Flowers for Algernon

by Daniel Keyes

[Source: http://www.thematzats.com/algernon/whtmse.gif]

What are the similarities and differences between Charlie at the beginning of the novel and after his treatment?

          Charlie Gordon is mentally deficient at the start of the novel Flowers for Algernon, a novel by Daniel Keyes. He works in a bakery, where he sweeps the floor. The other bakery workers make fun of him and play pranks on him, but Charlie thinks that they are his friends and that they are laughing with him. Charlie is treated with kindness and care from all others, including his teacher, Ms. X at the Center for Mentally Deficient Adults. Charlie has no real control over himself, and he is treated as a child.

          After the operation, Charlie's intelligence increases rapidly, and he becomes more aware of his treatment in the bakery. Eventually he becomes more intelligent than his teacher, and than everyone that he knows. He is so smart that even his teacher, who once spoke to him in a kind voice, cannot have a conversation with him anymore because he is too smart. He is given a better job helping to cook at the bakery, and his coworkers no longer talk to him because they are afraid of them. Charlie has become a different person altogether. He is now as isolated as he was before the treatment, but now he is aware of it. He is still incredibly child-like in that he has difficulty controlling his emotions. 

Connections:

          This novel is connected in many ways to the outside world. In our world today there are many mentally deficient adults and children, and although there may not be a definite cure as there is in Flowers for Algernon, research continues and progresses daily.

          Charlie's coworkers at the bakery are symbolic of the ignorant masses, the uninformed majority of people who find mentally deficient people humurous.

          We see a microcosm/macrocosm relantionship between Charlie and Algernon, because the effects of the treatment on both of them are incredibly similar.

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