Flowers For Algernon Essay, Research Paper

The book Flowers for Algernon takes place in the United States of America in the city of New York. A good deal of this book takes place in Professor Nemur?s lab. The reason much of the story takes place here is because it is the place where the experiments take place. The rest of the story happens in multiple places. Charlie?s apartment is one consistently visited setting. Donner?s Bakery, where Charlie works, is another.

This book features many colorful characters, the main one being Charlie. His full name is Charles Gordon. He is 32 years old and is the subject of an experiment. Part of his job in the experiment is to write down progress reports and a good portion of the book is made up by these reports. Another one of the main characters in the story is Professor Nemur, the man who is running the experiment. Charlie has mixed feelings about the Professor because some of the tests confuse him. The title character, surprisingly, is a mouse. Algernon has already had the experiment done on him. Charlie had to race Algernon through a maze on various occasions throughout the story in order to see how he is progressing. The rest of the characters aren?t in the story as often but are still important. Alice Kinnian is a teacher at Beekman College where Charlie writes his compositions. Fay is Charlie?s neighbor and an artist.

Basically, the book is in most parts a series of progress reports. At the very beginning of the story Charlie is obviously mentally challenged. He has many spelling mistakes and doesn?t always make sense. He would often get frustrated with the test Professor Nemur told him he had to take, especially the one he had to pass to make him eligible for the experiment. He soon passed the test and was eligible. A short while after this we meet Algernon for the first time. Charlie has to go against him in a maze and seems to always lose, which makes him angry at first but he realizes he is still learning. Once Charlie does finally beat the mouse he feels bad and gives Algernon the cheese anyway. During this time Charlie also has to go through a series of inkblot test which confuse him even more because he feel that he isn?t seeing something that he should.

We also find out a little about Charlie?s personal life to during this part of the book. He works at Donner?s Bakery with a bunch of guys that he thinks are his friends. Sadly they are only making fun of him. They do things like take him to parties or pull pranks on him just to laugh at him. Charlie doesn?t know they are making fun of him at first but he finds out later.

When Charlie finally gets ready to have the surgery done he is again quite nervous. He has to go into a room with a bunch of doctors in it and this makes him nervous. Once the surgery is finished Charlie is at first disappointed because he didn?t see any immediate results. Professor Nemur tells him to remain patient, that the test wouldn?t have immediate results but would make him be able to learn with less effort. Around this time Charlie is also advised to write down anything he dreams about because it may help him remember his childhood. Another piece of advise he gets is to watch TV for a while before he goes to sleep in order to increase his imagination.

Finally, Charlie starts seeing some results and he gets to a point where he is quite intelligent. He has learned a lot thanks to the surgery, including other languages. Professor Nemur is satisfied with the outcome and decides to take Charlie along with him to New York where they plan to discuss the experiment at a convention. Around this time Algernon escapes from his cage. Eventually Charlie finds him and decides to keep him. He buys an apartment for Algernon and himself. This is where he meets Fay, his neighbor from across the hall. She is an artist and she thought that the maze with Algernon in it was quite creative because it was sculpture with a living element in it.

After a while Algernon?s intelligence begins to fade away. Charlie could see that the mouse was having trouble going through the maze, which he went through with ease before. In an attempt to save Algernon Charlie brings him back to Professor Nemur?s lab. Things got bad because the mouse just wouldn?t eat. Sadly, Algernon dies because of this. After seeing what happened Charlie decided to write the ?Algernon-Gordon Effect? about how the intelligence wears off over time.

Charlie decides to go visit his mother since he hadn?t seen her for a very long time. See it quite surprised with seeing him and even more surprised that he is so intelligent. She almost doesn?t even believe it.

As was expected, Charlie?s intelligence also wears off after a while. He started noticing things going wrong, for instance he forgot the many languages he had learned and began having trouble even with English again. As a result of this he went back to the professors lab. It didn?t take long and he was back to the way he was long before he ever had the surgery done. Of all the things he forgot he did remember one thing, to put flowers on Algernon?s grave

I liked a lot of parts in this book. If I had to pick a favorite though it would be the end when they say that he remembered to put flowers on Algernon?s grave. It was one of those lines that you remember for a long time. I also like how the line refers back to an earlier point in the book so if you read the book thoroughly then you are rewarded with being able to understand the ending well.

I would have to stay that what I learned from this book is that having smarts doesn?t mean happiness. As a matter of fact it means pretty much the opposite. It isn?t as much having smarts but what comes with it, being serious. Charlie seemed like a person who was content with who he was before the surgery. However after the surgery, and even to a higher degree after his intelligence wore off, Charlie seemed to be feeling worse than ever before because he saw what he could have. I think the story teaches you to just be content with who you are.