“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” - Anonymous. In Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes, Charlie, the protagonist is a thirty-seven-year-old man with a low IQ. In Flowers for Algernon, Charlie goes through a life-changing surgery that will make is IQ go above two-hundred. Before the surgery, Charlie was oblivious and outgoing. He was not aware people were making fun of him, and he was always wanting to make new friends and do absurd things. But after the surgery, Charlie was reserved and aware of what went on around him. He was always inside doing experimentation, and he became aware of the things people were saying about him. Charlie goes through many changes throughout this story. In Flowers for Algernon, Charlie is oblivious before the surgery about what happens around him, and how …show more content…
people view him. In the end, Charlie is knowledgeable after the surgery, knowing what happens around him and how people treat him and his peers. For instance, “Sometimes, somebody will say hey look at Joe or Frank or George he really pulled a Charlie Gordon,” (236). Gullible and confused, Charlie did not know they were making fun of him. Charlie’s “friends” were trying to be funny because it’s easier to make fun of someone that is intellectually challenged than someone who isn’t mentally challenged. I put “friends” in quotation marks because if they were really his friends, they wouldn’t have been so cruel. However, after the surgery, Charlie knew what was going on around him and said, “I jumped and and shouted ‘Shut up! Leave him alone! It’s not his fault he can’t understand! He can’t help what he is! But for God’s sake… he’s still a human being,’” (243). Aware and resilient, Charlie was upset that people were making fun of the mentally challenged boy. Charlie knew what it was like to be made fun of and have no one stick up for him. The workers were taunting the boy because of his disability. Charlie was mocking the boy in the beginning but soon realized what he was doing was wrong. In Flowers for Algernon, Charlie was oblivious before the surgery but was aware after. In Flowers for Algernon, Charlie was outgoing before the surgery but was reserved after the surgery.
“We had a lot of fun for awhile. Joe said I should dance with Ellen and she would teach me the the steps. I couldn’t understand why no one was dancing with Ellen and me,” (232). Goofy and outgoing, Charlie danced the night away with Ellen. This shows Charlie was willing to do exotic things at parties. People were making fun of Charlie but he didn’t know they were making fun of him so he kept dancing, which made him more outgoing. Charlie went to a lot of parties and hung out with his friends before the surgery. Charlie was reserved after the surgery, not wanting to go out. For example, “Dr. Strauss thinks I’m working too hard. Dr. Nemur says I’m trying to cram a lifetime of research and thought into a few weeks,” (243). Hard working and reserved, Charlie was trying to do a lot of research of when he will die, due to the operation shortening his life. This shows Charlie is reversed because he isn’t going to parties anymore, and all he does is study and work. In Flowers For Algernon, Charlie is outgoing before the surgery, but is reserved after the
surgery. In the short story Flowers for Algernon, Charlie, a thirty-seven-year-old man, had to endure having a low and high IQ. I think this surgery was beneficial because it made Charlie feel ‘normal,’ even if it just was for a few weeks. Charlie got to experience what it was like living in both worlds, which no one else will ever be able to experience. This short story is a reminder that you don’t have to be perfect, you just have to try your best. In this short story, Charlie was ignorant and an extrovert, but after the surgery, Charlie was uncommunicative and an introvert.
On that day he picked up Algernon like normal but got bit. Charlie watched afterward for some time and saw that he was disturbed and vicious. Burt tells me that Algernon is changing. He is less cooperative, he refuses to run the maze any more, and he hasn't been eating. Burt and others have to feed Algernon because he refuses to do the shifting lock. This a indication that the procedure isn't permanent and Charlie may start to lose intelligence. On May 25 Dr.Nemur and I told Charlie not to come to the lab anymore. Then on May 29 we gave him permission to start a lab and he worked all day and all night on the reason he is losing intelligence. On june 5th he is forgetting stuff which leads up to him becoming absent minded on June 10th. The other indications the procedure wasn’t permanent was once they dissected Algernon who died on June 8th Charlie predictions were correct. Charlie also can’t read or remember books he already read. Soon Charlie can’t remember where he put stuff, forgets punctuation, and spelling reverts back to before. These indications are clear that the procedure wasn’t
Before Charlie had the operation preformed on him, he had friends at the bakery he worked at. They were not really his friends because they always made jokes about Charlie, but he was not smart enough to realize it. As he gets smarter he loses his friends because they think he is just trying to act smart.
Was Charlie better off without the operation? Through Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes sends an crucial message to society that man should never tamper with human intelligence or else the outcome can be personally devastating. After Charlie's operation, he felt isolated and lonesome, change in personality made him edgy around people or (lack social skills), and suffered from traumas due to past memories.
Although Charlie was a thirty seven year-old man, his understanding and comprehension of a situation was far too low to understand such consequences that the surgery could come with. In the article, "Five Steps to Better Ethical Decision Making", it says to ask yourself if you could understand making that choice (Dobrin). The doctors in "Flowers for Algernon" did not ask themselves if they were lacking as much intelligence as Charlie, could they make the choice to have the surgery? Charlie didn't know what could happen to him if the there were side effects until it was too late. Therefore, the doctors did not act ethically when choosing Charlie as the test
After the operation, as Charlie's intelligence grows he grows cold, arrogant and disagreeable. For a period of time, he would sit alone in his lab and wouldn't communicate with anyone. The pharse''June 15 Dr. Strauss came to see me again. I wouldn't open the door and I told him to go away. I want to be left to myself''(Keyes).
Examples from the story are in abundance. On the other hand, I`ll just list one for each stage. The examples from the story are :( in chronological order)when people taunted Charlie, when his personality separated him from most boys in his town, when jobs would be even harder to find because of his sexual orientation, when he was shoved and called a “fag.”, when he was eventually murdered “unintentionally.”
He was much happier before the operation. The situations were the same before. But, after the operation, he had started noticing the obstacles. Joe and Frank used to tease Charlie before, but now he was ashamed and realized that they had befriended him to make fun of him. He now started noticing the wicked incidents in his surrounding and started to compare them to his life. He became lonely after he got fired from his job. His life had become a track lane with obstacles all along the way after he became intelligent. Intelligence does not always lead to happiness. The story “Flowers for Algernon” proves that ignorance is
Ever since I became literate, literacy relied on as an important life skill to the point where I would challenge other kids to see who appeared smarter. But I've grown up to learn that obsessing over intelligence has not and will not make me any smarter. This relates similarly to one scholar, Cathleen Schine, who claims she is an illiterate to the world due to her poor choices of obsessing how smart she is, but she learned to control and outgrow the phase while she had the chance to in her article “I was A Teenage Illiterate”. Cathleen would carry intelligent and authentic books, but she only understood 10% of a classic novel and ended up developing into the 90% as she grew up (“I was a Teenage Illiterate”). This goes with the fact that as
Charlie’s story began with the surgery, the biggest decision he made in his life. Although he was a guinea pig in the procedure, he wasn’t worried at all about the surgery, but rather on becoming smart as fast as he could. Supposedly these doctors were doing Charlie the greatest favor he would ever receive, and he was so eager to learn as much as he could. Soon however, Charlie would encounter challenges he never faced with the intelligence of a 6 year old. Before his surgery, Charlie had great friends in Miss Kinnian and the bakery workers. After the surgery the relationships between Charlie and everyone he knew would take a drastic turn.
...est high school students in America” (Gladwell 82). It was shocking to learn that all the Nobel Prize in Medicine winners did not all come from the most prestigious schools. Also, in the third chapter I notices some aspects that were highly relatable to me. My life relates to subjects included in chapter three because I am a student. It is interesting and helpful to learn that one does not need the highest IQ to succeed in today’s world. This is how I relate to chapter three. The third chapter in Outlier by Malcolm Gladwell had striking information that stated that IQs do not always determine who will be successful, and I can relate to the information in the chapter because I am student who has thought about my IQ before.
Everyone would love to be intelligent and get good grades and a good job, maybe even invent something new and get money from it. If you had a chance to raise your IQ score by three times what it is now, would you do the operation? Would you take the risk of dying, having mental disabilities, not knowing the consequences? Most people would love to get smarter, but they do not want to get harmed during the operation.
The plot of both the novel and film version of Flowers for Algernon share common similarities. They both feature a retarded middle-aged man, Charlie Gordon, who receives an operation to heighten his intelligence. Charlie’s IQ eventually surpasses human normalcy to reveal that the experiment did prove successful. In both the film and novel, Charlie became even more intelligent than the professors who worked with him. In the film, Dr. Strauss was embarrassed to reveal that Charlie was smarter than him. That played a milestone event in Charlie’s identification of himself. Slowly his intelligence began to decrease and he eventually returned to his original state of mind. Throughout the story, Charlie encountered many different emotions that he had never experienced before because he didn’t have the common knowledge to understand them. The episode when he was at the nightclub with his co-workers gave him the opportunity to experience betrayal and anger. “I never knew before that Joe and Frank and the others liked to have me around just to make fun of me” (Keyes 30). The plot for both versions also carefully depicted Charlie’s psychological traumas that he suffered after his operation. These outbursts were often caused by romantic anxiety and the painful memories he would recall. Whenever Charlie got intimate with Alice he would tend to get extremely nervous or have a hallucination, causing him to ruin the moment. “I dropped a fork, and when I tried to retrieve it, I knocked over a glass of water and spilled it on her dress” (56). One of Charlie’s most painful memories was the one about the locket incident. Both versions did a great job of emphasizing this particular moment. “His clothes are torn, his nose is bleeding and one of his teeth is broken” (38). These flashbacks occurred many times in the novel yet the f...
Firstly, Charlie grows emotionally and physically as a human being: growing and becoming more complete with every experience. Starting off, Charlie grows physically as he develops into a more of a complete man. Joe and Frank invite Charlie to a party, during the party he is forced to dance with a girl named Ellen. After waking up the next morning, Charlie says, “I dreamed about the girl Ellen dancing and rubbing up against me and when I woke up the sheets were wet and messy” (Keyes 43). Charlie has his first wet dream, he is slowly going through puberty after the operation and becoming a more complete man. Adding on, Charlie is always happy and thinks all is good in the world, before the operation everything seems fine to him. He is like a child: naive. After the operation, Charlie has therapy sessions with the doctor, where they do tests to measure growth. During one of these therapy sessions, Charlie says, “I had reached a new level and anger and suspicion were my reactions to the world around me” (Keyes 57-58). Charlie grows emotionally, he adds another aspect to his cha...
One way that people demonstrate their intellectual abilities is through the Logical/Mathematical intelligence. For example in “Flowers for Algernon” Charlie understood and was fascinated by the Calculus of Intelligence. This evidence demonstrates that Charlie understands what the “Calculus of Intelligence” means. He did research on it and was fascinated by it.Another example from Flowers for Algernon, Charlie realizes that the experiment he took part in was a failure. This evidence shows that Charlie understood and found out that the experiment was a failure. Mostly based off of the way Algernon died. First he was going back to being aggressive, and didn’t and couldn’t find his way through the maze to eat, then his brain
The story Flowers for Algernon depicts the meaning of intelligence in a very deep sense. The narrow definition intelligence is the capacity to learn, to understand, or to deal with new or trying situations. It is a concrete definition in such a way that it also means the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one’s environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria as tests. Yet the story goes beyond this concrete explanation of what intelligence really is. It shows a whole new perspective of the meaning intelligence. The novel gives a theory of the more intelligent you become the more problems you will obtain. As a result your intellectual growth is going to outstrip your emotional growth. This theory is shown in the novel with Charlie having two growths, intellectual and emotional. These two growths interact by reason of once there is a high intellectual growth that is rapidly out growing, the emotional growth will stay the same or increase at a much lower speed.