Flowers for Algernon
Daniel Keyes
What does the mistreatment of the mentally disabled show about our society?
In the novel Flowers for Algernon, we are able to see the mistreatment of the mentally disabled through the eyes of Charlie Gordon who is a mentally disabled 32 year old man. We are able to understand Charlie's feelings since the novel is written in a diary type format from Charlie's perspective. This book shows how our society still treats the mentally disabled differently from any other human beings and how wrong it is to do so.
After Charlie has had the operation and is now super intelligent he realizes that when he was mentally retarded he was treated as an inferior. People around him have treated him as if he were not a human being. For example, when he worked in the bakery, the others would tease him and make cruel jokes about him. But since he was mentally retarded then, he didn’t understand and laughed with them thinking that they were all friends. Others used Charlie's disability to their advantage and tricked him into doing things. Nobody cared about his feelings and patronized and mistreated him. Charlie experiences this himself once he becomes smart. After the operation, Charlie sort of begins to see disabled people the same way as others do. One day, a mentally retarded busboy drops things and Charlie and some other onlookers laugh. Later he realizes that the boy was mentally retarded and feels ashamed for laughing at him. Also when he was little, Charlie's mother would always try to convince herself that Charlie was a "normal" boy. Charlie’s dual perspective allows him to understand that he is as human as anyone else, regardless of his level of intelligence.
Therefore, in conclusion this novel greatly reflects what actually happens in the real world today. We do in fact maltreat the mentally disabled even though we would like to think that we don’t. Often without even noticing it, we disrespect them and do not recognize their humanity. A mentally retarded person is still a human being but our society is still unable to fully accept that fact yet since they act differently and have a different look. So, our society must respect and treat the mentally disabled as any other human being. This is not fully developed yet but it's on its' way. Hopefully by reading Flowers for Algernon more people will see how the mistreatment of the mentally disabled is unjust and how important it is to understand that they are humans too because they have feelings. Then the society can work harder to fix our attitude towards the mentally disabled.
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