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Charlie Gordon In Flowers For Algernon By Daniel Keyes

520 Words3 Pages

If a person had become intelligent for a while, they would feel like a genius, like they could do anything. But, it was never mentioned that your intelligence could all start to go away forever. In the book Flowers for Algernon written by Daniel Keyes is about a man with an intellectual disability named Charlie Gordon. All he’s ever wanted was to be intelligent. One day a guy named Dr. Strauss see’s potential in Charlie to use him for an experimental surgery to make Charlie smart. The operation on Charlie was a success. He was becoming smarter every day, even outsmarting the doctors and everyone around him. But after a couple of weeks, Charlie starts to forget his memories and slowly starts to lose his intelligence. Charlie Gordon 's decision to do the operation had many negative affects on his life.
For example, according to Flowers for Algernon it says “ Mr. Donnegan insisted that it would be better for all concerned if I left. What did I do to make them hate me? The first I knew of it was when Mr. Donnegan showed me the petition. Eight Hundred and forty names, everyone connected with the factory, except Fanny Girden. Scanning the list quickly, I saw at once hers was the only missing …show more content…

Charlie started forgetting everything he learned just after a couple of months. Charlie had so much knowledge and was even smarter than the doctors that worked on him. He worked on a formula trying to make sure that the next time their is a procedure it will work for sure on kids and adults. The doctors couldn’t even do that, or as fast as Charlie can. The doctors hurt Charlie mentally because they never mentioned that his intelligence and memories will start to fade away forever. “I don’t want to do anything like that agen. Everybody feels sorry at the factory and I don’t want that eather so i’m going someplace where nobody knows that Charlie Gordon was once a genus (Keyes

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Charlie was a likable person before the operation, all the doctors came to wish him luck: "lots of people who gave me tests came to bring me candy and wish me luck"(314). This shows Charlie was loved and liked by many people in his life before the operation. After the operation, he was not that liked by the doctors who were angry at his unwillingness and for missing two weeks of journal entry's, "Dr.Strauss is very angry at me for not having written any progress reports in two weeks"(329). He also started to lose respect of the doctors after learning they only knew two languages:"I realized Dr.Nemur is not all genius. . . . Dr.Strauss on the other hand might be called a genius, although I feel that his area of knowledge are to limited"(330-1).

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But when Charlie got the surgery, he realized when his intelligence was wearing off, he got super depressed but he powered through the depression. One quote from the book that indicates depression is “please... please let me not forget how to read and write.” (keyes 25). Even though he is forgetting how to read and write and he is getting depressed, he powers through the depression. On the last page he says “im taking a cuple of books along and even if i cant reed them ill practise hard and maybe i wont forget every thing i learned.

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He also became bitter which made him all alone without friends or family at the end of the story. The surgery was a disturbing encounter physical and intellectually and just caused Charlie to feel isolated. If the knowledge was permanent the surgery could have

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