FREE ESSAY ON FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON

FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON

The book Flowers for Algernon takes place in the United States of America in the city of
New York. A good deal of this book takes place in Professor Nemur's lab. The reason much
of the story takes place here is because it is the place where the experiments take
place. The rest of the story happens in multiple places. Charlie's apartment is one
consistently visited setting. Donner's Bakery, where Charlie works, is another.
This book features many colorful characters, the main one being Charlie. His full name is
Charles Gordon. He is 32 years old and is the subject of an experiment. Part of his job
in the experiment is to write down progress reports and a good portion of the book is
made up by these reports. Another one of the main characters in the story is Professor
Nemur, the man who is running the experiment. Charlie has mixed feelings about the
Professor because some of the tests confuse him. The title character, surprisingly, is a
mouse. Algernon has already had the experiment done on him. Charlie had to race Algernon
through a maze on various occasions throughout the story in order to see how he is
progressing. The rest of the characters aren't in the story as often but are still
important. Alice Kinnian is a teacher at Beekman College where Charlie writes his
compositions. Fay is Charlie's neighbor and an artist.
Basically, the book is in most parts a series of progress reports. At the very beginning
of the story Charlie is obviously mentally challenged. He has many spelling mistakes and
doesn't always make sense. He would often get frustrated with the test Professor Nemur
told him he had to take, especially the one he had to pass to make him eligible for the
experiment. He soon passed the test and was eligible. A short while after this we meet
Algernon for the first time. Charlie has to go against him in a maze and seems to always
lose, which makes him angry at first but he realizes he is still learning. Once Charlie
does finally beat the mouse he feels bad and gives Algernon the cheese anyway. During
this time Charlie also has to go through a series of inkblot test which confuse him even
more because he feel that he isn't seeing something that he should.
We also find out a little about Charlie's personal life to during this part of the book.
He works at Donner's Bakery with a bunch of guys that he thinks are his friends. Sadly
they are only making fun of him. They do things like take him to parties or pull pranks
on him just to laugh at him. Charlie doesn't know they are making fun of him at first but
he finds out later.
When Charlie finally gets ready to have the surgery done he is again quite nervous. He
has to go into a room with a bunch of doctors in it and this makes him nervous. Once the
surgery is finished Charlie is at first disappointed because he didn't see any immediate
results. Professor Nemur tells him to remain patient, that the test wouldn't have
immediate results but would make him be able to learn with less effort. Around this time
Charlie is also advised to write down anything he dreams about because it may help him
remember his childhood. Another piece of advise he gets is to watch TV for a while before
he goes to sleep in order to increase his imagination.
Finally, Charlie starts seeing some results and he gets to a point where he is quite
intelligent. He has learned a lot thanks to the surgery, including other languages.
Professor Nemur is satisfied with the outcome and decides to take Charlie along with him
to New York where they plan to discuss the experiment at a convention. Around this time
Algernon escapes from his cage. Eventually Charlie finds him and decides to keep him. He
buys an apartment for Algernon and himself. This is where he meets Fay, his neighbor from
across the hall. She is an artist and she thought that the maze with Algernon in it was
quite creative because it was sculpture with a living element in it.
After a while Algernon's intelligence begins to fade away. Charlie could see that the
mouse was having trouble going through the maze, which he went through with ease before.
In an attempt to save Algernon Charlie brings him back to Professor Nemur's lab. Things
got bad because the mouse just wouldn't eat. Sadly, Algernon dies because of this. After
seeing what happened Charlie decided to write the 'Algernon-Gordon Effect' about how the
intelligence wears off over time.
Charlie decides to go visit his mother since he hadn't seen her for a very long time. See
it quite surprised with seeing him and even more surprised that he is so intelligent. She
almost doesn't even believe it.
As was expected, Charlie's intelligence also wears off after a while. He started noticing
things going wrong, for instance he forgot the many languages he had learned and began
having trouble even with English again. As a result of this he went back to the
professors lab. It didn't take long and he was back to the way he was long before he ever
had the surgery done. Of all the things he forgot he did remember one thing, to put
flowers on Algernon's grave
I liked a lot of parts in this book. If I had to pick a favorite though it would be the
end when they say that he remembered to put flowers on Algernon's grave. It was one of
those lines that you remember for a long time. I also like how the line refers back to an
earlier point in the book so if you read the book thoroughly then you are rewarded with
being able to understand the ending well.
I would have to stay that what I learned from this book is that having smarts doesn't
mean happiness. As a matter of fact it means pretty much the opposite. It isn't as much
having smarts but what comes with it, being serious. Charlie seemed like a person who was
content with who he was before the surgery. However after the surgery, and even to a
higher degree after his intelligence wore off, Charlie seemed to be feeling worse than
ever before because he saw what he could have. I think the story teaches you to just be
content with who you are.