The book, “Flowers for Algernon”, was an exciting science fiction novelwritten by .The main characters of the story are thecentral character, Charlie, who is a mentally retarded individual involvedin a remarkable experiment which increased his I.Q., Alice, a teacher atthe special education faculty at Beekman College who taught Charlie how toread and write, the professors who performed the experiment on Charlie,Fay, one of Charlie’s aquaintances which he meets as the book progresses,and last but not least Algernon.
The novel is exciting and contains very original material. The moodswhich are created in the reader, being me, are ones of sorrow, anger, andguilt. One of the elements of the story which contributes greatly to themood the reader experiences would be the plot. In the story, Charlie, issubject to an experiment which increases his intelligence in hopes ofknowing more in the soul purpose of impressing people to gain friends. Unfortunately some of his anticipations were not met.
The main characters in the novel include Charlie, Alice, Algernon, and Fay, a character who did not make much of an appearance, but in my eyesbelieved, that she played a very important part in Charlie’s involvement intrying to sort out his past and figure out his present and future plans. Charlie is a mentally retarded person who has impressing people and gainingfriends as one of his top priorities. He then hears of an experiment whichcould possibly make him smart. He makes himself subject to this humanexperiment with the hopes of gaining knowledge in a sole purpose of gainingfriends.
As the book progresses, Charlie goes through dramatic changesmentally, and instead of making him gain friends he actually is looked onin the same way if not worse. For example, at Charlie’s old work his “friends” made fun of him and enjoyed his company just because Charlie hadamused them. Yet after the operation, Charlie discovers that he had notmade his friends like him more, but in actual fact, had pushed them away.Charlie understood now that his friends had done to him in the past, and
starts to look down upon them. Alice, Charlie’s teacher, is the person whointroduced Charlie to the idea of giving the experiment a chance. Shebelieves that Charlie has the determination, desire, and will power to makethe experiment work. She then, later on in the book, gets emotionallyinvolved with Charlie and helps Charlie learn more about himself. Algernon, is a lab animal who also has the experiment done on him and asresult makes him smarter than the average mouse. Algernon also plays avery important part in the novel because he represents Charlie and foreshadows what will happen to Charlie later on in the book. Fay, is anartist who certainly has views on life which can be rarely found in anindividual.
As the book progresses, Fay, helps Charlie reveal his physicaland emotional capabilities. There are many exciting parts which occur in the book, yet onehowever, in my opinion which proved to be the most memorable would probablybe when he had been trying to find what had gone wrong in the experimentbefore the inevitable happened to him. After he had discovered what hadgone wrong he had started to descend down the escalator of intelligence andattempted to make several desperate attempts to try and walk up anescalator going down. The only thing that I do not agree with is how the book concludes.
The conclusion of the book in my eyes leaves the reader hanging like… this. If I would make a change I would write about what happened afterCharlie Gordon’s death. An example of this would be possible progress andsuccess in the field, or maybe because of the events which had occurred inthe past in this field, it was given up for dead, or maybe Fay or Alicehad conceived a child and grew older had pursued his/her father’stheory/discovery which in turn leads into a sequel. If anyone were to askme if they should read Flowers For Algernon, I would regard it as anexcellent book to read because it makes the reader think of how a mentallyretarded person feels, and mabye will show us a new respect for them. Thisbook has made me realize just how much more determination a mentallyretarded person could possibly have, and makes me realize just how lucky lam.
