Book Report On Flowers For Algernon

The Man Who Lived In Both Worlds
How do you think a friend should treat you? I think friends should treat you with respect and the utmost care. That’s why I’ll be telling you about Flowers for Algernon. Flowers for Algernon is a short story written by Daniel Keyes. The story is about a man named Charlie Gordon who has cognitive delay. He wants to be smart so he can have friends, so when an operation is offered he jumps eagerly at it. He is tested with the ink blot test and mazes against a mouse named Algernon who had a similar operation performed on him. The operation takes a while to work, but his intelligence skyrockets. Algernon dies around this time after becoming aggressive and losing intelligence. Charlie’s intelligence decreases at the same rate it increased and he is left slightly smarter than before the operation. He leaves his town and isn’t heard from again.

Charlie Gordon’s “friends” don’t treat him like a friend should treat someone.

They make fun of him but Charlie doesn’t realize that until his operation works. I can relate to having fake friends and not being able to see that they aren’t real. In sixth grade there was a group of 12 “friends” that I invited to my birthday yet not one of them show up. They didn’t talk to me much after that. I realized that they weren’t my friends when they didn’t show just how Charlie realized his “friends” weren’t his friends when he got smart. "I never knew before that Joe and Frank and the others liked to have me around just to make fun of me. As Daniel Keyes states in Flowers for Algernon,
“Now I know what it means when they say "to pull a Charlie Gordon." I'm

ashamed.”(9).

Charlie found it harder to focus on his experiments when his emotions spiked. I can relate to not being able to focus on the task at hand when emotions are spiked. For example, my emotions were just spiked recently and it has made it hard to focus on writing this essay. Due to Halloween coming soon, I have gotten extremely paranoid and happy. When Charlie learns that his operation was only temporary, he got extremely angry, sad, and depressed. This didn’t affect him until after he was over with his work, but it still came and destroyed his feeling center(brain).
“I must not become emotional...I put Algernon’s body in a cheese box and buried him in the backyard. I cried...I got so angry I threw the book across the room.” (Keyes,17-18). This quote shows how emotions can distract you from the task at hand.
I believe that the theme of the story encommpasses friendship and the beauty of ignorance. Charlie’s so called friends accept after he returns to his old self. This shows that you don’t need to be the same and you must accept each other to have friendship. The beauty of ignorance is that not knowing about a certain topic can improve your mental state. Charlie was a happy person who was honest, trustworthy, and caring. After the operation he realizes certain things that take these concepts away. I think Charlie learned that friendship is not about being smart and that friends come with trust and understanding.