Aguilar, Jan Alia S.

Performance Task #3

Quindara, Gian A. April 14, 2023

A summary of

“Flowers for Algernon”

Flowers by Algernon is a science fiction (sci-fi) novel written by Daniel Keyes, this is
the story of a man's journey from having a cognitive disability to gaining 3 times his
intelligence and his regression when an experimental surgery to correct his disability goes
wrong. Charlie Gordon a 37-year-old man with a 68 IQ, a man who wanted to be smart is
writing a progress report requested by a man named Dr. Strauss. Charlie writes a progress
report almost every day, in his first progress report he wrote almost everything incorrectly.
Before getting smart, Charlie was given different tests like what images he sees on inkblots
and a race with a mouse named Algernon, a mouse that is 3 times smarter than a regular
mouse. Dr. Struss and Dr. Nemur are researchers and in their experiment, they were going
to use Charlie as the first human being to become 3 times smarter surgically. Charlie’s
surgery went successfully and after a few days or weeks he began to show progress, he
even understands how his friends make fun of him, namely Joe Carp and Frank Reilly and
fall in love with his teacher named Miss Kinnian. Charlie started to notice what was
happening to Algernon as he began to act differently. Charlie eventually found the flaw in
the experiment which he calls the Algernon-Gordon Effect and Algernon died. In Charlie’s
progress report he starts to have some regression too like, not understanding a book, can’t
remember where he lived, and having bad headaches. Charlie began not to receive his
paychecks and started running out of money to pay his rent, his Teacher Miss Kinnian come
by but was turned away, so she paid his rent to Mrs. Flynn his landlady, because of this
Charlie come back to his work which is a janitor in Donnegans Plastic Box Company. On July
28th he began to fall and went to Miss Kinnian’s class. He began to realize everything and
decided to live in New York for good and learn.
Guide Questions (Answers):

The protagonist and author of the progress reports that comprise the story Flowers
for Algernon. He is a 32-year-old intellectually handicapped man from New York City. At the
beginning of the novel, Charlie works as a janitor and delivery boy at Donner's Bakery.
Charlie was the hardest-working student in Alice Kinnian's literacy class for intellectually
imposed persons due to his warmth and drive to please, as well as his early emotions of
inadequacy. Alice Kinnian, also known as Miss Kinnian, is Charlie's Beekman College Center
for Retarded Adults teacher. Alice first recommends Charlie for the experimental procedure
because she admires his motivation. Although she is not one of the individuals who conduct
experiments on Charlie, she behaves as an unofficial part of the team out of care for him.
She enjoys academic endeavors but is ultimately motivated by emotion. Charlie finds love
and contentment with Alice for a brief amount of time. The experts who conducted the
experiment on Charlie were Professor Nemur and Dr. Strauss. Dr. Strauss is the neurologist
and psychiatrist carrying out the experimental procedure that increases Charlie's IQ,
and Nemur's experiment partner. Following the operation, Dr. Strauss conducts therapy
sessions with Charlie. Dr. Strauss, unlike Nemur, remains interested in and concerned about
Charlie's emotional development. Now, Professor Nemur was presented as the scientist in
charge of the experiment. Nemur, an egotistical and career-obsessed guy, treats Charlie as if
he were a laboratory animal rather than a human being. Nemur frequently implies that he
created Charlie as if his mentally challenged patient is not a human being. Nemur is
bothered by his wife, who appears to be more obsessed with his work than he is.

One of the most important characters I saw in this story is the Algernon, the white
mouse that is the first successful test subject for Charlie's later experimental procedure.
The procedure makes Algernon three times smarter than a normal mouse and allows him
to tackle intricate challenges. Charlie also treated Algernon as his friend. Speaking of
friends, three people were presented as Charlie’s so-called friends; Gimpy, Frank Reilly and
Joe Carp. They were Donner's Bakery employees who frequently made fun of Charlie. They
often pull shenanigans on Charlie and make him the butt of their jokes. Frank and Joe, on
the other hand, consider themselves Charlie's buddies and protect him when others make
fun of him. Lastly, two unexpected characters were also introduced, Fanny Girden and the
new dishwasher, a 16-year-old boy. Fanny was the only bakery employee who is
consistently nice to Charlie. Fanny does not like to see the others pick on Charlie because of
his disability. Meanwhile, the new dishwasher is the boy wherein Charlie saw himself. Like
Charlie before, this teenage boy also has low intelligence. Charlie saw him being taken
advantage of by other people, and that’s where Charlie realized what he was before, Charlie
said in his progress report “Looking at that boy, for the first time I saw what I had been. I
was just like him!”. So, he stood up for the teenage boy and defended him from the people
that bullied him.

The writer's presentation of Charlie's progress reports demonstrated how much he

improved and how the plot progressed. It was about what we loved and disliked about it.
Charlie's writing, spelling, grammar, and general intelligence improved dramatically after
the operation; he was no longer the butt of every joke his "friends" told. He evolved into an
intelligent individual. Charlie used to write incorrectly at the beginning of the story,
contrasted to how he wrote after the operation. We were overjoyed that he was making
progress and that his dreams of becoming intelligent had come true. It slowly regressed
after Algernon demonstrated the operation's negative effects and it died. Charlie knew that
eventually he would return to where he was before. It broke our hearts that Charlie was
able to reach his dream, but it was only a short time in paradise as he slowly returned to the
way he wrote before he left for New York. The primary reason that writing style is
important is consistency. Book and magazine publishers want readers to have a consistent
experience, even if the content was created by many authors or over a long period. That is
exactly what the author, Daniel Keyes, did; he is steady in his writing style, which is why
most of the readers enjoyed this short story.

I saw three main themes in the story: the purpose of intelligence in human
relationships, wisdom vs. Intelligence and Morality, and Friendship. The short story mainly
evolves on these three themes. Since Charlie's social self-suffers as both a low-intelligence
and a high-intelligence individual. Charlie anticipates that improved intelligence will please
and expand the number of friends he has. He is not prepared for the changes in his
friendships caused by his increased intelligence, nor is he prepared for the changes in
himself. The author, Keyes, also establishes a tradeoff between intelligence and happiness,
and at the same time makes a different point about the relationship between intelligence
and wisdom. Flowers for Algernon tells us that our humanity is assessed not by our
intelligence but by our kindness, love, and relationship with others. It teaches us that
intelligence is not the only essential thing in life and that intelligence does not define who
you are. Another essential lesson I learned from this short story is that we must help those
in need, especially individuals like Charlie, and not take advantage of or mock them. We
must help them and recognize their worth because, even though they are like that, they still
have feelings as well.

One aspect of the narrative that I loved was how it let us see the situations of people
with low intelligence levels. How people like Charlie (who was not yet intelligent)
struggled, and how they were mistreated and used. I enjoy how the author portrays how
people like Charlie feel. As I previously stated, we can gain a lot of valuable insights  from
this narrative, which I really admired because the story was able to portray our society as a
whole. The story also depicts how human and animal testing was carried out. Which I did
not like, the story shows how humans were actually used in experiments, and the worst
part is that most of the people they used were people with disabilities. People like Professor
Nemur frequently take advantage of individuals like Charlie, and what I hate about that is
that they take full credit and pretend as if they're God because they created something new.
On the other hand, the story was fascinating and eye-opening in general. I believe this text
reflected our society by how most of us treat mentally incapable people. It shows how
different people treat them. For instance, Professor Nemur reflected on the people who take
advantage of low-intelligent individuals in our society, same as the so-called friends of
Charlie, Frank Reilly, and Joe Carp, how they make fun of a person who cannot fully defend
themselves. Meanwhile, other characters like Miss Kinnian and Fanny Girden reflected
some people who care about individuals like Charlie Gordon. These kinds of stories are
important because it reflects our society a lot, from science experiments, bullying, a man
playing God, and more.