Mental Retardation In Flowers For Algernon

During a 1990 census, it was said that about 6.3 million people to 7.5 million people are affected by mental retardation. Charlie Gordon, who is the main character in Flowers for Algernon, was severely affected by mental retardation. In the novel Daniel Keyes, the author, wrote an inspiring story about a man who was born mentally retarded and his journey to become smarter. Throughout his whole life, he had wanted to be smart and he was told multiple times that he would never be able to become an intelligent human being. However, when he was thirty two years old, he had an operation done to make him smarter. Still, his intelligence didn’t last long: his intelligence started to deteriorate and he went back to being his retarded self. Throughout …show more content…
This is especially true for Charlie. Once he started to remember his past after the operation, it is easy to see that the past had a huge impact on Charlie and his view on certain topics. Many of the memories that affected Charlie significantly had to with mother. For example, when he was a child, he was very curious, especially when it came to his sister. It’s not like he wanted to do things with her, it was more like he wanted to know more about her. One day, he had accidently looked in on his sister bathing. He confused about why his sister did not have a penis and wondered if something was wrong with her. When his mother found out, she beat him saying that he did not want her son to grow up with the idea of sex in his mind and taking advantage of a woman’s body. Because of this memory, Charlie had been scared to make love to Alice because then he “old Charlie” would panic. Also, there was the memory of his mother and his father arguing on whether to take Charlie to the Warren Home where he could be with people like him or keep him. He especially remembers the part at which his mother took a knife and cut his father. Finally, his parents agreed to take Charlie to his Uncle Herman until they had a solution. This had affected him because this one memory, plus many others, had caused his brain to invent nightmares based on his thoughts. These nightmares caused him to …show more content…
Charlie Gordon and many others, because of a harsh past, can be affected in some of the most negative ways. Also, people should not prejudge someone without truly knowing them because they do not know what they have gone through and what they had to deal with in the past. Lastly, people should be treated with dignity and respect because we are all human beings and have feelings and emotions; not being treated respectfully can have a negative impact on someone personally. Truly, life is raucous. Carolina Herrera said, “Life is hard… but you have to learn how to