Enlightenment That Brought Despair

In the short story “Flowers for Algernon”, written by Daniel Keyes, the main character, Charlie Gordon went through an experience that he would never forgot in his life. Mentally disabled, he kept an IQ of 68 at the age of 38, and could not get along with others in society. Because of this, he decided to take an experiment that would increase his brain knowledge and through this experiment, he experienced a world where he could see everything at an IQ higher than 200, with a friend, a mouse named Algernon, who became a subject in the experiment already. The knowledge, however, failed to remain in his brain, like Algernon, decreasing his mental ability to what he originally had. This caused immense pain mentally because he knew that his knowledge he finally earned, would deteriorate. Before the surgery, Charlie always felt glad and happy for what he had, but after the surgery, he became distressed and earned realism.
Charlie was naïve, but satisfied and determined prior to the surgery because of his low IQ. In his introspective journal, he writes that “I had [have] good moter-vation [motivation]. I never knew I had that. I felt proud when [I heard that]… not everybody with an eye-q [IQ] of 68 had that thing” (223). Charlie does not realize that having an IQ of 68 is not something to be proud of. He does not have the ability to understand social cues. Along with this, he possessed bad spelling skills. However, even though he is mentally ill, he “had a lot of fun at the factory today. Then Frank Reilly said what did you do Charlie forget your keys and open the door the hard way. That made me laff. Their really my friends and they like me” (227). Although he can’t understand social cues and is laughed at, he is satisfied with what h...

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...ld be to just disappear through death. Therefore, after the experiment, Charlie gained what he longed for, but lost the happiness he used to have, making him miserable.
In conclusion, Charlie is better off without the surgery to make him intelligent because he gains knowledge about the evils of the world, forcing him to realize his past life as a laughingstock and making him depressed. Although he was unaware of being bullied, he still enjoyed his life and happiness, rather than acumen and realism, is vital in an optimistic life. After the surgery, he is alone and even though he gained what he wanted, he lost what he already possessed, leaving him pessimistic. At the end, he even loses his last love, knowledge, leaving him beat up. All in all, Charlie, who had to deal with psychological traumas in the end, was better off before he gained with all these knowledge.