Flowers for Algernon
Daniel Keyes
Points: 11
Period: 2
Flowers for Algernon
The story begins with the main protagonist Charlie Gordon. He is thirty two years old, and works at Donners Bakery and goes to the Beekmin Center for Retarded Adults three nights a week. He starts off with an I.Q. Of 68. His teacher is Alice Kinnian and a major character in the story and becomes a love interest with Charlie as he progresses and regresses throughout the story. Charlie Gordon starts off as a rather unintelligent person for thirty two years old. You can tell he can not read or spell past a first grade level. He meets Professor Nemur and Dr. Strauss who inform him of a procedure they can do to make him intelligent. He is currently living on his own but they find his sister and mother living in Manhattan and they give permission for the surgery. Throughout the story he frequently races a mouse. The mouse runs a maze and Charlie does a maze on paper with pencil.
After the operation Charlie is soon allowed back to work but is upset at the fact that he doesn't think he is smart the very second the operation is over. The explain that it will take some time for him to learn and they allow him to return back to work. When he returns to work the workers become scared of him as his intelligence grows, both mentally and emotionally. His friends at the bakery and all the workers there would use his name if something stupid or bad happened, they called it pulling a Charlie Gordon. Throughout the story it is mainly told through progress reports from Charlies point of view and they are collected and filed into a report. Charlie is told from the beginning that his intelligence may not last forever and realizes Algernons downfall in intelligence. As the story ends Charlies intelligence regresses and he returns to his normal state of mental