Preview

Flowers For Algernon Theme Response

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
549 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Flowers For Algernon Theme Response
“Flowers for Algernon” Theme Response by Hasnain Sahibzada

An important theme in the short story, Flowers of Algernon, is friendship. Friendship is an essential to the Flowers for Algernon and we can see it throughout the story. Friendship encircles all its aspects: expectations, perceptions and the importance of it. Earlier on in the story, we are introduced to Charlie's “friends” called Joe Carp and Frank Reilly. They are the ideal studies in the perception of friendship. Before the surgery, Charlie liked his friends, he wanted to hang around with them, spend time together, and make them laugh and happy. But after the surgery, his views their relationship in a different light and realized that they were not truly his friends. They used him for entertainment and made fun of him.
…show more content…
He did this because he didn’t want friends that don't respect him. After the operation, Charlie is able to build a true friendship with his “friends”. Before, the would not recognize Charlie as a person just like they are, and thought of him as a retard who never understood anything, just another object to make fun of. However, after his intelligence increases to the point when it even surpasses their own, his friends realize that Charlie, just like them, was and is a person who has both their feeling and their thoughts. When his deterioration finishes taking place and his heart once again becomes open and honest, Charlies peer’s at the bakery begin a true friendship with him. His friends were there when he needed them, so when the new employee at their workplace started teasing Charlie, they helped Charlie and taught the new employee a lesson. Although Charlie is not able to comprehend the full difference of his past and present relationships with his friends.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The doctors had to make a big decision, if they did not give Charlie the surgery then he would probably never be smart. On the other hand if they did give him the surgery then he would be smart, but then eventually he would turn back to dumb. The surgery that the doctors gave Charlie should be given to other people around the world. The question people should ask them self's is "do I want to smart for a little bit, or never be smart at all." That’s the question Charlie had to ask himself. Even Charlie said “I don’t know what’s worse to not know what you are and be happy, or to become what you’ve always wanted to be, and feel alone.” He means that no matter what he did to himself people would never like…

    • 370 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Charlie was forced to make an unfair decision. With an IQ of only sixty-eight Charlie could not have understood the good and bad sides of the operation. All Charlie knew was that he wanted to be smart and this operation could get him his greatest desire in one easy procedure. Because Charlie was mentally challenged, Dr. Strauss and Professor Nemur did not take into consideration that it could hurt Charlie badly in the long run, and they did not make sure he thoroughly understood the consequences and side effects that would follow. There was nothing to let Charlie understand the huge amount of knowledge he would gain and how it would change his life forever. He did not want to be a genius; he did not want to know about "the mathematical variance equivalent in Dorbermanns Fifth Concert". Charlie thought Miss Kinnian was a genius just because she could give him reasons for things like punctuation; he didn't have to become any smarter than that to be happy, not even close. Charlie was convinced that once he had the operation that he'd be like everyone else and people would like him. The doctors did not take that into consideration or explain to him that the operation would not result in more people liking him and he would not be everyone else, he would be completely different from the rest of the world.…

    • 753 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    After the surgery, Charlie realized that Joe, Frank, and his other co-workers were mocking, berating, and belittling him. When he was still impaired, he thought everybody was laughing with him; not laughing at him. He had been offended by this act; people would mock him and belittle him. By the end of that all, Charlie finally had realized what it meant to “pull a Charlie Gordon.” The surgery made Charlie realize that his ostensible “friends” were not actually his friends.…

    • 521 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the beginning of the film, Charlie struggles with making friends in the first couple of days of his freshman year. Charlie adapts and interacts well with people and is able to make friends easily and quickly. Chbosky portrays this idea in the wide angle shot of the large crowd in the football game, when Charlie approached Patrick and says “Hey Patrick”. "Hey, you're in my shop class”, says Patrick. Eventually Charlie is told to sit next to him and they continue their friendly conversation and with time meets a girl named Sam. From then onwards they made good friends and was later introduced to more people. Chbosky highlights the fact that Charlie becomes easily able to seek a conversation with someone in front of a large crowd, from which then lead to an invitation to his first ever party. At the party Charlie became emotional after realising the fact that he was being noticed and appreciated by the group of his presence. Patrick raised his drink and asked everyone to do the same. “To Charlie” and the whole group said, “To Charlie". Chbosky shows in the wide shot angle of when Charlie was drinking his milkshake and sitting on a lower level than his two other friends, that he has become recognised by the group, being the centre of attention by being himself, he gains the trust of others and is told important secrets compared to his original life. Charlie demonstrates the benefits of being a wallflower…

    • 964 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Charlie’s limited intelligence has made him a trusting, ingenuous and friendly man, as he assumes that all the people in his humdrum existence — mostly his co-workers at Donner’s Bakery are as well-intentioned as he used to be. However, as the neurosurgery stimulates his brain centers and rapidly increases his ability to learn, thereby elevating his mentality, Charlie gains perspective on his past and present. He founds himself becoming aware of a hard-hitting fact that his associates have constantly taken advantage of him and have treated him roughly just for sport, knowing that he would never understand. What is worse, he recovers that even if some people have shown a kindness to him, it usually came out of compassion or condescension and out of attitude to him as an inferior.…

    • 640 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Overall, I firmly believe that the best theme for “Flowers for Algernon” is that too much of a good thing can end up being bad. In the end, you can look at it two ways… either Charlie died or he simply moved away. “Goodbye Miss Kinnian and Dr. Strauss and evreybody.” (pg. 215) The point is, his happy-ever-after ending never happened. His brain couldn’t keep the new intelligence in his mind, therefore, it began to wash away. I think that my choice of theme works best with this…

    • 545 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Charlie Gordon wishes he had friends all throughout the text, but when he has friends they do not act like friends to him. To begin with, while he has his fake friends they are always laughing at him in a mean way but Charlie does not know. For example, Charlie has bandages from his operation and “Frank Reilly said what did you do Charlie forget your key and open your door the hard way. That made me laff. Their really my friends and they like me.” Charlie wishes he had real friends and thinks he does but they always laugh at him. Along with them always laughing at Charlie, they beat him up but he does not know that they did. According to the text, Charlie thinks he…

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    After the operation, Charlie became less oblivious; he realized that not everything is what he thinks. Page 14, paragraph 130 states, "It was as if he'd hidden this part of himself in order to decieve me, pretending-as do many people I've discovered-to be what he is not. " This shows that Charlie now understands that not everybody is good and people will pretend to be someone they're not to benefit themselves. However, a con of the operation is that Charlie is no longer able to communicate with others.…

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The surgical operation was shown to be successful for a length of time but after so long things changed for the worst. Charlie knew this was going to happen after seeing the same thing happen to Algernon, the rat, who has had the same surgery done on him. Charlie started to regress back into his first state of mind. His intelligence starts to decline, his writing goes back to how it was, and his thinking process was back to how it was. Even with him noticing he was regressing he was grateful for the things he got a chance to understand and still was determined to work harder. “Im glad I got a second chanse in life like you said to be smart because I lerned a lot of things that I never even new were in this werld and im grateful I saw it all even for a littel bit”…

    • 747 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Due to his disability, he was completely unaware that his “friends” were bulling him. After Charlie got the surgery he became aware that his “friends” weren't friends. “It's a funny thing I never knew that Joe and Frank and the other liked to have me around all the time to make fun of me”(Keyes 231). This shows that Charlie now knows that his “friends” were bulling him. As a result not only was he no longer bullied but, he gained new true friends.…

    • 521 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    However, when he saw life differently, it was in a bad way, and he then realised he didn’t have any friends. According to the text, Charlie said, “ It’s a funny thing I never knew that Joe and Frank and the others like to have me. Now I know what it means to pull a Charlie Gordon. I’m ashamed.” (Keyes 231). Readers might also argue that the surgery was a good idea because, he remembered his childhood. However, when he remembered his past he felt very abandoned. For example, as his parents said, “ He’s got to be sent away. I don’t want him in the house any more…” If you had the offer for this surgery, and saw the emotionally inhuman pain it causes, wouldn’t you say…

    • 750 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the story it said,“All the rest demanded that I be fired. Joe Carp and Frank Reilly wouldn’t talk to me about. No one else would either, except Fanny.” (Keyes,234).Without any of his friends being around him, Charlie felt very lonely and depressed. People would avoid and look at him differently.…

    • 554 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Flowers for Algernon

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages

    At the bakery where Charlie works he interacts with many of his fellow employees who he believes to be his friends. They provide him with a great deal of attention that Charlie processes as friendly, but in reality he is the butt of all of their jokes. Despite the constant ridicule he received from this he kept on smiling and being happy. Outside of work Charley is enrolled in a reading and writing class for retarded adults under the instruction of Alice Kinnian. In the beginning his relationship with Alice is nothing more than that of a student viewing a teacher who in his mind is much older than himself. Through this relationship however he is introduced to two researchers who are looking for a test subject for an experimental surgery that is believed to increase ones intelligence by three times. As seen with his coworkers, Charley believes that these men are there to help him and are his friends, but similar to before they only view him as a test subject that can be used to further their research and propel them to scientific notoriety. His last relationship is one that he has with a fellow test subject, a mouse named Algernon. Algernon was the preliminary test of…

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The story flowers for algernon has both similarities and differences with the film version charlie, such as when Miss. Kinnian asked charlie to marry him. Towards the end of the film carlie Miss. Kinnian asked charlie to marry him which never happened in the book,this is one difference between the movie charlie and the book flowers for algernon. Another difference is that the movie never put flowers for algernon,They made a movie based of the book flowers for algernon because charlie got smart,he realized that he needed to study this operation that he had got dont to make him smarter and he found out from him test that he would hie just like algernon,and that's why he put flowers for algernon and he never did when algernon died.…

    • 259 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Joshua Winslow "Josh" Groban was born on February 27, 1981 in Los Angeles, California. He graduated from Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, Carnegie Mellon University, Interlochen Center for the Arts, and Bridges Academy. He is currently a singer who writes his own music. He is also an actor as well as a record producer. As a performer, he not only sings, but he is known for playing piano, drums, and other percussion instruments while on stage and recording.…

    • 996 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays