Have you ever felt dumb and would have done anything to become smarter? This story is about a man who believes a surgery will make him smarter and likable. In the book Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes, the author shows how someone's expectation of what they want to happen in life can never overcome the reality of what it is actually like. To begin with there are many literary devices used in the story. One of the literary devices that Keyes used was symbolism. Keyes did this by using a mouse named Algernon, Algernon had the same surgery as Charlie. Charlie also starts to look at Algernon as a symbol of hope and the hope of how smart he can end up being one day. In the story it states, “Algernon is a very special mouse with an operation