Communication In Flowers For Algernon By Daniel Keyes

Flowers for Algernon is a short story by American author by name Daniel Keyes. Flowers for Algernon follows a mentally disabled man, Charlie Gorden whose wish is to just finally become smart. Charlie gets his wish and goes through the ups and downs of his operation that would triple his current IQ. After this opportunity Charlie does get his wish of becoming intelligent but it comes with a price. He eventually becomes worse than he was before the operation.

After Charlie’s intelligence increased he started to find it hard to communicate with those around him. In the short story Charlie states in one of his progress reports on page 369 “No matter what i try to discuss with her, I am unable to communicate.” This quote from the story shows how Charlie’s acknowledges how he now cannot communicate with average people. Before the surgery Charlie wasn’t able to communicate well either, First he was too dumb to ‘understand’ now he’s too smart to communicate.

Now that he’s able to understand he would realize that all that time they were making fun of him and that he would too start to become the bully. There’s two main pieces of evidence from “Flowers for Algernon” that can support this. On page 367 Before, they laughed at me and despised me for my ignorance and dullness; now, they hate me for my knowledge and understanding. Also on page 370, “ Now I can see that unknowingly l joined with them in laughing at myself. That hurts most of all.” These quotes from the text shows how Charlie’s not only upset at his “friends” but also at himself for now he started to become just like those