Hate him when he's dumb, hate him when he's smart: Flowers for Algernon. Spoilers!

Flowers for Algernon starts off with a man, a rather unintelligent man who can’t seem to learn. Charlie Gordon, aged 32 works at his local bakery, Donners Bakery, and attends a school meant for adults with learning disabilities. He cannot spell very well and doesn’t seem to learn, even if he does, he forgets easily. He is dumb, incapable, everyone knows he is dumb, incapable. Charlie Gordon, 32, who works at Donners Bakery and will for the rest of his life, was destined to be dumb.

Dr. Strauss and Dr. Nemur promise a life of intelligence to Charlie, but a surgery is needed. A simple one that will make Charlie Gordon smart, and he so desperately wants to be smart so he follows along with it, filling out their progress reports with words he can't spell. He wants to be smart for not only him but the people around him, he wants so badly to impress the people around him with intelligence. “I reely wanted to lern I wanted it more then pepul who are smarter even then me”(Keyes, 5). 

This surgery has only been performed successfully once on a lab mouse, Algernon. When Charlie first met Algernon he was impressed by the intelligence of the mouse. Even though Algernon kept beating him in the race of who could complete the maze first, he stayed determined. When he finally completed the maze, even though Algernon still beat him in the race, he was very happy. “I dint feel bad because I watched Algernon and I lernd how to finish the amaze even if it takes me along time. I dint know mice were so smart”(Keyes, 8). 

When he is confronted with the question if the operation that had been performed on him was okay. He becomes worried but does not blame the people who performed the surgery on him, rather he blames himself for letting them perform the operation. “Mabey I shoudnt of let them oparate on my branes like she said if its against god. I dont want to make god angrey”(Keyes, 16). At this point in the story he begins to question the operation and if it actually will make him smart. These questions show his very evolution into the smarter Charlie, someone who blindly followed what others said, now questioning their words.

Then his frustrations start, he becomes annoyed with the progress reports, annoyed with the doctors methods, annoyed with still being dumb. He feels stuck, as if he isn’t getting smarter. But he’s had the operation, so why is he still unintelligent? “I hate the tests and I hate the amazeds and I hate Algernon. I never new before that I was dumber than a mouse”(Keyes,5). His frustration turns to anger and even though the mouse never truly did anything wrong he still feels as if he hates it. But in this quote it shows that he is not frustrated that the mouse is smart, but rather that he cannot beat a mouse, an animal. Humans are supposed to be smarter than animals, especially after the operation, so why can’t he beat Algernon?

When Charlie starts to learn more and more he takes in so much knowledge, the door to the world of what he could once not understand has finally opened. He absorbs knowledge and notices how the ones who he used to think were the most knowledgeable, didn’t know everything. People began to become confused on how such an unintelligent man suddenly became smart. His personality and opinions began to change slowly but surely. He hates how dumb he used to be and at the same time hates those who had taken advantage of him.

When he finds out his ‘friend’ Gimpy, who works at the same bakery as him has been undercharging customers he does not know whether to tell the bakeries owner or keep his findings to himself. Gimpy had been taking advantage of him, he had been nice to Charlie when in front of him while, unknowingly to Charlie, exploiting his lack of intelligence. His use of Charlie makes it clear what he thought of the man, he was like the others, he thought Charlie would never be able to comprehend what was happening. Charlie seeks help with the situation from others and they give him many different opinions but it's clear what he has to do, make the decision himself. The old Charlie who would do what people told him and nothing else was no more, if he wanted to be smart he would have to make decisions himself.

Soon after he is fired from Donners Bakery. The reason being that people are wary of him is his sudden intelligence, now that he cannot be butt of the joke and knows what they say about him, the consequences couldn’t reach them when he was dumb but now that he understands they fear him. People feel insecure about their own knowledge, the one they once called dumb is now smarter than them. When he is fired he begs Mr. Donner for the job, saying he still needs it, Mr. Donner replies that he doesn’t need it, his smarts could get him a lot of jobs. A part of Charlie's life that he was onced promised had been ripped away from him, all because he was smart. All he wanted was to make the others happy when he got smart, why is it that when he got smart they still hated him? 

Charlie from Flowers for Algernon is a character that greatly interests me not only because of his own emotions through the whole process but also because of the way people treat him. He is treated as a little child before the surgery, his co-workers abuse his intelligence for their own entertainment. But after the surgery they become hostile toward him because of his intelligence, as if he is a monster who took Charlie's place, not that they would care for him. In the book the building up of his intelligence is shown through his emotions, he becomes frustrated when he can question everything and he becomes bored when he realizes the small scope of others' knowledge. It’s almost as if Charlie had become a different man after the surgery.

Cited works

Keyes, Daniel. Flowers for Algernon. Orlando :Harcourt Inc., 1994.