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Analyzing Daniel Keyes 'Flowers For Algernon'

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Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes is about a mentally disabled man that went through an experiment to make him smart. Charlie Gordan started off as a clumsy and unintelligent man. His goal in life was to become the opposite of what he was. He then had the opportunity to become a more intelligent man by becoming a test subject for a surgery that is supposed to make anyone become smart in an instant. Little did he know that the experiment could ruin his whole life. After the surgery was completed, Charlie did become smarter but he also started to become aware of what his “friends” actually thought of him. Because of this, Charlie felt more insecure, embarrassed, and ashamed of what he used to be like. If the doctors warned Charlie about the side effects or if he never agreed to doing the experiment, he would've been way better than how he was after the experiment. …show more content…

Strauss and Dr. Nemur should’ve notified Charlie about the dangers of the experiment before Charlie gave his “consent”. In the book, it was heavily implied that Charlie had a very low IQ and was unintelligent. It seemed as if Charlie couldn’t really give his actual consent due to this. Also, the doctors and Miss Kinnian didn’t explain very well to Charlie about what would happen to him during and after the experiment. In the book they only notified him once about the dangers of the experiment. “They said you know it will probably be tempirery. I said yes. Miss Kinnian told me. I dont care if it herts.” (Charlie, pg. 286) With Charlie’s very low IQ and him saying he doesn’t care if the experiment hurts, he most likely didn’t even know what temporary meant and just assumed that they were talking about how the experiment would hurt physically. With Miss Kinnian, Dr. Nemur, and Dr. Strauss knowing Charlie wasn’t a smart person, they should’ve explained to him in a way Charlie would understand that the experiment had a chance of not

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