...there’s something mighty strange about you, Charlie… Who knows what you done to yourself to get so smart all of a sudden. Like everyone around here’s been saying, Charlie, it’s not right.” (Keyes, 72)
Charlie, a thirty-two year old man with a mental condition was seen as fragile. To further his intelligence level, he attended the Beekman College center for retarded adults. His desired self was to become intelligent. “If the operation works good I’ll show that mouse I can be as smart as he is even smarter” (12). The opposite of the real Charlie possessed the traits of anti-socialism, intelligence, possessing motivation, and being opinionated. “This intelligence has driven a wedge between me and all the people I knew and loved, driven me out of the bakery. Now I’m more alone than ever before” (108). Charlie was not anti-social by choice, he was driven away as his intelligence level rose. Charlie became all he wanted to be and more. He desired to be intelligent that he may attain friends and show his parents and sister that he was not as he was as a child. “If the operashun werks and I get smart mabye Ill be abel to find my mom and dad and sister and show them” (12). Possessing motivation was an observation pointed o...
As a result of the operations, Charlie gains the experience of what it is like to be intelligent. Therefore, he sees the world as it is. “Only a short time ago, I learned that people laughed at me. Now I can see that unknowingly I joined them in laughing at myself. This hurts most of all” (76.) He can now truly understand how the outside world functions and how he is truly treated.
In the book Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, A 32 year old mentally disabled man, Charlie, gets offered to do a study in which he may get smarter. Charlie is excited to do it but permission was needed so they asked his Mother and she agreed. “I had more crazy tests today in case they use me”(Keyes 4). He starts doing progress reports to keep track of any changes that may happen during the project. He works at a bakery with his co workers which he calls them his “friends” and his boss who cares for him. His co workers take advantage of him and make fun of him but Charlie does not know and understand that yet because he’s mentally disabled. “Joe Carp
In Daniel Keyes’s Flowers for Algernon, the protagonist, Charlie Gordon, struggles with validation and the acceptance of others regardless of his various intelligence levels. This is one of the few instances in the novel where I can empathize with Charlie considering his situation parallels mine approximately three years ago. When I got accepted to the Collegiate School and started my preparations for the transfer, my friends believed that I viewed myself as superior to them. For fourteen months before that I had been growing and learning through Prep for Prep and the changes in my priorities caused my friends to become envious and nervous around me. Just as Charlie has I occasionally speculate about what would happen if I went back to my
Even though Daniel Keyes wrote Flowers for Algernon in 1966, its messages about humanity still are true today. One of these themes is people treat people with mental disabilities poorly. The main character Charlie Gordon is a mentally disabled adult with a low IQ. Charlie is constantly being picked on by others, but he doesn’t realize it because he’s too slow to figure it out. Later on in the story, however, Charlie is chosen to get an operation to have his IQ is raised. I think people today are still picking on others who are less smarter than them.
The plot of both the novel and film version of Flowers for Algernon share common similarities. They both feature a retarded middle-aged man, Charlie Gordon, who receives an operation to heighten his intelligence. Charlie’s IQ eventually surpasses human normalcy to reveal that the experiment did prove successful. In both the film and novel, Charlie became even more intelligent than the professors who worked with him. In the film, Dr. Strauss was embarrassed to reveal that Charlie was smarter than him. That played a milestone event in Charlie’s identification of himself. Slowly his intelligence began to decrease and he eventually returned to his original state of mind. Throughout the story, Charlie encountered many different emotions that he had never experienced before because he didn’t have the common knowledge to understand them. The episode when he was at the nightclub with his co-workers gave him the opportunity to experience betrayal and anger. “I never knew before that Joe and Frank and the others liked to have me around just to make fun of me” (Keyes 30). The plot for both versions also carefully depicted Charlie’s psychological traumas that he suffered after his operation. These outbursts were often caused by romantic anxiety and the painful memories he would recall. Whenever Charlie got intimate with Alice he would tend to get extremely nervous or have a hallucination, causing him to ruin the moment. “I dropped a fork, and when I tried to retrieve it, I knocked over a glass of water and spilled it on her dress” (56). One of Charlie’s most painful memories was the one about the locket incident. Both versions did a great job of emphasizing this particular moment. “His clothes are torn, his nose is bleeding and one of his teeth is broken” (38). These flashbacks occurred many times in the novel yet the f...
“Flowers for Algernon” is about a man named Charlie Gordon who is mentally retarded. Charlie signs up for an experiment that is supposed to make him smarter. He wants to be like every one else. To do the experiment he has to keep a journal showing his progress. Charlie starts out spelling almost every word wrong. Charlie’s family and friends have all made fun of him; his parents gave him to his uncle when he was ten.
When was the last time you wanted something so much, you would sacrifice your life to have it; even if just for a moment? Charlie Gordon, a 37 year old man with a learning disability, did just that. In the story "Flowers for Algernon", by Daniel Keyes, Charlie gets a chance to alter his I.Q. substantially through operation. The only drawback to this is, the long-term outcomes of the operation are unknown. The operation does succeed, but later Charlie is sent on a riveting downward spiral into the life he tried to run away from. The operation hurt Charlie in every imaginable way; and did nothing to help him.