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Search all of eNotes Search rows Navigate Study Guide Summary (Critical Survey of Literature for Students) Charlie Gordon is a gentle, happy, thirty­two­year­old with an intelligence quotient (IQ) of 68. For seventeen years, he has worked at Donner’s Bakery, a job his Uncle Herman found for him. He also attends evening classes at the Beekman College Center for Retarded Adults to learn to read and write. His teacher, Alice Kinnian, recommends him for a research experiment on intelligence conducted by Dr. Strauss and Professor Nemur. This experiment, funded by the Welberg Foundation, has already been successful on a white lab mouse named Algernon, so the researchers are ready for a human participant. Professor Nemur tells Charlie to keep a journal in the form of progress reports for the experiment. The first such “progris riport,” dated in early March, documents Charlie’s illiteracy and strong hope to be selected for the “operashun.” Charlie worries that he will fail the personality and intelligence tests, especially after Algernon beats him when they compete in solving puzzles. He also describes, in a childlike manner, his desire to increase his intelligence to participate fully in discussions and make more friends. Despite Professor Nemur’s reservations, Charlie is selected to undergo neurosurgery along with enzyme and hormone treatments intended to triple his intelligence. He is nervous about the operation and brings a rabbit’s foot and other superstitious objects with him to the hospital. After the successful operation, he is disappointed that he is not instantly smarter. Charlie is allowed to return to his job at Donner’s Bakery. In the evenings, Miss Kinnian tutors him, and soon he is beating Algernon in maze races and has learned to read. His intelligence increases rapidly. He is promoted to dough mixer at work and slowly realizes that the people he thought of as friends have been making fun of him. They notice changes in him and become suspicious. Around the time he suggests a few improvements at the bakery, he also catches Gimpy stealing from Mr. Donner. After he confronts Gimpy, the employees band together to have Charlie fired. Only Fanny Birden stands on his side, but while saying good­bye she suggests that something unnatural is happening to Charlie. Charlie throws himself into reading and spends time at Beekman University pretending to be a student. He also begins remembering childhood events and meets regularly with Dr. Strauss for therapy sessions. In the middle of June, Charlie and Algernon are put on display at the annual psychological association convention in Chicago. His intelligence has surpassed that of both Dr. Strauss and Professor Nemur, and he realizes there is a flaw in their research. This, combined with Nemur’s continual references to Charlie as having been engineered into a human, so upsets Charlie that he releases Algernon, causing chaos. During the distraction, he and Algernon return to New York. Charlie’s disillusionment leads to self­reflection, and his memories lead him to understand his desire to become more intelligent and his struggle to develop a relationship with Alice Kinnian, to whom he is attracted. Both desires stem from his childhood, when his mother denied that Charlie’s intelligence was low and developed schemes to boost it. Once his sister Norma was born, his mother’s efforts shifted toward getting Charlie institutionalized. He works on finding his parents and sister to attempt reconnecting with them. Charlie befriends a neighbor, Fay, who helps socialize him. They drink and go dancing. During this time, when memories surface, Charlie recognizes a sort of disassociation, as if a switch has been flipped: At such times, he seems either to watch his own behavior through the eyes of a frightened man with the intelligence of a six­year­old or to watch a developmentally disabled and confused young man through the eyes of a thirty­two­year­old genius. By late July, Charlie has reached his intellectual peak, and the decline that Algernon is exhibiting begins to show itself in Charlie’s behavior as well. A race begins, as he feverishly works to find the flaw in the experiment before he can no longer comprehend the science involved. By September, Algernon is dead. Charlie reacts violently to his progressive loss of knowledge and rejects Alice, with whom he had finally connected. By mid­November, he asks for his old job back at Donner’s Bakery. He has come full circle. When he accidentally shows up at the Beekman Center and upsets Alice, he decides to leave for the Warren State Home, where he will not have to face anyone who remembers that he was a genius for almost eight months. Flowers for Algernon Summary (Society and Self, Critical Representations in Literature) Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes is one of the classic science fiction novels of the 1960’s. It conveys a moving story about a mentally retarded man gaining genius­level intelligence, only to slowly and tragically regress to his former state. It is widely considered to be one of the most important novels ever written about the nature of human intelligence. The novel won the 1966 Nebula Award. The novel was expanded from a novella of the same title, which itself won a Hugo Award in 1960. “Flowers for Algernon” (1959) told the story of Charlie Gordon, a thirty­year­old man with an IQ less than 70 but with an intense desire to learn. He is chosen to be the first human subject in an experiment aimed at surgically correcting his brian in a way that is hoped will triple his IQ. The same technique appeared successful on a laboratory mouse named Algernon. The entire story is told through journals written by Charlie, documenting his feelings and experiences as he increases his intelligence to genius level, then slowly and tragically returns to his former limited intellectual abilities. In 1992, science­fiction readers and professionals voted it the best science­fiction novella ever written. In the novel, Keyes better detailed Charlie’s intellectual rise and fall, adding startling details about his early life with his parents and sister, who later abandoned him. Although not as stylistically effective as the novella, the novel remains compelling as Charlie slowly uncovers hidden memories of his past life, seeks to achieve emotional maturity to match his towering intellect, and seeks to use that intellect (unsuccessfully) to stop in himself the same intellectual degeneration he has observed in Algernon. The novel was made into a successful film, Charly (1968), for which Cliff Robertson earned an Academy Award for best actor. Increased human intelligence is a common theme in science fiction. Slan (1940) by A. E. van Vogt and More than Human (1953) by Theodore Sturgeon portray the hostility of the common man to his intellectual superiors. Others, such as Brain Wave (1954) by Poul Anderson and Odd John: A Story Between Jest and Earnest (1935) by Olaf Stapledon, portray intellect as cold and less human. “The Marching Morons” (1953), by Cyril Kornbluth, is set in a future in which the superintelligent few must secretly rule the moronic masses. Flowers for Algernon, however, provides a portrait of the nature of intelligence that differs greatly from these many previous stories. Flowers for Algernon portrays low intelligence in a sympathetic manner, effectively arguing that intelligence is only one of the many things that makes people human. Flowers for Algernon Summary (Comprehensive Guide to Short Stories, Critical Edition) Charlie Gordon, thirty­seven years old and with an IQ of 68, dreams of being smart. Intelligence, he imagines, lies somewhere in the domain of reading and writing—a belief that has made him the hardest­working pupil in Miss Kinnian’s class for slow adults. Charlie is so “motor­vated” that Miss Kinnian recommends him as a test subject for an experimental surgical procedure that promises a threefold increase in intelligence. Excited by the prospect of having his dream come true, Charlie begins his diary at the request of Dr. Strauss. Each “progris riport” reveals Charlie’s thoughts, feelings, and fears as his intelligence rises dramatically, then plummets. With a childlike eagerness to please, Charlie faces psychologists who attempt to administer personality and intelligence tests. Try as he may, he can see neither pictures in the “raw shok” inkblots nor stories in the scenes of the Thematic Apperception Test. Charlie fares no better in his contests with a white mouse named Algernon. Algernon runs through a maze box as Charlie attempts the same maze with pencil and paper. Algernon always wins. Charlie is troubled by preoperative fears, but his rabbit’s foot and a gift of candy see him through. The operation entails little discomfort and recovery is rapid, but Charlie is disappointed when he notices little immediate rise in his intelligence. Dr. Strauss advises patience, pointing out that Algernon’s progress was slow after he underwent the same procedure. Now the reason for the animal’s superior maze­running is revealed: “Algernon beats me all the time because he had that operashun too. That makes me feel better. Maybe someday I’ll beat Algernon. Boy that would be something.” Charlie returns to his job as a janitor at Donnegan’s Plastic Box Company. He is happy to be back with his friends, oblivious to the mockery and practical jokes that his coworkers enjoy at his expense. Dr. Strauss introduces a subliminal learning machine that teaches while Charlie sleeps. The breakthrough comes only a month after the journal entries begin, when Charlie beats Algernon. After that, his intellect expands at an ever­increasing rate. He reads widely; masters grammar and punctuation; learns foreign languages, mathematics, and music; and even conquers the Rorschach inkblot test that so baffled him before his operation.

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