64 pages • 2 hours read
Flowers For Algernon
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Themes
Acquiring Intelligence Versus Developing Emotions
Charlie is highly motivated to gain a higher IQ and overcome his intellectual disability. The lab team at Beekman takes note of his motivation, the leading reason they choose Charlie for the experiment. Later, Charlie realizes his motivation is tied to a long-held desire to please his mother. The novel’s initial progress reports, with their simplistic style and intentional spelling and grammatical mistakes, portray Charlie’s intellectual challenges. Their shifting style emphasizes the dramatic transformation that Charlie undergoes after the operation. The first report, for instance, includes sentences such as “I am 32 yeres old and next munth is my birthday” (1), while by Progress Report 10, he is capable of sentences as complex as “[n]ow I understand one of the important reasons for going to college and getting an education is to learn that the things you’ve believed in all your life aren’t true, and that nothing is what it appears to be” (71). Very soon after the operation, Charlie makes rapid intellectual gains in areas as diverse as foreign languages, math, and economics. Again, his motivation comes into play. He notes: “This is what I wanted to do—go to college and hear people talk about important things” (71). Charlie’s gains are also evident in his work at the bakery, as when he astounds the crew with his ability to quickly master the complex dough mixer machine.
Charlie becomes arrogant as he develops intellectually. He believes himself intellectually superior and has little patience for others’ shortcomings. He belittles Nemur at a party described in Progress Report 13. His lack of empathy is a sign that Charlie’s social and emotional development has not kept pace with his intellectual gains. Others around Charlie point this out. Early on, Charlie reports what Alice says, that his development will happen “slowley and you have to werk very hard to get smart” (17). Most directly, Strauss warns Charlie: “The more intelligent you become, the more problems you’ll have, Charlie. Your intellectual growth is going to outstrip your emotional growth” (47). Charlie himself feels the conflict between his intellect and emotions, most powerfully in his relationship with Alice, whom he cannot fully connect with emotionally or sexually.
Charlie’s struggles point to one of the fundamental ideas in Flowers for Algernon: Celebrated as it may be, intelligence alone cannot lead to a full, successful, happy, or balanced life. Emotions play a powerful, even more fundamental role for humans. The novel does not blame Charlie for failing to understand this at first, even if others around him had pointed out the issue. Instead, the book tracks how Charlie comes to realize the importance of his emotions, and to see that emotions were what made him a person, both before and after the experimental procedure. Though Charlie gains insight without being able to preserve it, the novel explores the fullness of Charlie’s growth.
The Psychological Impact of the Past
At first, Charlie has little recollection of his past. His inability to recollect seems tied to his intellectual disability. The Beekman lab team uses technological devices to help him “remembir… remembir… remembir…” as part of their work to raise Charlie’s intelligence (26). However, as the novel progresses and Charlie begins to recall more of his past, it becomes clear that it is not simply an intellectual issue. He asks himself, “how could I be sure there weren’t horrible thoughts repressed behind the barriers of my tortured conscience?” (276). The novel implies that the pain and trauma Charlie had gone through as a child were influencing his behavior and blocking out the past.
As his memories resurface, Charlie recalls his father as being much more understanding and patient than his mother. However, the reader learns later, when Charlie visits his father at his barbershop, that Matt bowed to his mother’s insistence to remove him from the home and bring him to his Uncle Herman. Stunned and unable to reveal his identity, Charlie thinks to himself, “Here, look at me, I’m Charlie, the son you wrote off the books? Not that I blame you for it, but here I am” (187). Charlie’s memories influence his ability to act in the present.
As the novel draws to a close, Charlie realizes that his past impacts all areas of his life, even when he is not conscious of it. For instance, his powerful desire to please his mother, stemming from her rejection of him, fosters his motivation to increase his IQ. His isolation may make him overly trusting of others, such as when his coworkers at the bakery ridicule him. The way Rose shamed him for having sexual feelings as a youth inhibits his ability to have a full relationship with Alice.
Charlie is also able to overcome his past. When Charlie reunites with Rose and Norma in Progress Report 16, he develops insight and forgiveness. When Rose nearly attacks Charlie with a knife, he realizes: “I must understand the way she saw it. Unless I forgive her, I will have nothing” (276). Charlie’s recovery of his past, painful as it might be, is also therapeutic. By encountering his past, Charlie can gain understanding, healing, and growth.
The Dignity of All Humans
Keyes does not shy away from difficult moments. For instance, in moments of dramatic irony, the reader sees things that Charlie doesn’t toward the beginning of the novel. The reader knows that Charlie’s coworkers from the bakery are ridiculing him, but Charlie seems oblivious. The night they abandon Charlie after going out drinking, Charlie muses: “Joe said Charlie is a card when he’s potted. I think that means they like me. We have some good times” (30). Charlie later gains awareness: “Joe and Frank and the others liked to have me around just to make fun of me” (42). Their belittlement of Charlie is a direct undermining of human dignity; it is especially painful because Charlie is a person with an intellectual disability.
Charlie’s coworkers at the bakery are not the only ones who dehumanize him. Charlie’s feelings of shame, betrayal, and hurt climax after the conference in Chicago. Charlie—now at the height of his intellectual abilities— feels anger at how Strauss, Nemur, and Burt had spoken of him in abstract terms, as more a specimen than a person. Sitting in a diner, Charlie watches a young man with an intellectual disability being ridiculed for dropping dishes and shouts: “[F]or God’s sake, have some respect! He’s a human being!” (199). Charlie resolves to do more to improve the situation for those with intellectual disabilities by researching the improvement of human intelligence.
Models for a more humane way to treat people exist within Charlie’s world alongside shame and ridicule. Alice is Charlie’s friend, mentor, and emotional support. She is the person who knows him best both before and after the experimental procedure, standing steadfast by him. She tells Charlie: “You’ll keep going up and up, and see more and more. And each step will reveal worlds you never even knew existed” (78). She also foresees the possibility he could “get hurt” (79). Mr. Donner had also shown compassion for Charlie, taking him in and offering him a job (though he eventually lets him go). Even Gimpy, who had ridiculed Charlie while posing as his friend, shows Charlie kindness when giving Charlie a medallion for trying, unsuccessfully, to make rolls.
Charlie realizes how vital it is to both recognize human dignity and recognize it in others. His awareness crystallizes when he visits the Warren Home, knowing that his intellectual decline is imminent. He sees two grown men wordlessly embracing each other, expressing empathy in a most basic and direct sense; he also senses the courage and commitment of the staff at the home, their selfless dedication to serving those with intellectual disabilities. As the novel closes, both readers and Charlie himself know that he will soon lose his intellectual advancements. The focus is on the need to extend care to all.
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