The Importance Of Friendship In Daniel Keyes Flowers For Algernon

Since its publication in April of 1959, “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes brings readers visionary storytelling of intellectual and emotional prospects. Namely, how the two correlate to represent the relationships we share in the modern world. For the most part, we bond over similarities that appear meek, like favorite hobbies and music. However, “Flowers for Algernon” suggests that friendships are decided on a deeper level, and that humans base our alliances on the intellectual relativity between two people. Charlie Gordon experiences both situations of acquiring too much intelligence and lacking too much intelligence to form a friendship.
Friendships rely on intelligence because mankind has a tendency to bully or pity the weaker and the misfortunate. In the beginning of the novel,

While not intelligent enough to understand why they’re using his name as the pun, Charlie can emotionally feel the negative sentiment, leading to changes to his friendships with those at the bakery. This major change occurs during a party Charlie attends with his coworkers. Joe Carp is needlessly tormenting Charlie, causing him to fall by “sticking his foot out” and everytime Charlie would try to stand, Joe “would push him down again” (Keyes, 41). They even trick him into eating a fake apple, and the men go back and forth with terrible words about Charlie: “Can you imagine anyone dumb enough to eat wax fruit?” and “I ain’t laughed so hard since we ditched him at Halloran’s” (Keyes, 41). Because of his friendly, vulnerable nature the men abuse him almost daily and it appears to grow worse with time. Charlie’s coworkers have no regard for his well being or any sort of friendship while his intelligence is still extremely below