Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keye

"Flowers for Algernon" is about a 32-year-old retarded man, Charlie Gordon. He can't read or write, and he is clumsy, but likeable. He works at a bakery lifting bags of flour. He wants to
become smarter because he thinks that if he is smarter, more people will like him and his family
will be proud of him. He is chosen to be the subject of Dr. Nemur and Dr. Strauss' experiment.
They want to make him smarter by performing a set of surgeries on his brain. This has only
been done on animals, such as Algernon, a small, white mouse, and the results have been
positive so far.

Charlie agrees to the experiment and it works. It takes time for him to get smarter and once
he does get very smart, he is happy. Then Charlie realizes that he is growing apart from the
people he loved. His friends at the bakery and his teacher Alice no longer like him as much
because he is so smart. He gets fired from his job and gets very lonely. He is able to beat
Algernon in mazes now and the doctors are happy with the results. Charlie is becoming more
and more rude, selfish, and intelligent as the days go on.

Algernon starts to become angry and erratic as well. Instead of trying to solve mazes when
he gets something wrong, he smashes his head into the wall. Charlie starts to work at the lab as
well so he can figure out what is happening to Algernon. He finds out that the rate at which you
lose intelligence is proportional to the rate at which you gained the intelligence. Algernon soon
dies and Charlie's brainpower is fading rapidly as well. Charlie buries his friend Algernon in his
backyard. He does get his friends from the bakery back, but he must leave because he can no
longer take care of himself. He is going to stay at the Warren Home for Retarded Adults. At the
end of the book, he reminds whoever is reading his note to put some flowers on Algernon's
grave.

I didn't particularly like the book. The beginning was nice because I got to hear about
Charlie's quest for knowledge and how he was mistreated by others, but loved by his friends. I
didn't like that Charlie was arrogant when he was smart. I also didn't like that I had to hear
about Charlie's intimate relations. I didn't think it was necessary and I skipped over it. I did like
Algernon and how Charlie cared for him and how Charlie became sweet again. Although it was
sad to see how disappointed Charlie was that the experiment had failed, he was grateful for the
time he had to learn.

Submitted by Stephanie