Why Is Flowers For Algernon Unethical

The idea of human experimentation has existed throughout hundreds, and even thousands of years. Whether people believe that these procedures are ethical or not, they will continue to happen. According to Motilal Chandu Tayade, “In clinical practice performing surgical procedure is inconsistent because all surgical procedures carry definitely some degree of risk. Worldwide every year millions of patients go under knife, but many of them are enduring great pain and shelling out thousands and dollars for surgeries they don’t really need”. Flowers for Algernon is a novel by Daniel Keyes exploring the life of Charlie Gordon. He was born with a abnormally low IQ, but then he has been chosen for an experimental surgery. The surgery is supposed to raise his IQ greatly, just as it worked on a mouse named Algernon. Throughout the book, Charlie goes through life with his ups and downs, with an unexpected ending. Further, the surgery performed on Charlie Gordon could be considered ethical or not. Overall, Daniel Keyes presents the surgery as unethical for many reasons.

The first scene that proves my thesis is in progress report 8, Charlie explains how he is out of the hospital. He mentions how he had many different tests and races with Algernon. “I get

In this he talks about how his artificial intelligence eventually begins to deteriorate. At the end of the story Charlie goes to visit his mom and says “Something I discovered, and it’s named partly after me. I want you to keep a copy so that you can show people that your son turned out to be more than a dummy after all” (Keyes 268). In this scene Charlie gives his mother a copy of “The Algernon- Gordon Effect”. Clearly, the operation made him smarter over time, but then began to deteriorate, eventually leading him back to his old self. As you can see, there was no point in the surgery if he was just going to become his old self over