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“Flowers for Algernon”, a short story by Daniel Keyes, is about an unintelligent man named Charlie Gordon anda little white mouse named Algernon. What makes this story interesting, is that Charlie is being tested with and studied to become more intelligent. They give him a surgery to make that happen. The scientists then have him do activities against the mouse, who had the same surgery, to see how the treatment affects Charlie's intelligence on a daily basis. The treatment works for a while, but then everything goes downhill and Charlie’s and Algernon’s minds start to deteriorate. Throughout Charlie’s journey, the people in his life treat him differently depending on what his intelligence level is at, and they treat each other in certain ways depending on where they are at in society. Because of the way those people were raised and taught, they don’t realize their actions are wrong. The author uses this to show us that we should treat others equally no matter their intelligence or the way they act. From the very beginning of the story, you can tell the people are treating each other unequally. The people in the story were all treating Charlie in some way, sometimes good, others bad. Charlie’s so called friends treat him like a friend sometimes, but bully and mock him the rest of the time. When he is finally smart enough to see that, they have already done damage. As the story continues, we find that after Charlie’s mind starts to deteriorate, his “friends” he had, started to treat him like a real friend. Because of Charlie’s intelligence level, Joe Carp comes over to Charlie, sticks up for him, and says “...leave him alone you lousy cracker or I’ll break your neck.” Frank Reilly also comes up to Charlie and says to him, “...if anybody bothers you or tries to take advantage of you call me or Joe and we will set em straight.” At this point, Charlie’s mind is super deteriorated, and his friends start to realize that treating others equally isn’t the worst idea ever. Miss. Kinnian, Dr. Strauss, and Dr. Nemur treat him equally until the very end. There may be a few points where they pity him, or get frustrated with him, nut the way they treat him is always the same as they treat everybody else. The people that are in the story treat him many different ways. Such as, they treat him like a dope, like an equal, they make fun of him, they accept him, or they completely ignore him. They treated each other unequal, then something good or bad happened, and the characters treated each other either a little less equally or a little more. Although, Charlie is the victim in this story, there are times he doesn’t treat others equally, and doesn’t react in the best way when people treat him unequally. The mouse being tested with Charlie, was being treated wrongly by Charlie for how smart he is. Daniel Keyes shows how Algernon is being treated unequally because of his intelligence, by showing Charlie’s point of view of the mouses intelligence. As stated by Charlie, “I hate that mouse. He always beats me.” At that time Charlie is getting frustrated with how much the mouse is beating him and by how smart it is. It shows how just because Charlie is truly a nice person, everybody has to think about treating others equally no matter their intelligence, because things might change. When Charlie is being treated unequally, he just lets it happen. As the story progresses, Charlie starts to stand up for himself, but not as much as he should.
Charlie doesn’t realize he is being treated unequally, and doesn’t react as he should. As Keyes says “ That made me laff. Their really my friends and they like me.” Before this, his “friends” were talking about where he had his operation and Joe Carp said, “...what did they do Charlie put some brains in.” Frank Reilly said, “...forget your key and open your door the hard way.” This could be interpreted as judging him, but it actually shows him being treated unequally because Frank and Joe treat others equally, they just want to be mean to Charlie. Charlie shows theme in a good way. He treats everyone equally and doesn’t care what they do or how they look, it’s his reaction to what is done to him that shows part of the theme. Charlie shows how treating others equally pays off. If the characters would have been able to treat each other equally, all of the hurt and bad stuff that happened could have been avoided. Keyes uses figurative language to make the story come together. He uses imagery in the statement, “I put flower on Algernon’s grave about once a week.” He uses the flowers as imagery to show how much Algernon meant to Charlie and to show how much the simple things in life are needed. It applies to the theme to show how the mouse is being treated equally by Charlie. Keyes also uses repetition with the comment of Charlie’s “lucky rabbit’s foot” whenever Charlie is going to something important, wants something good to happen, or just wants to be lucky for once. It is used to create theme in showing it doesn’t matter his intelligence, he still knows what other things do for him just like other people. The fact that he treats unhuman objects like humans and with respect shows how equal and intelligent he truly is. The third piece of figurative language Keyes uses is an analogy. The analogy of “A child may not know how to feed itself, or what to eat, yet is knows of hunger.”, makes a big point in the story. The way it is structured makes it stick in your head. It compares to the topic of the story in the reasoning of, Charlie wants to be smarter, but he doesn’t know how to become smarter. That shows he is intelligent in his own way, and that he should be treated equally like everybody else. At the end of the story as Charlie’s mind is deteriorating, he realizes that in order to finish the study, he needs to do it himself and cooperate completely. Once other people realize that he is almost dead, they start to treat him more equally, and even go as far as feeling sorry for him. They soon realize how stupid they were to do those things and try to fix it by being super equal to him. Because, they realized too late they wasn’t much they could do to fix how they treated him. Charlie, unsure of what to do as he is dying, writes a farewell letter to everybody and says goodbye. It shows him treating everybody equally until the very end. So, clearly the theme of this short story is treating each other equally no matter what their intelligence level is at, and no matter what they act like.
“Flowers for Algernon”, a short story by Daniel Keyes, is about an unintelligent man named Charlie Gordon anda little white mouse named Algernon. What makes this story interesting, is that Charlie is being tested with and studied to become more intelligent. They give him a surgery to make that happen. The scientists then have him do activities against the mouse, who had the same surgery, to see how the treatment affects Charlie's intelligence on a daily basis. The treatment works for a while, but then everything goes downhill and Charlie’s and Algernon’s minds start to deteriorate. Throughout Charlie’s journey, the people in his life treat him differently depending on what his intelligence level is at, and they treat each other in certain ways depending on where they are at in society. Because of the way those people were raised and taught, they don’t realize their actions are wrong. The author uses this to show us that we should treat others equally no matter their intelligence or the way they act.
ReplyDeleteFrom the very beginning of the story, you can tell the people are treating each other unequally. The people in the story were all treating Charlie in some way, sometimes good, others bad. Charlie’s so called friends treat him like a friend sometimes, but bully and mock him the rest of the time. When he is finally smart enough to see that, they have already done damage. As the story continues, we find that after Charlie’s mind starts to deteriorate, his “friends” he had, started to treat him like a real friend. Because of Charlie’s intelligence level, Joe Carp comes over to Charlie, sticks up for him, and says “...leave him alone you lousy cracker or I’ll break your neck.” Frank Reilly also comes up to Charlie and says to him, “...if anybody bothers you or tries to take advantage of you call me or Joe and we will set em straight.” At this point, Charlie’s mind is super deteriorated, and his friends start to realize that treating others equally isn’t the worst idea ever.
Miss. Kinnian, Dr. Strauss, and Dr. Nemur treat him equally until the very end. There may be a few points where they pity him, or get frustrated with him, nut the way they treat him is always the same as they treat everybody else. The people that are in the story treat him many different ways. Such as, they treat him like a dope, like an equal, they make fun of him, they accept him, or they completely ignore him. They treated each other unequal, then something good or bad happened, and the characters treated each other either a little less equally or a little more.
Although, Charlie is the victim in this story, there are times he doesn’t treat others equally, and doesn’t react in the best way when people treat him unequally. The mouse being tested with Charlie, was being treated wrongly by Charlie for how smart he is. Daniel Keyes shows how Algernon is being treated unequally because of his intelligence, by showing Charlie’s point of view of the mouses intelligence. As stated by Charlie, “I hate that mouse. He always beats me.” At that time Charlie is getting frustrated with how much the mouse is beating him and by how smart it is. It shows how just because Charlie is truly a nice person, everybody has to think about treating others equally no matter their intelligence, because things might change. When Charlie is being treated unequally, he just lets it happen. As the story progresses, Charlie starts to stand up for himself, but not as much as he should.
Charlie doesn’t realize he is being treated unequally, and doesn’t react as he should. As Keyes says “ That made me laff. Their really my friends and they like me.” Before this, his “friends” were talking about where he had his operation and Joe Carp said, “...what did they do Charlie put some brains in.” Frank Reilly said, “...forget your key and open your door the hard way.” This could be interpreted as judging him, but it actually shows him being treated unequally because Frank and Joe treat others equally, they just want to be mean to Charlie. Charlie shows theme in a good way. He treats everyone equally and doesn’t care what they do or how they look, it’s his reaction to what is done to him that shows part of the theme. Charlie shows how treating others equally pays off.
ReplyDeleteIf the characters would have been able to treat each other equally, all of the hurt and bad stuff that happened could have been avoided. Keyes uses figurative language to make the story come together. He uses imagery in the statement, “I put flower on Algernon’s grave about once a week.” He uses the flowers as imagery to show how much Algernon meant to Charlie and to show how much the simple things in life are needed. It applies to the theme to show how the mouse is being treated equally by Charlie. Keyes also uses repetition with the comment of Charlie’s “lucky rabbit’s foot” whenever Charlie is going to something important, wants something good to happen, or just wants to be lucky for once. It is used to create theme in showing it doesn’t matter his intelligence, he still knows what other things do for him just like other people. The fact that he treats unhuman objects like humans and with respect shows how equal and intelligent he truly is.
The third piece of figurative language Keyes uses is an analogy. The analogy of “A child may not know how to feed itself, or what to eat, yet is knows of hunger.”, makes a big point in the story. The way it is structured makes it stick in your head. It compares to the topic of the story in the reasoning of, Charlie wants to be smarter, but he doesn’t know how to become smarter. That shows he is intelligent in his own way, and that he should be treated equally like everybody else.
At the end of the story as Charlie’s mind is deteriorating, he realizes that in order to finish the study, he needs to do it himself and cooperate completely. Once other people realize that he is almost dead, they start to treat him more equally, and even go as far as feeling sorry for him. They soon realize how stupid they were to do those things and try to fix it by being super equal to him. Because, they realized too late they wasn’t much they could do to fix how they treated him. Charlie, unsure of what to do as he is dying, writes a farewell letter to everybody and says goodbye. It shows him treating everybody equally until the very end. So, clearly the theme of this short story is treating each other equally no matter what their intelligence level is at, and no matter what they act like.