Charlie Gordon's Characterization In Daniel Keyes Flowers For Algernon

With knowledge comes power, yet with ignorance comes bliss. Generation after generation, our drive to become well rounded intellectuals and functioning people of society has allowed us to become knowledge hungry. Through this perceptual lens, the author of ‘Flowers for Algernon’, Daniel Keyes, shows the pitfalls of intellectual drive and the power of ignorance through the book’s main character, Charlie Gordon. Charlie, a mentally handicapped man, wants to become intelligent and accepted and is placed into a scientific study where he receives an operation that allows him to acquire knowledge. Throughout the book, Charlie writes progress reports that show how his new intelligence brings him to isolation, a negative outlook on life, and intellectual prejudice. These concepts …show more content…
As Charlie’s intelligence levels reach new heights, his ego rises far above what he displayed pre-operation and he begins to show prejudices similar to that of what people showed him. While eating alone, Charlie encounters a young man similar to himself prior to the operation. Although later defending him, Charlie laughs at the boy due to his poor intellectual state, “Only a short time ago, I learned that people laughed at me. Now I can see that unknowingly I joined them in laughing at myself.” (199). His rise in intellectual ego also shows during his encounter with people at a party. At the party, Charlie began to call people he worked with and people he encountered frauds and phonies, “ Frauds - [Nemur and Strauss]. They had pretended to be geniuses. But they were just ordinary men working blindly, pretending to be able to bring light into the darkness.” (150). This idea of intellectual prejudice contrasted drastically from the god-like idea that Charlie formed in his mind of the scientists prior to his operation, showing that his ignorance proved to be beneficial to those he faced as