Charlie Gordon, Algernon and what it takes to be smart and belong somewhere
Daniel Keyes on the struggles of mentally challenged people and a man’s tragic pursuit to get smart
There are a lot of science-fiction novels about aliens and apocalypses keen on destroying humanity. The protagonist (or a group of them) go on a deadly mission to stop this foreign pestilence. Such books are thrilling and give us a burst of adrenaline as we flip through the pages, enchanted by these stories of survival. Rarely do we come across a gem underneath all this debris with a laser-like focus on scientific advancement woven around a simple, yet emotionally captivating story. A story that makes us snap the book shut and take a breather since it hits too close to our own experience. A book that makes us take a hard look at ourselves and the people around us. My previous read, Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir belonged to the first category. It made me cheer for a fictional version of our planet to survive.
Even a feeble-minded man wants to be like other men.
My recently finished book, Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes is an equally, if not more, enthralling story about a mentally challenged man named Charlie Gordon, who suffers from a genetic disease called phenylketonuria which hampered his cognitive development. The book is narrated in a series of journal entries written by Charlie, showcasing his innocence, development and relationships with other people throughout the novel. Charlie works as a cleaner at a bakery and attends night classes to learn how to read and write at the Beekman Center for Retarded Adults. He is sweet, simple-natured and thinks the best of everyone. His low intelligence has always bothered him, so, when he came across an opportunity to “get smart” via a surgical procedure, he whole-heartedly agrees.
My name is Charlie Gordon I werk in Donners bakery where Mr Donner gives me 11 dollers a week and bred or cake if I want. I am 32 yeres old and next munth is my brithday. I tolld dr Strauss and perfesser Nemur I cant rite good but he says it dont matter he says I shud rite just like I talk and like I rite compushishens in Miss Kinnians class at the beekmin collidge center for retarted adults where I go to lern 3 times a week on my time off. Dr. Strauss says to rite a lot evrything I think and evrything that happins to me but I cant think anymor because I have nothing to rite so I will close for today … yrs truly Charlie Gordon.
This surgical process was on a mouse named Algernon, whose intelligence increases multifold after a surgery. Charlie’s attitude towards Algernon changes throughout, beginning from a competitive rivalry while doing maze exercises, to admiration and finally a sense of kinship. Algernon’s mental state portrays what Charlie’s future looks like, and this personification of a hyper-intelligent mouse, detailing its excitement and frustration give the book an alternate timeline and hints of what’s about to come.
I think it’s a good thing about finding out how everybody laughs at me. I thought about it a lot. It’s because I’m so dumb and I don’t even know when I’m doing something dumb. People think it’s funny when a dumb person can’t do things the same way they can.
Charlie’s operation is successful and he is set on a gradual improvement process, as evident from his journals. His spelling, punctuation and diction begin to improve and we see the first sliver of a new and improved version of Charlie. However, things turn rough when Charlie begins to recover memories of an abusive childhood and mistreatment at the hands of friends and family. His family, initially in denial, severed all ties with him because they found him embarrassing. His coworkers made him a punching bag and an object of mockery whenever they pleased. People wanted to be around him to look smart when standing next to him, but they were never really fond of him. No one ever understood the depth of his emotions and the trauma that’s deeply nestled inside him.
How different they seem to be now. And how foolish I was ever to have thought that professors were intellectual giants. They’re people — and afraid the rest of the world will find out.
This book takes different stances in emotional and intellectual development, each with its own set of challenges. Owing to voracious reading and mental exercises, Charlie’s intellect evolves quickly. Within a couple of months, he has mastered a handful of fields, learnt multiple languages and gets involved in Professor Nemur and Strauss’s scientific research about Algernon and him. Now that he realizes how badly others have treated him, he is filled with anger and suspicion and misdirects these feelings towards others.
His intellectual prowess quickly morphs into arrogance, lack of empathy and narcissism when he develops expertise over multiple fields in a short period of time. He is better than these researchers and he knows it. Some of this contempt is reasonably justified, especially the observation that academics focus too much on specialization and hesitate to look beyond its boundaries. His charm and simplicity are all but gone, and all that remains is an arrogant and self-centred man who dismisses others’ feelings and likes to belittle them. I can understand that his recovered memories have hardened him, but, it was really sad to watch this deterioration in the Charlie that I was fond of.
I see now that when Norma flowered in our garden I became a weed, allowed to exist only where I would not be seen, in corners and dark places.
Although his intellectual development is accelerated, Charlie’s emotional intelligence remains the same. With therapy sessions with Dr Strauss, Charlie’s memories are at the forefront of his mind and in dire need of attention. He is haunted by how his family treated him, his parents always fighting, and his Mother too bothered about superficial appearances and hurling abuses at him for the way he is. His Mother changed after his younger sister, Norma is born without any signs of the same genetic disorder. He became an anomaly, an afterthought, something that rarely comes to our attention, barely surviving in the confines of his small apartment. For Charlie to outgrow this emotional roadblock, he needs to get closure.
Some other events that bring Charlie’s emotional development into question are his attraction towards Alice Kinnian (for which he is emotionally unprepared) and his indecisiveness when he witnessed Gimpy (his coworker) cheating the bakery owner. Because of his Mother, Charlie is terrified of intimacy, of touching women and suffers from hallucinations and nightmares whenever he is near Alice. This is the only book where I have witnessed genophobia written so clearly with a strong back story.
The problem, dear professor, is that you wanted someone who could be made intelligent but still be kept in a cage and displayed when necessary to reap the honors you seek. The hitch is that I’m a person.
Because of this disparity between intellect and emotion, Charlie tries to come to terms that he was a human even before he had the procedure, contrary to what Professors and the scientific community made him believe. Now, he is treated like a guinea pig, ready for showcasing whenever the master calls. He abhors the notion that he was useless before, a disgrace to society and that the professors did him a huge favour. Before the surgery, he was a real human being, with family, some friends and he was happy in his simplistic lifestyle.
What’s personally disturbing for me is the reason why Charlie wanted to get smart. He wanted to talk with people, to discuss with them about their whereabouts, belong somewhere and build valuable relationships with them. However, with the ascent of achieving an IQ of 185 from 68, he has failed to create these relationships. He knows more than anybody else, he is practically a genius, but now he doesn’t have people to discuss this with. From being ridiculed for his ignorance and dullness, he is now despised for his newfound knowledge and understanding. For me, this is the most tragic part of the story. Despite all his efforts, Charlie couldn’t be “normal”.
However, the book doesn’t just stop here. It takes the form of a darker tragedy, reminiscent of the classics. Charlie discovers that this intelligence is temporary and will wane at an accelerated pace as well. The ending journal entries detail Charlie’s deterioration, where he begins with forgetting scientific principles, the psychological research that he was working on, soon followed by forgetting everyday things. In the ending, Charlie is back to square one, living in a care centre for mentally challenged people, with his last journal entries similar to his initial ones, with imminent mistakes of punctuation and spelling.
Anyway I bet Im the frist dumb persen in the world who found out some thing inportent for sience. I did somthing but I dont remembir what. So I gess its like I did it for all the dumb pepul like me in Warren and all over the world.
This is one of those selected books that broke me into bits and pieces. I couldn’t help but smile at Charlie’s innocence in one moment and then marvel over his suffering in the next. Daniel Keyes has done a phenomenal job of explaining the humiliation mentally challenged people face, how insensitive the general public can be, and the need to show empathy to others. This book maintained a dark tone throughout, with bits of amusement and happiness engulfed by the memories from Charlie’s past.
One thing I really like was Charlie confronting his family and getting the final closure. His sister transformed into a warm and inviting young lady, his mother, suffering from dementia and his father happy in running his own barbershop. Seeing these people made me contemplate their struggles. Coming to terms with Charlie’s condition and facing the scorn of society must not have been easy. Another thing that struck out was Charlie’s deterioration after the surgery. He had grown bitter and arrogant, and these traits didn’t leave him until he was incapable of articulating well. During his descent, he was a less likeable version of himself, something that can be attributed to his growing awareness of the world and his anger at everything being stripped away from him.
Flowers For Algernon is considered a science-fiction masterpiece and it deserves all the praises and more. Complex characters showcasing every emotion that I know of, a writing style that gets inside the mind of our protagonist and beautifully showcases his rapid evolution and a perfect culmination of psychology and science-fiction intricately carved into the nooks and crannies of a captivating story. This was an extremely hard book for me to read, reminding me too much of days that I have stored away in a corner of my mind. But this only shows how well-written this book really is. Keyes apparently did his job too well and delivered a tragedy that is mesmerizing, unforgettable and heart-breaking at the same time. Charlie’s Odyssey, with its moments of joy, wonder and sadness, still remains a story worth the tears I shed while reading it.
