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Flowers for Algernon, an Inspiring Novel by Daniel Keyes

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Flowers for Algernon, an Inspiring Novel by Daniel Keyes
Essay on Flowers For Algernon

In the novel Flowers For Algernon, Daniel Keyes keeps the reader constantly entertained by adding subsequent details to introduce the main character, Charlie Gordon. During the beginning of the book, Charlie, at age 32, is intrigued to have surgery on his brain to make him learn like an average person. Charlie is a mentally challenged adult, who was giving away by his mother because they said he would never be smart. Now, he is working at Donners Bakery doing mostly janitor work for Mr. Donner. Dr. Strauss inspires Charlie to write progress reports to help with their studies. Professor Nemur and Alice Kinnian are also helping Charlie to fulfill his dream to be smart. Charlie is hungry for knowledge and he will not let anything cross his path that will keep him from his dream.

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After a few months of a constant battle, Charlie’s writing strategies start to become comprehensible to everyone who reads his progress reports. Everyone is in to help Charlie. His nurses after his surgery help him to spell words that are incorrect and Mr. Donner, at the bakery, tells Charlie he can do anything he puts himself up to. His friends at the bakery invite Charlie to a bar and a party at one of their houses. They pick on him and try to push girls onto him so they will make fun of him. The girls would tell them to back off and Charlie would always laugh along with the guys because he thinks they are just joking around. Charlie has a flashback from his childhood when he was playing hide and seek, and he realizes that all the people from the bakery were always picking on him and it causes him to get very upset at them, and leave the party.

Charlie wrote a letter to Professor Nemur to tell him what was happening inside of his body. It was a study of structure and function of increased intelligence. This was the surgery that the performed on Charlie. He was completed

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