Flower for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, Theme: The Persistence of the Past in the Present

In the book Flowers for Algernon the author Daniel Keyes reveals the theme of persistence of one’s past in their present life.  This is a challenging endeavour and idea to follow throughout the book but I believe with persistence Keyes was able to accomplish the task. The main character Charlie Gordon is a mentally handicapped man who agrees to go through with an experimental procedure, called “operashun”, to potentially increase his intelligence. As the young 33 year old man recovers from surgery, he slowly recovers childhood memories, which shows significant evidence that our past experiences are embedded in our understanding of the present. Charlie’s past always resurfaces in key points in the present, taking the form of old Charlie literally watching over him. An example of this is when Charlie wants to make love to Alice.  The old Charlie makes him panic and feel ashamed, even if Charlie can’t remember why it is shameful. Charlie later learns that he is unable to be with women because of something his mother said to him as a child – “He’s got no business thinking that way about girls. A friend of his sister’s comes to the house and he starts acting like that! I’ll teach him so he never forgets. Do you hear? If you ever touch a girl, I’ll put you away in a cage like an animal, for the rest of your life. Do you hear me?” Charlie cannot move forward with his emotional life once he becomes a genius until he deals with the traumas of his childhood. Similarly Charlie’s mother Rose is also controlled by the past. Even when Charlie has survived the surgery and is of full or greater intelligence than the average human, Rose still resents Charlie’s lack of normalcy. As a child Rose felt Charlie was the cause of her family’s troubles.  She eventually feels he must leave to allow for his sister Norma to live a normal life –“I don’t care. He goes tonight. I can’t stand to look at him anymore… I’m not going to have her life destroyed.” Lines of her tormenting Charlie’s childhood haunt almost every page of the book. Charlie goes to visit Rose’s years after his life changing surgery and Rose’s resentment toward the boy is still very evident. This is illustrated by Rose’s attempt to stab Charlie with a knife; just as it did for Charlie, past emotions influenced her actions in the present. It is very clear Rose cannot separate past memories of the retarded Charlie from the now and present genius Charlie. This is a tragic reminder to us as the reader of the past’s persuasive influence on the present. This theme is universal in our everyday life as we judge people based on a past experience and once we’ve decided who they are there is no going back. This book has made it clear to me that our experiences in life definitely shape the person we are today.

By Lindsay MacLean 

Flower for Algernon by Daniel Keyes: Mistreatment of the Mentally Disabled

In the book Flowers for Algernon by author Daniel Keyes a major theme has to do with the mistreatment of the mentally disabled. By Keyes creating a fictional situation of augmenting the intelligence of someone with diminished intelligence he was able to portray society’s mistreatment of the handicapped from an interesting prospective. Charlie Gordon the main character in the book was born with an unusually low IQ of 68, thus rendering him mentally disabled in our society. Charlie agrees to go through with an experimental procedure, called “operashun”, to potentially increase his intelligence. As Charlie grows more intelligent effectively he is transformed from a mentally retarded man to a genius; he realizes that people have always based their feeling towards him on their feeling of superiority. For example his co-workers at the bakery had always treated him as a ‘friend’ in his mind – “It had been all right as long as they could laugh at me and appear clever at my expense, but now they were feeling inferior to the morn. I began to see that my astonishing growth had made them shrink and emphasized their inadequacies.” Everyone had treated him as intellectually inferior, in some cases with outright cruelty; where others tried to be kind but ultimately had been condescending in their charity. An example of outright cruelty were the pranks  played on Charlie when he worked at the Bakery or the cruel jokes made about him – “Sometimes somebody will say hey lookit Frank, Jo or even Gimpy. He really pulled a Charlie Gordon that time. I don’t really know why they say it but they always laff and I laff too.” Overall the book has definitely caught my attention in this area, of behaviour towards the mentally handicapped, in my life.  It has led to some awareness of the way in which I have perhaps looked down on those with disabilities instead of looking at what they have to offer to the world. Everyone has a different job in this life and who am I to say that I am superior to a classmate or the homeless man walking down the street. Perhaps I should dedicate the time to getting to know these extraordinary people on our community. But first I feel in the step in the right direction would be to learn to treat these people with the dignity and respect they deserve. 

By Lindsay MacLean