"Maybe that's why it was so important for me to learn. I thought it would make people like me. I thought I would have friends. That's something to laugh at isn't it?"(Keyes 208-209). The novel, Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keyes, follows a period in Charlie Gordon's life as he surgically becomes more intelligent and eventually loses much more than he initially started with. People often dream of having everything, and believe they can obtain this dream with a single major adjustment. As things change, and you attain this "wish", it only brings about new and more complicated problems. An increase in intelligence alone may solve certain problems, yet brings about many more.
Charlie's increase in intelligence brings abo
The operation was designed to change Charlie's I.Q. level, yet it seemed to change his entire personality. Charlie's ignorance forced him to believe he had no friends and needed to change to gain more of a social standing. "...you've lost something you had before. You had a smile...a warm, real smile, because you wanted people to like you."(Keyes 208). Charlie's new personality scares the people around him, his friends at the bakery and Alice all feel in-superior to him. Once more this causes those closest to him to resent him.
Though Charlie's intelligence has improved, his emotional level is that of a child. He begins to analyze and understand more of what happened to him throughout his life; this brings about new feelings which Charli
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