Charlie Gordon In Flowers For Algernon By Daniel Keyes

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Charlie Gordon went from not knowing how to spell, to being smarter than a neurosurgeon in a matter of weeks. “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes is about a man named Charlie who is mentally disabled and goes through an operation that is supposed to triple his I.Q. of sixty eight. He does in fact become much more intelligent within weeks of the operation, but he doesn’t stay that way. When he is at his highest level of intelligence, he does some research and realizes that he will not stay that way, because the animal they tested on, Algernon the mouse, went back to being mentally disabled, therefore so did Charlie. Even though he lost all of the amazing things he learned, Charlie gained a lot more than is recognized in the story. First of all, Charlie gained real friends from having the operation. I know this because the text read “Joe Carp came over and grabbed by the shirt and said “Leave him alone you lousy cracker or I’ll break your neck.”(Keyes, 244) This shows that even though Joe Carp hated him the beginning of the story, when he discovered what had happened, his eyes opened and he realized that he should be kind to Charlie. Therefore, Charlie made friends after having the operation and had people that would stand up for him when others were unkind.…show more content…
In the story, Charlie states “I’m glad I got a second chance to be smart because I learned a lot of things I never knew were in this world.”(Keyes, 245) This makes it clear that Charlie did in fact learn something from the operation. He learned that even though he was no longer a genius, he had helped science and helped himself because he made many realizations while he was extremely intelligent, such as, in the end, he knew what “pulling a Charlie Gordon” was and he understood when people were being offensive and he could then tell them
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