Flowers for Algernon (Tim Pchelka) (Mic Boyer)

Title: Flowers for Algernon
Author: Daniel Keyes
Publisher: Bantam Books
Pages: 216
Where I found the book: Borrowed from my cousin

Brief Summary: This book is all written from Charlie’s, the main character’s, point of view. He writes the whole book in “progress reports” and talks about his whole life during his operation. He is a mentally challenged man who has a very low IQ. He then meets a group of scientists and doctors who are willing to do an experiment on him in order to increase his IQ. This operation has been done only once but on a small mouse named Algernon. So he is the first person to contribute to science by letting the doctors do this operation. After the operation was done, Charlie begins to gain knowledge slowly over time. You can even see that in his progress reports by the way he writes them compared to before. Eventually, Charlie becomes the world’s smartest man and knows so many things that people get jealous of him and begin to hate him even more than before. But something begins to go wrong and Charlie’s IQ begins to decrease again.

Audience of the book: I believe Daniel Keyes wrote this book to mostly teenagers and older people because there are some parts which require maturity.

Author’s writing style: The author writes this book from the main character’s point of view. The main character writes it in journals describing his life and everything that goes on.
“progris riport 1 martch 3

Dr Strauss says I shoud rite down what I think and remember and every thing that happins to me from now on.” (Keyes 1)

3 Passages that struck me:
1) “I dint know what he was gonna do and I was holding on tite to the chair like sometimes when I go to a dentist onley Burt aint no dentist neither but he kept telling me to relax and that gets me skared because it always mean its gonna hert.” (Keyes 2)
I found this passage interesting because it shows how an adult has the emotions of a little kid and he has the same exact fears as a little child would.

2) “We had a lot of fun at the bakery today. Joe Carp said hey look where Charlie had his operashun what did they do Charlie put some brains in.” (Keyes 16)
This quote really struck me because before Charlie’s IQ increased, he always thought his coworkers were laughing along with him. But in reality, they were making fun of him and Charlie didn’t understand that, so he laughed along with them.

3) “He’s normal! He’s normal! He’ll grow up like other people. Better than others. She was trying to scratch the teacher, but Dad was holding her back.” (Keyes 50)
This quote really struck me because it showed how her mom was trying very hard to help Charlie become smarter. But his dad, on the other hand, didn’t support her as much.

How I interacted with the book: After reading this book, I realized how much carelessness we have toward people with mental disabilities. We often don’t noticed, but we stereotype and say things about them without realizing how much we hurt them. In this book, Daniel Keyes really shows these problems and the realities of our world today. Also, after reading this book, I suggested it to a few other people and they really loved this book too!

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Title: Flowers for Algernon
Author: Daniel Keyes
Publisher: Bantam Books
Pages: 216
Where I found the book: My mom threw it into my room one day.

Brief Summary: This book is all written in “progress reports” from Charlie’s, the main character. The whole book is about his struggles through before and after an operation to fix his mental retardation. Charlie has a very low IQ and he wishes to be smarter. He then meets a group of scientists and doctors who are willing to experiment on him in order to increase his IQ. The operation has been done only once before on a small mouse named Algernon, who shows extreme intelligence. After the operation was done, Charlie begins to gain knowledge slowly over time. Eventually, Charlie becomes the world’s smartest man and knows so many things that people become jealous of him and begin to hate him even more than before. But once something begins to go wrong with Algernon, then Charlie realizes something is going to go wrong. His IQ begins to decrease and people begin to feel bad for him because this means he wont make it.

Audience of the book: the audience of this book is for mature adults. Not only for mature content, but there are also bigger words that are hard to follow.

Author’s writing style: The writing style of this book is a journal entry.
“progris riport 1 martch 3

Dr Strauss says I shoud rite down what I think and remember and every thing that happins to me from now on.” (Keyes 1)

3 Passages :
1) “I dint know what he was gonna do and I was holding on tite to the chair like sometimes when I go to a dentist onley Burt aint no dentist neither but he kept telling me to relax and that gets me skared because it always mean its gonna hert.” (Keyes 2)
I chose this passage because it shows how Charlie is before the operation. It also shows how his intelligence level is that of a five year old.

2) “Somehow I’ve become separated emotionally from everyone and everything. And what I was really searching for out there in the dark streets—the last damned place I could ever find it—was a way to mae myself a part of people emotionally, while still retaining my freedom intellectually. I’ve got to grow up. For me it means everything….” (Keyes202)
I chose this quote because it shows how even though Charlie had got what he wanted, he still had to struggle.
3) “I was looking at some of my old progress reports and its very strange but I cant read what I wrote. I can make out some of the words but they don’t make sense”” (Keyes 306)
I chose this quote because it shows how Charlie’s mind begins to deteriorate. This is when he begins to realize that his intellect is not perminant.

How I interacted with the book: This book, although it was fiction, was a real eye opener. I enjoyed to read Charlie’s progress throughout the book. This novel made me think of all the future disabilities that science could possibly overcome and also how controversial it would be. I think that this book’s lesson is to appreciate what you have and accept what you do not have. Overall this book was awesome. Reading the journals made the read feel more real life. It felt like it was an actual persons writing.