Signposts In Flowers For Algernon

“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.” The great author, J. Krishnamurti said this quote. And this idea is exactly what the community in the book, “Flowers for Algernon,” written by Daniel Keyes needs to learn. An avid sci-fi story, this book leads us through the rendezvous of the main character Charlie Gordon, while becoming accompanied by a timid mouse, Algernon. Before, Charlie is considered the runt of the pack, an inefficient and clueless person, constantly wandering around. Shamed for being true to himself, this story explores how far one is willing to go to change themselves for others, unwilling to stand out for themselves as the one daisy in a thorn bush. The emerging theme - society’s standards

One of the main signposts used to show this is the Aha Moment in the excerpt, in Progress Report 12, “Even a feeble-minded man wants to be like other men. A child may not know how to feed itself, or what to eat, yet it knows of hunger. This then is what I was like, I never knew. Even with my gift of intellectual awareness, I never really knew.” The signpost shows how he realizes how everybody wants to fit into society. After some time, Charlie figured out that he should be who he was instead of trying to fall under society's standards. Charlie did not want to accept this and tried his best to find a solution, though he had to accept the fact that he was

This is displayed in Progress Report 12, “Only a short time ago, I learned that people laughed at me. Now I can see that unknowingly I joined them in laughing at myself. That hurts most of all.” He forgot who he was and followed society, not realizing that the man was just like himself. He was fitting into society, to not feel left out. Another example from Progress Report 12 is, “I’d hidden the picture of the old Charlie Gordon from myself because now that I was intelligent it was something that had to be pushed out of my mind. But today in looking at that boy, for the first time I saw what I had been. I was just like him!” By pushing away the picture of himself, he was trying to forget who he was, he was trying to blend into society. It was almost as if Gordon wanted to forget his origins; his broken self, broken family, uncertain future, bleak past, and most of all, who he was, is and will