Character Analysis Of Daniel Keyes's Flowers For Algernon?

William Arthur Ward once said, “Change like sunshine, can be a friend or a foe, a blessing or a curse, a dawn or a dusk.” Change can be good and bad but it all depends on the person’s attitude. In Daniel Keyes’s Flowers for Algernon, the 32 year old protagonist lives in New York City. Charlie is a man who is mentally challenged since birth, and he desperately wants to become smart so he can communicate and live a normal life. In the time period of the book, those who have a mental disability are considered less than human. At the beginning of the novel he thinks of everyone as his friend yet they are making fun of him, and he is rejected by the public. Charlie Gordon meets Dr. Strauss and Professor Nemur, who have created an experimental operation that improves human intelligence. When Charlie undergoes experiences and changes, he becomes more sexually oriented, emotionally sensitive and less disrespectful towards everyone.

Charlie began to have more sexual intercourse as he begins to get smarter and understand what was happening in the world. It is evident that Charlie is developing sexual feelings, when his co-workers that he calls “friend” from the bakery takes him to a bar and forces him to dance with a random woman. “Dance with Ellen”(40). He was feeling very happy at the beginning when he first started dancing with a woman and he felt like he was normal just like all the other boys from the bakery. Charlie then had a "wet dream"(48), a little bit later that night that involved Ellen. This clearly shows that his puberty came in a bit later at the age of thirty- two years old unlike most boys who have had it at his teenage years. He is still a boy about a woman. When Charlie meets Fay his neighbour, the painter across the hal...

... middle of paper ...

...t a smile on people’s faces “The problem, dear professor, is that you wanted someone who could be kept in a cage and displayed when necessary to reap the honors you seek. The hitch is that I’m a person”(247). Charlie was not able to realize how much Dr. Nemur and Professor Strauss have done for him, as he becomes a selfish, cynical, and mean person. He no longer has respect for those around him.

it is evident that as Charlie becomes smarter, he becomes more focused on sexuality, he becomes more emotionally unstable, and less polite. There is a different amount of changes that happens in Charlie’s life that completely changes everything. Change can be good or bad and can be seen in both changes in Charlie’s life. Having money or being smart is not true happiness but surrounding one’s self around the right people can be and the was a person lives is also important