Flowers For Algernon Literary Analysis

We all fear being alone, sometimes enough to change ourselves to fit in. In one’s life there is always a struggle between loneliness and being yourself because society makes one believe that they must change to fit in. What happens when that change however brings the loneliness you were trying to fix. This idea is brought up by Daniel Keyes in his short story “Flowers for Algernon”. In the story the main character is developmentally disabled with an IQ of 68, he goes through an experiment that makes him slowly become much smarter but as he does he finds that he loses what he thought he was going to gain, friends. Daniel Keyes in “Flowers for Algernon” argues that intelligence brings loneliness through his parallel of when Charlie gets smarter he can't talk to people, he secludes himself and he scares

The first account of this is Mrs. Kinnian his teacher is scared when she sees him, “She looked like she was glad to see me but scared” This passage comes when Charlie has recently done the segery and it makes everyone kind of on edge around him and slightly scared, this leads to detachment from society and loneliness. The second time someone is scared of Charlie is when his co workers at his job all sign a petition saying he needs to be fired bece the yare afrais of him, “Eight hundred and forty names, everyone connected with the factory, except Fanny Girden. Scanning the list quickly, I saw at once that hers was the only missing name. All the rest demanded that I be fired.” All of the people that worked in th efatory with hi accept for one think he should be fired because they are sdcared of his intelgence and what he might d if he becomes smarter. Thye all fear this intelgence and it leads to him being an outcast and therefore his lonliness making the parallel again very clear that as he gets smarter he becomes more