Jake Tsang
Flowers for Algernon
Flowers for Algernon is a novel by Daniel Keyes. It follows the life of Charlie Gordon, a mentally-ill
adult on a path to try to raise his intelligence. Sympathy is felt for this character because of the
problems he has to endure.
At the beginning of the novel, Daniel Keyes introduces us to Charlie Gordon, a 32-year-old man that
works at a bakery but the most noticeable factor is that almost every word Charlie writes is spelled
like it is said. The reader feels sympathy for Charlie because they realize right away that he is
mentally-ill. In the second "progris riport", Charlie is forced to take a Rorschach test to judge his
personality. "I tried hard but I still coudnt find the picturs I only saw the ink," Charlie finds trouble
answering because he couldn’t see any pictures "hidden" inside the ink and he gets frustrated very
quickly. From this we can tell that Charlie has little understanding of his task at hand and therefore
we feel sympathy for him. The author uses first person and third person writing styles. When Charlie
writes his reports first person is used, we feel a connection with Charlie as his thoughts are also
written down. Third person is used when Charlie reflects back to the past
Charlie's naivety causes others to poke fun at him, "Some times somebody will say hey lookit Frank,
or Joe or even Gimpy. He really pulled a Charlie Gordon that time. I don't know why they say it but
they always laff and I laff too". We can feel sympathy for Charlie because he does not realize he is
getting bullied and this starts the mistreatment of the mentally retarded theme that develops
through the book. Charlie, for his age, has a lack of intelligence "...all my life I wantid to be smart and
not and my mom always tolld me to try and lern just like Miss Kinnian tells me but its very hard to be
smart and even when I lern something in Miss Kinnians class I ferget a lot." creates sympathy
because he doesn’t understand certain situations that normal people do.
After the operation Charlie's difficulties increase in the sense that he discovers them. "I never knew
before that Joe and Frank and the others liked to have me around just to make fun of me. Now I
know what they mean when they say 'to pull a Charlie Gordon.' I'm ashamed." Charlie has lost his
carefree nature and is now aware of what people were really doing and he realizes that they're not
really his friends as he had thought before. This raises sympathy for Charlie because he was happy
before but now that he is intelligent it is the opposite. Sympathy for Charlie is lost when he gets big
headed, "They had pretended to be geniuses. But they were just ordinary men working blindly,
pretending to be able to bring light into darkness. Why is it that everyone lies? No one I know is
what he appears to be." The reader loses sympathy for Charlie because he is being hostile toward
the people who made him intelligent in the first place, the natural reaction would be that Charlie
should be grateful not ungrateful.
During Charlie's regression the sympathy for Charlie is regained. "I passed your floor on the way up,
and now I'm passing it on the way down, and I don't think I'll be taking this elevator again." Charlie
has got the intelligence he wanted and now he is going to lose it and won't be able to have it again.
this evokes sympathy in the reader because only when Charlie was intelligent was he able to
accomplish great things now that he is going back to being mentally-ill he won't be able to achieve
anything and continue to live on like that.
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Jake Tsang
Daniel Keyes successfully used first person and third person perspectives to evoke sympathy in
readers. His use of character traits with Charlie Gordon make the Themes of the novel clear for the
reader and the struggles Charlie has to endure.
