Three Lessons Charlie Gordon Learns in Flowers for Algernon

In Flowers for Algernon Charlie Gordon goes through a life changing experience. He is a mentally retarded man who struggles every day because of his disability and wishes he could be smart like other people. When he gets the chance to have a brain surgery that will increase his intelligence it sets him off on an exciting and scary journey. He learns that in life people can be cruel to those that are different, that being smart is overated and that intelligence alone is not enough to make someone happy. Through the course of his experience of first being mentally retarded and then becoming a genius Charlie learns some good lessons about life. One of the key lessons Charlie learns through the course of the novel is that people can be cruel to others that are different. Charlie is treated poorly by most people in his life from when he was a child all the way to when he is a grown man just because of his mental disability. At the bakery where he works the other employees make fun of him and use him in jokes all the time. It is mean because he thinks they are his friends and does not realize they are even doing it to him. If someone made a mistake or did something stupid they would say that he pulled “a Charlie Gordon”. The professors are also cruel to Charlie because they think of him as an experiment instead of a human being. They think that they created him just because he was mentally challenged and then they made him smart. When he became a genius they thought that they owned him like he was a thing not a person. They talk about him like he has no feelings. Right in front of Charlie Professor Nemur says “step right this way and see the side show”! An act never seen before in the scientific world! A mouse and a moron turned into geniuses before your very eyes”. That is a cruel thing to say about a person and embarasse him in front of everyone. Charlie was also treated cruelly by his own mother who was embarrassed of him and kept him inside. She