Operation In Daniel Keyes Flowers For Algernon

Intelligence is something that everyone has in some sort of way, but some people may have more than others. In the story, “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes, Charlie Gordon isn’t necessarily the brightest person you’ll meet. He has a chance though to achieve his dream and become smart, but some risks may be involved with having the operation. Either way he would have chosen to go, he still may have not been happy with his decision. Charlie shouldn’t have had the operation for many reasons though. One of the reasons why he shouldn’t have had the operation is because later on, he ended up going back to where he was or maybe even worse than he was before the operation. Before the operation, he didn’t know how to use spelling or punctuation correctly. For example, “Dr. Strauss says I shud rite down what I think that happins to me from now on.” (Keyes, 53) He also had trouble even noticing what certain pictures were that others could see clearly what the …show more content…
People became upset with him at work and decided they didn’t want to be working around Charlie anymore just because they were jealous. The text says, “They’ve driven me out of the factory. Now, I’m more alone than ever before…” (Keyes, 72) He also ended up having no money because he had no job, and was basically becoming mentally unstable. He was afraid to go back and find another job though because he has a fear of being made fun of again because he is no longer intelligent. The story states, “I have no more money and Mrs Flynn says I got to go to work somewhere and pay the rent because I havent paid for over two months…. I dont want to go back there because they all knew me when I was smart and maybe they’ll laugh at me.” (Keyes, 83) Charlie doesn’t quite know what to do with himself now that he has talked to so many people while he was intelligent, and is afraid that he will just get made fun of all over