Daniel Keyes’ story, “Flowers for Algernon,” is the progress reports of 37 year old, Charlie Gordon, who gets a surgery to gain intelligence. Throughout the reports, you can see where Charlie intellectually starts and his progress from there. Then, unfortunately, Charlie’s intelligence descends and he’s back where he started. The story teaches you that too much of anything is unhealthy.
In the very beginning, Charlie lacks the average amount of intellect. His second report shows that, due to the lack of intelligence, he is insecure about his disability, The story says, “I had a test today. I think I faled it. and I think that they won’t use me.” (McDougal Littell Literature, Flowers for Algernon, pg. 190) Charlie took a Rorschach Test, which is different pictures of spilled ink, then you tell what the ink looks like. Charlie thought there was a literal picture, when your imagination is supposed to tell you what the picture is. The text above mentions about how Charlie believes he will not be used in some event. Charlie is wanting to be part of a study,…
Charlie Gordon learned this throughout his transition from an I.Q. of 68 to an I.Q. to above average. I don’t want everyone to think this lesson only applies to Charlie. This lesson applies to everyone in their everyday lives. How so? What do we too much of today as a society? We are glued to any form of electronic device, anything that connects to others in a virtual way. When we are excessively on the Internet, we get pulled away from reality. We start to lack the ability of confrontation. We hide behind screens to tell the truth about something. We hide behind fake names because we don’t have the social skills or courage to say something straight to someone’s face. In other situations, we take advantage of this hiding spot and use it negatively, which we all know as cyber-bullying. Flowers for Algernon teaches us all an important…
