How Does Daniel Keyes Use Suffering In Flowers For Algernon

Daniel Keyes, within his novel, Flowers for Algernon, presents the theme of “suffering”. Suffering is a universal dilemma and is a part of the human condition. Suffering can manifest as emotional pain, physical angst, mental distress or disturbances of the psyche.

The first example of how Daniel Keyes shows that suffering is part of the human condition is, “Rose, terrified, runs after her. Matt sits there staring at the newspaper in his lap. Charlie, frightened by the hysteria and the screaming, shrinks into a chair whimpering softly. What has he done wrong? And feeling the wetness in his trousers and the trickling down his leg, he sits there waiting for the slap he knows will come when his mother returns.” (118-119). Charlie is left to bathe

in his own misserey, while his parental figures preoccupy themselves with other things. He is all alone, scared and confused with no guidance to reassure his feeble mind.
After a falling out between the family over an argument about Norma getting a dog, the family divides. Rose follows Norma frantically to her room after she erupts into an angry mess, and Matt chooses to ignore the fact that his son is traumatized. We stay with Charlie watching him try to cope with his own discomfort. He is helpless dealing with all the stress and confusion and cannot make sense out of why he is feeling this way because he has no reassurance. Without a role model, Charlie suffers from his own self guilt. Blaming himself is the obvious answer, and leads to his own traumatization that ligers with him for the rest of his life.
The second example of how Daniel Keyes shows that suffering is part of the human condition is, "I went in and sat down in my old seat in the back of the room and she looked at me funny and said Charlie where have you been. So i said hello Miss Kinnian I'm ready for my lesson today only i lossed the book we was using. She started to cry and run out of the room". (309). This occurs in the midst of Charlie’s regression. Charlie has forgotten that he no longer attends classes at the ‘CCRA’ and mistakenly finds himself in Alice's class. Once Alice notices, she becomes upset and leaves abruptly.
While Charlie is regressing, he forgets his past with Alice and what they shared. He believes that he still goes to classes at the CCRA with Alice, and decides to go back to taking them. Once he arrives, he tells Alice he has lost his book but is ready to learn. Quickly, Alice realizes that Charlie no longer sees her the way he did before. He has lost the part in him that loved her as a partner, and he soley knows her as Miss Kinnian. Alice suffers internally because although Charlie’s passion has faded, she herself still loves him. Leaving the room, she cannot control her emotions and breaks down, leaving Charlie confused as to what he did.
The third example of how Daniel Keyes shows that suffering is part of the human condition is, “No one in this room considered me an individual- a human being.

The constant juxtaposition of ‘Algernon and Charlie’, and ‘Charlie and Algernon’ made it clear that they thought of both of us as a couple of experimental animals who had no existence outside the laboratory”. (160). During Charlie’s presentation at the psychology conference, he realizes that the phrases “Algernon and Charlie” and “Charlie and Algernon” are being used interchangeably. Outraged, he has decided everyone at the conference views him as an experimental animal like

Algernon.
As Charlie listens to professor Nemur’s speech, he slowly begins to notice that everyone in the room are viewing him as a test subject.

Nemur is explaining Charlie in the same manner as Algernon, and he has asked Charlie not to speak during the session. Growing furious, Charlie wants to release Algernon from his cage. He feels inferior and unexplained, and wants to take action for his suffering. Charlie surely feels anger, and he directs it at Nemur because he is the one who deems Charlie his “subject”. Possession and coercion face Charlie, to which make him suffer miserably.

The fourth example of how Daniel Keyes shows that suffering is part of the human condition is, “‘You're fooling yourself, Rose. It's not fair to us or to him pretending he's normal. Driving him as if he were an animal that could learn to do tricks.’” (73). Finally Matt is speaking up for Charlie, showing that he disagrees with Rose’s mentality that Charlie is ruining her life. Trying to convey that Rose is lying to herself, Matt is addressing a much larger problem. They have been ignoring their son's condition their entire

lives.
Matt’s discomfort towards the way his wife treats his son is now peaking. Watching Rose manipulate her son has drove Matt to suffer from his own silence. As he lied to himself, Rose did the same, creating an altered state of mind to distract them from reality. He wants to acknowledge his son's disability and work towards supporting him for who he is. What Matt refuses to do is continue pushing Charlie and treating him as if he is a regular child. Both Matt and Rose suffer from denial, and Matt is ready to take action whether Rose wants to or not.
In Flowers for Algernon, we can analyze that one of the main themes of the novel is suffering. Not only Charlie suffers in this story, but the others around him. The sensitive subjects surrounding Charlie's intellectual deficiency incline many difficult situations within each of the characters.