Huntsville-Madison County Public Library discussion

From moron to genius (and back)

I first saw ‘Charly,’ the film adaptation of Daniel Keyes’ 1966 novel ‘Flowers for Algernon’ in 1969, was very impressed and when I saw a movie tie-in edition of the novel I bought it. I believe I finally got around to reading the novel in the summer between high school graduation and the beginning of college in 1973. I was immediately struck by the stylistic approach (I hesitate to call it a ‘gimmick’ because I think it was the perfect way to tell this story), a series of ‘progris riport’s, in the mentally impaired man Charlie Gordon’s very limited writing style, at least in the beginning. I knew the story but even if I hadn’t seen the movie, I could flip the pages from the beginning of the novel to the end and the stylistic advancement, slowly regressing to something resembling the beginning, would know the trajectory of the plot.

Although the story went through various forms (short story, teleplay, novel, film), I consider the novel to be the definitive version of this profound and heartbreaking story. Charlie is chronologically in his early thirties but his mental age is probably seven or eight. He was taken to a special home for mentally handicapped children and then offered a job at a bakery with a cheap apartment nearby from a kind man named Mr. Donner. He mostly does custodial jobs at the bakery and, even though he realizes that his co-workers play practical jokes on him, he considers them his friends because they are all laughing at him. The key word here is “laughing.” As long as he laughs with them, he feels appreciated.

Charlie takes remedial writing classes at a center for adults with special needs taught by Miss Alice Kinnian. Miss Kinnian is beautiful, kind, and patient with Charlie so it is easy to see how Charlie can develop a “crush” on her. Through her he learns about the testing being done by Professor Nemur at the college. He immediately begins maze “racing” with Algernon, a little white mouse that has been injected with an experimental drug that is designed to improve mental capacity. They are interested in testing it out on a human and want to know if Charlie is interested. They know there are some risks of it not working and ask him if he is still interested in the surgical procedure. It doesn’t take long for simple-minded Charlie to want to get smarter, even if he is just able to beat Algernon in the maze race.

After the operation there are not immediate results but Charlie is beginning to grow impatient about going through the same exercises, racing Algernon, until he beats him. That thrill wears off as his writing and reading begin to improve. His rapidly increased mental abilities soon surpass even the teachers and the testers. He felt isolated and lonely before, when he didn’t understand that his “friends” at the bakery where he worked were playing jokes on him. They laughed and he laughed with them and accepted their laughter as friendship. When his intelligence increases, he notices one of his co-workers undercharging a customer and pocketing the extra change as a tip. The winks exchanged between the co-worker and the customer indicate that they’re both in on the scam. Charlie is now faced with a moral dilemma.

After not getting a satisfactory answer for how to handle the problem, Charlie brings it up with the co-worker, wanting advice for a “friend” who has seen his co-worker stealing from the boss. The co-worker says that his “friend” should mind his own business. This confrontation plants a barrier between Charlie and his co-workers, who start a petition to have Charlie fired.

Charlie suddenly has an extreme mismatch between his accelerating intelligence and extremely erratic emotions. He knows he’s in love with Alice Kinnian but he can’t express himself without making her uncomfortable. Every time he tries to express himself sexually, the negative association with sexual expression whenever Charlie’s mother scolded him—incontinence and nausea—will emerge as a ‘fail-safe’ behavioral intervention.

As Charlie’s intelligence grows exponentially, he feels isolated from others because he has outstripped everyone around him and can’t carry on an intellectual conversation with anyone on his own level—no one is on his level.

He meets a new neighbor, an uninhibited and sexually aggressive artist named Fay Lillman. She sees the three-dimensional maze Charlie has built for Algernon (Charlie ‘kidnapped’ Algernon) and sees it as a piece of ‘living’ art. Charlie can’t communicate on an intellectual level with her but he can express himself sexually with her and bypass “Charlie’s” behavioral panic device by seeing it as purely physical. He is not in love with Fay as he is with Alice.

He has now observed enough of the behavior of Professor Nemur and Dr. Strauss to realize that they don’t see him as a human but as their most successful experiment. Nemur, in particular, dismisses any objections that Charlie puts forth and sees this experiment as a way to enhance his own reputation.

When Algernon begins to slow down and not run the maze as fast and actually begins the self-destructive behavior of flinging himself against the walls of the cage, Charlie understands that there is a flaw in the experiment that, if it makes Algernon regress, will probably affect him as well.

For a while, Charlie is at a peak of mental and physical energy:
‘It’s as if all the knowledge I’ve soaked in during the past months has coalesced and lifted me to a peak of light and understanding. This is beauty, love, and truth all rolled into one. This is joy. And now that I’ve found it, how can I give it up? Life and work are the most wonderful things a man can have. I am in love with what I am doing, because the answer to this problem is right here in my mind, and soon—very soon—it will burst into consciousness. Let me solve this one problem. I pray God it is the answer I want, but if not I will accept any answer at all and try to be grateful for what I had.’



Charlie has used his phenomenal brain power while he has it to formulate the “Algernon-Gordon Effect,’ diagnosing the flaw in the experiment and stating, theoretically, what will ultimately happen to Algernon and himself.

After Charlie has given his ‘Algernon-Gordon Effect’ thesis to Nemur and Strauss and vowed that he won’t return for any more testing, he returns and finds Alice asleep on his couch. After her admission that she is coming to him now that they might both be on the same level, emotionally, they make love and Charlie realizes that they are both entwined in a spiritual/physical embrace. They both know that they can only be together for a short time. She has agreed to leave when he tells her the time has come. That time is approximately a week later. His ability to read and comprehend deteriorates and his irritability at her attempts to tidy up his apartment and drop useful books in obvious places for him to find lead him to resent her presence there. She packs up and leaves.

If there is any consolation in Charlie’s retrograde intelligence, it is the lack of ability to grieve in advance for all the beautiful things that will be lost. The Charlie that has returned with an IQ of 68 may be less intelligent but he feels unfiltered gratitude, no longer tethered to inductive reasoning or a hyperawareness of tragedy:
‘If you ever reed this Miss Kinnian dont be sorry for me. Im glad I got a second chanse in life like you said to be smart because I lerned a lot of things that I never even new were in this werld and Im grateful I saw it all even for a littel bit…Anyway I bet Im the frist dumb persen in the world who found out some thing importent for sience. I did something but I don’t remember what. So I gess its like I did it for all the dumb pepul like me…’

Nice, Brian! The short story destroys me every time, but I still haven't recovered after hearing the Escape Pod narration (#490) by Dave Thompson.