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Flowers For Algernon Research Paper

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What would happen if it were possible to increase a person's intelligence? According to his autobiography, Algernon, Charlie, and I: A Writer's Journey, that was the question a college-aged Daniel Keyes, the author of Flowers for Algernon, asked himself one crisp April morning as he boarded the train to school (17). That same thought would then blossom into his critically-acclaimed story Flowers for Algernon, which was developed into a full length novel, a television feature, a movie, and a musical (Slotnik). However, Keyes did not create this story in a vacuum. There are many events in his life that aided his journey to becoming a writer. These, events, therefore, can be found in his stories, including Flowers for Algernon. Keyes' experience …show more content…

He obtained the job after going to college at Brooklyn University ( “Flowers,” Novels 45). At his new job, Keyes taught creative writing, as well as two classes of special modified English for low I.Q. students. According to Literature and its Times, it was during this period that Keyes wrote the first draft of Flowers for Algernon (151). However Keyes had trouble figuring out how to portray his main character. The idea for Charlie Gordon came from a student in Keyes' class. While he was teaching one of his modified classes, one of his students asked him, “If I [try] hard and I get smart by the end of the term, will you put me in a regular class? I want to be smart” (Keyes, Algernon 98). With that question, the boy in Keyes' class opened his teacher's eyes to possibilities he never thought before. It was at this moment that Keyes realized that a developmentally challenged person could be aware of their limitations and might want to be more intelligent. He connected this idea with the question he had so many years ago: What would happen if it were possible to increase a person's intelligence? Keyes' answer to this question was Flowers for Algernon. Various parts of Flowers for Algernon allude to Keyes' young student, and support that fact that he influenced Daniel

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