Banning Charlie Gordon's Flowers For Algernon

Censoring books have with it some form of controversy as English professionals and common peoples’ views clash. Many people will not know the story of Charlie Gordon, the protagonist of the novel Flowers for Algernon, the once mentally challenged individual turned genius. His story as well as others have been challenged and/or banned in some point in time. Most banned books are from the education system, but Charlie’s story is not one that should be banned from education.

Daniel Keyes was born in 1927, Brooklyn, New York. He had dreamed of being of writer ever since he was young, but had to cast his dream aside because his parents wanted him to become a doctor. One day, while waiting for a train to his pre-med class, Keyes had an idea that

He regularly attends night classes for Retarded Adults at Beekman College and Ms. Alice Kinnian, his teacher, recommends Charlie to undergo an experiment that will raise his IQ to that of a genius. Dr. Strauss and Professor Nemur are in charge of such experiment and they have successfully raised the intelligence of a white mouse named Algernon. With a willingness to learn, Charlie accepts to participate. After the operation, Charlie goes back to work and realizes that his “friends” pick and tease him. Then they ban together to get Charlie fired because they do not like his newfound intelligence. Charlie then spends most of his time reading at the university and begins to regain memories of his forgotten childhood. It does not take long for Charlie to surpass both Nemur and Strauss and discovers a fatal flaw in the experiment. Nemur’s remarks about how he viewed Charlie as a lab rat made Charlie mad, and so he takes Algernon and escapes from the lab. Charlie notices Algernon’s intelligence beginning to fade and speculates the same will happen to him, and so he begins to solve the flaw. During this, he befriends a woman named Fray and recalls more memories of his youth. Charlie’s mother was in denial about his retardation and would always try to come up with ideas that would make Charlie normal. This excessive desire faded