Charlie’s reflections: A literary analysis of structure, theme, character, and style.
In this essay, I critically explore a structure, theme, character, and style of Flowers for Algernon (1959) by Daniel Keyes with an intent to prove why it is written in a form of a reflective journal. The main protagonist, Charlie Gordon, wrote about his personal experience with an experimental surgical research that attempted to increase his intelligence quotient (IQ). As a result of this research-based intervention, Charlie's IQ was successfully tripled. Likewise, the same experiment was conducted on a laboratory mouse, Algernon. The structure of the novel is a narrative style that helps the author intentionally represent Charlie's inner transformations through his reflective journal. These reflections are written from a first person perspective and contain multiple spelling and grammatical mistakes at the beginning that allow the reader to see Charlie's poor apprehension of language conventions. Through the course of the experiment, Charlie records his progress report in these reflections and overtime improves his spelling. Therefore, one of the main …show more content…
The dominant voice renders him powerless and weak, mentally retarded and sick. At the beginning of the novel, he is portrayed as a marginal adult student who lacks psychological and intellectual development. He can be used for the experiment. In his reflections at the beginning, he wrote about his faith in the experiment, “I hope they use me because Miss Kinnian says maybe they can make me smart” (1). There is an assumption that people can be made smart through science and not through their own conscious growth and development. Consequently, he becomes a subject of a scientific experimentation that extends far beyond the surgery. This experimentation becomes his lifelong
In this essay, I critically explore a structure, theme, character, and style of Flowers for Algernon (1959) by Daniel Keyes with an intent to prove why it is written in a form of a reflective journal. The main protagonist, Charlie Gordon, wrote about his personal experience with an experimental surgical research that attempted to increase his intelligence quotient (IQ). As a result of this research-based intervention, Charlie's IQ was successfully tripled. Likewise, the same experiment was conducted on a laboratory mouse, Algernon. The structure of the novel is a narrative style that helps the author intentionally represent Charlie's inner transformations through his reflective journal. These reflections are written from a first person perspective and contain multiple spelling and grammatical mistakes at the beginning that allow the reader to see Charlie's poor apprehension of language conventions. Through the course of the experiment, Charlie records his progress report in these reflections and overtime improves his spelling. Therefore, one of the main …show more content…
The dominant voice renders him powerless and weak, mentally retarded and sick. At the beginning of the novel, he is portrayed as a marginal adult student who lacks psychological and intellectual development. He can be used for the experiment. In his reflections at the beginning, he wrote about his faith in the experiment, “I hope they use me because Miss Kinnian says maybe they can make me smart” (1). There is an assumption that people can be made smart through science and not through their own conscious growth and development. Consequently, he becomes a subject of a scientific experimentation that extends far beyond the surgery. This experimentation becomes his lifelong