In Daniel Keyes’ novel, Flowers for Algernon, the main character, Charlie Gordon reflects on his desire to be smart. He writes, “now I can see where I got the unusual motivation for becoming smart that so amazed everyone at first. It was something Rose Gordon lived with day and night. Her fear, her guilt, her shame that Charlie was a moron” (144). Charlie’s mother viewed her son as a burden to society, sinister and sexual. Overall, Rose’s verbal and physical abuse towards Charlie had the greatest impact on his relationships with females, including his sister Norma, his teacher Alice, and his neighbor Fay. At first, Rose was ashamed of Charlie’s retardation and refused to accept his disability. She constantly insisted that “he’s not a dummy. He’s normal. He’ll be just like everyone else” (73). Charlie remembers his mother arguing with his father, as well, about his mental state. In one of Charlie’s flashbacks, he is a young boy and asks his mom where they are going. She bluntly tells him “we’re going to the doctor who is going to help you get smart” (135). Charlie’s father disapproves of Rose’s constant reminders to Charlie that he is not intelligent, but she insists “he’s going to be normal, whatever we have to do, …show more content…
She described how he “went all confused and silly. You know, as if a grown man starts acting like a kid. Talking about how you wanted to go to school and learn to read and write so you could be smart like everyone else. Crazy stuff like that” (194). She also tells Charlie “you kept saying you couldn’t play with me because your mother would take away your peanuts and put you in a cage” (195). The old Charlie’s goal to be smart and his fear of being with a woman are apparent through his drunken stupor. Fay, however, laughs off Charlie’s remarks, telling him “you were phenomenal. What an act! The weirdest. You’d be great on the stage”
Rose observes that his teachers are indifferent and are not concerned with him learning the material in any way. He continues by describing his fellow peers. Rose notes several applaudable qualities about his fellow students, despite them always being lumped together as less intelligent. He wonders if their lacking want for learning is what is keeping them from excelling in school. This mindset is the one he keeps with him when his erroneous placement is corrected. Suddenly, he is expected to achieve and go beyond, something that he was completely unfamiliar with due to his time in lower level studies.
Just like any typical four year old, Charlie is a crier. Sarah is often able to stop his tantrums, but only on the surface. Once Little Bee finds her way into the O’Rourke’s story, we find out how much is actually going on in Charlie’s brain. The first example of this is at Andrew’s funeral. In a fit of anger and confusion, Charlie falls into the gra...
He took the initiative to get acquainted with his students the way that his professors got acquainted with him. He would make house visits and spend extra time with the children whom he thought needed more assistance, especially with a child named Harold. Mike Rose read Harold’s academic file two times to investigate how other teachers evaluated Harold and their time spent with him. All of the teachers kept referring to Harold to have slow progression through school and not having much of an attention span. Rose took it upon himself to figure out how to help him and get him to open up and progress through his literary tasks. On page 114 Roses says: “… the conflict between two visions: one of individual possibility and one of environmental limits and determination” Although Rose was not directly talking about Harold in this statement, I believe that this is a great sentence to reflect on. This statement means a tremendous amount throughout this chapter. This sentence, to me, proclaims the vision on what your actual possibilities are, are greatly affected by what others foresee your possibilities can/ should be. For example, in this text we are talking about Harold. Harold isn’t a dumb child, he can read and write, maybe not well, be he is able to perform those tasks. The test show that Harold is not capable to perform the tasks to the grade level approval, so he is dropped
Charlie Gordon is the main character of Flowers for Algernon. Charlie is a mentally retarded, 33 year old adult. He desperately wants to be smart, especially after a very troubled childhood in a family who had a hard time adapting to his illness. Charlie has a great attitude about changing his life, and was willing to do whatever it took to accomplish the task of becoming smart. Charlie partakes in a surgery to boost his intelligence that has only been tested on rats, specifically one named Algernon. After the surgery Charlie learned that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, and that many of his old friends wouldn’t see the same person in him. Charlie suddenly had to experience drastic changes in his lifestyle and the story revolves around these complications.
Charlie’s intelligence started to fall. Slowly he lost it all, from foreign languages to math equations to reading and writing.
Towards the end of the first paragraph we begin to get more of an insight into what Charlie’s father is really like. The first example of this is “I’d like to take you up to my club, but it’s in the Sixties, and if you have to catch an early train I guess we’d better get something around here”.
Charlie is determined to get what he believes is his share of the Babbitt estate, Charlie takes Raymond on a car trip back to Los Angeles to meet with his attorneys. Charlie intends to get Raymond's doctor, Dr. Gerald R. Bruner, to settle for half of Sanford Babbitt's estate so that the mental institution can maintain custody of Raymond. Susanna leaves Charlie, disgusted by his selfishness and his efforts at using his brother to gain the money, During the course of the movie, Charlie learns about Raymond's autism. Raymond has autism spectrum disorder. As a result of it, he had outstanding recall abilities although usually having little understanding of the subjects he recalls.
not know is that his aunt molested him when he was little. Charlie does not realize this till his
Charlie also shows a lot of cleverness.... ... middle of paper ... ... This shows that Charlie realizes that his friends like him for whom he is, not for how smart he is.
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.
“: You hungry, Gabe? I was just fixing to cook Troy his breakfast,” (Wilson, 14). Rose understands her role in society as a woman. Rose also have another special talent as a woman, that many don’t have which is being powerful. Rose understands that some things she can’t change so she just maneuver herself to where she is comfortable so she won’t have to change her lifestyle. Many women today do not know how to be strong sp they just move on or stay in a place where they are stuck and unable to live their own life. “: I done tried to be everything a wife should be. Everything a wife could be. Been married eighteen years and I got to live to see the day you tell me you been seeing another woman and done fathered a child by her,”(Wilson, 33). The author wants us to understand the many things women at the time had to deal with whether it was racial or it was personal issues. Rose portrays the powerful women who won’t just stand for the
...n the woman at the bar in the movie. Norma, Charlie’s sister, was another important character who wasn’t featured in the film. She was part of the reason why Charlie was sent away. As a child she hated Charlie because he would constantly ruin things for her, like the ‘A-Paper’ incident. “Not you. You don’t tell. It’s my mark, and I’m going to tell” (81). She always felt like Charlie was a nuisance as well “He’s like a baby” (81). In the film, Rose wasn’t as senile as the novel portrayed her. She seemed to have Norma’s sense of compassion from the novel which made her character rather puzzling. In conclusion, there was a difference of characters in the film.
He does not want to live anymore like before and is afraid of losing his daughter forever. In response to Honoria's words that she wants to live with him, "His heart began to beat, he dreamed that it would happen the same." Charlie would be very happy to live with his daughter, Honoria. This means that his daughter for him is one of the most important things in his life. He told his sister that he had changed, "I work, the hell, I lead an exemplary lifestyle with everything." He is ready to end his old way of life for his daughter. He does not attend parties as before and does not meet old friends who love to drink. His words once again prove the seriousness of Charlie's intentions to change his life for the
(4) In this section of the story, Rose’s mother de-escalate the actions of Rose instead of losing it with her. With this Rose’s mother took the matter as a everyday thing and helped not make it more troublesome than needed be. This relates back to the main point that not everything needs to be taken seriously and to not over-react on certain
Throughout the novel, Charlie’s mother, Rose is portrayed as two people to him. Before Norma’s birth, Rose’s only wish is to make Charlie normal. She sends him to many doctors and tries to teach him how to act like he should. When Norma is born and Rose is sure that she is normal, she becomes abusive to Charlie and beats him if he does not act normal. Knowing that her son is abnormal, she starts reading books and magazines on the subject. She then believes that being tough on him and punishing him will help him improve and become like the others, and even better. When she gives up on trying to make him normal, she threatens to kill him if he does not get sent away. When gaining intelligence, Charlie is haunted by the memories: “It was Rose’s face that brought back the frightening memories. She was two people to me, and I never had a way of knowing which she would be” (Keyes 167). When he visits her, after being separated from his family for a long time, she is a different person. Charlie talks to Rose and tries to make her understand that he was the subject of an operation that made him intelligent. By saying this, Charlie wants her to be proud of him; however, she does not understand that. When Norma comes home, she is relieved and happy that her brother is back. She spends time talking to Charlie and catching up on the years they’ve