Flowers For Algernon
Daniel Keyes
First published: 1966
Table of Contents
Literary Elements
• Setting
• Character List
• Conflict
• Short Summary (Synopsis)
• Themes
• Mood
• Daniel Keyes - Biography
Chapter Summaries with Notes / Analysis
• progris riport 1 - martch 3—pg. 1
• progis riport 2 - martch 4—pg. 1-3
• 3d progris riport - martch 5—pg. 3-5
• progris riport 4 - mar 6—pg. 5-8
• progris riport 5 - mar 6—pg. 9-11
• Progris report 6th - Martch 8—pg. 11-13
• Progress report 7 - March 11—pg. 13-18
• Progress Report 8—pg. 18-34
• Progress Report 9—pg. 34-59
• Progress Report 10—pg. 59-76
• Progress Report 11—pg. 76-113
• Progress Report 12—pg. 113-132
• Progress Report 13—pg. 132-165
• Progress Report 14—pg. 165-215
• Progress Report 15—pg. 215-221
• Project Report 16—pg. 221-278
• Progress Report 17—pg. 278-311
Overall Analysis
• Character Analysis
• Plot Structure Analysis
• Point of View / Author's Style
• Themes - Theme Analysis
• Symbolism
• The Element of Science Fiction
http://thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Flowers_For_Algernon_Keyes/Flowers_For_Algernon_Study_Guide01.html
1
LITERARY ELEMENTS
SETTING
The action of the novel is set in New York City. The protagonist works at a bakery in New York.
From here he goes to evening classes at Beckman College. When the novel begins, he is already
thirty-two years old, but does not remember anything of his home. Later, the readers are told that
his mother and sister still live in their old home in Brooklyn in Marks Street, which is a poor
neighborhood. His father Matt Gordon has long since left his wife, and has a barbershop on
Wentworth Street, a run-down section of the Bronx. Thus, New York is the background against
which the action moves. Only one event, the Psychology convention takes place in Chicago.
CHARACTER LIST
Major Characters
Charlie Gordon
He is a thirty two-year-old, mentally retarded adult, who is living and working in New York. His
life changes dramatically when he undergoes an experimental operation to improve his intelligence.
Charlie is the protagonist as well as the narrator of the story.
Alice Kinnian
She is a teacher at the Beckman special school for retarded adults where Charlie is a student. She
suggests his name to the research team of the psychology department, as a possible candidate for
the experiment. Charlie loves and depends on her, and she cares for him till the end of the novel.
Fay Lillman
Charlie’s unconventional neighbor is an artist. Reckless and generous, she has an affair with
Charlie, which ends when his mind begins to regress.
Rose Gordon
Charlie’s mother who appears mainly in Charlie’s flashes of memory that he has about his disturbed
childhood. She initially denies his retarded state and drives him to overcome it, but rejects him
completely after bearing a second normal child. She makes an appearance towards the end of the
novel, as a senile and still unhappy, obsessed woman.
Matt Gordon
Charlie’s father, who represents the voice of kindness and sanity in the family, but is too gentle to
prevail over his dominant wife. He finally sends Charlie away, fearing for his safety, and later
walks out on his wife and daughter.
2
Harold Nemur & Jay Strauss
They are neuro-surgeons and psychiatrists who are the senior members of the research team, which
experiments on Charlie. His feelings for them change from respect and trust to suspicion and
contempt after the operation. Nemur is the more unsympathetic of the two.
Norma Gordon
Charlie’s younger sister. She, like the parents, appears in the scenes that Charlie remembers, until
the end, when he visits his family home. A spoiled and high-strung girl, she reflects her mother’s
attitudes. The adult Norma is very different from the child.
Minor Characters
Burt Selden
The laboratory assistant, who is a junior member of the team. Initially seen as kind and patient,
Charlie considers him a friend. Burt however is too much a part of the team to be really committed
to Charlie.
Mr. Donner
He is the owner of the bakery, where Charlie works. A kind, paternal figure, he looks after Charlie
and becomes his guardian after his uncle’s death.
Gimpy
A senior baker with a bad leg. He is sympathetic to Charlie’s problems and protects him from the
others. Their friendship is affected when he is found cheating Donner.
Frank Reilly & Joe Carp
Initially role models for Charlie, they represent the brutish insensitive people for whom, anyone
with a handicap is fair game.
Fanny Berdin
She is a woman worker who protects Charlie and suggests that, he attend the special school. She has
serious doubts about the changes in Charlie and feels that they are dangerous.
Mrs. Mooney
Charlie’s land lady. She feeds and looks after Charlie in his regressive phase, when he has rejected
all his other friends.
Ray Winslow & Thelma
He is the head psychologist and she is a housemother at the Warren State Home for retarded people.
Charlie regards the Home with dread, but is comforted on meeting them. They are both sincere and
dedicated people, doing their difficult jobs in the best way they can.
3
CONFLICT
Protagonist
Charlie Gordon is the protagonist and the most clearly drawn character. He is the narrator and the
readers see everything in the book from his angle. The original feature of the novel is that Charlie
changes due to surgery, and the readers can see Charlie the retarded person, and Charlie the
‘genius’ behaving like two different people.
Antagonist
There is no ‘antagonist,’ in the sense that, there is no ‘villain’ in the story. But different characters
come into conflict with the protagonist at different stages. Charlie’s mother Rose Gordon, her
obsession with ‘making’ him normal, her suppression of his sensuality and her complete rejection,
all combine to destroy his self-esteem and make him crave for approval. This makes her the
antagonistic influence in his past, which also carries over to the present. Prof. Nemur with his
arrogance and his attempts to keep away information from Charlie regarding himself, is also a
hostile force at one stage. At one point, Charlie himself can be seen as the antagonist. For instance,
the retarded Charlie constantly makes the ‘genius’ Charlie feel that he is lurking in his
consciousness, by watching and inhibiting his actions. But this antagonism is neutralized when the
‘new’ Charlie accepts that they are one person. The main conflict in the book is not with any
particular individual, but with Charlie’s handicap, and later his struggle to control his life and mind.
Climax
After the operation Charlie alters very gradually. Even then, he is rather docile and willing to abide
by the research team’s decisions. The turning point comes at the Chicago psychology convention. It
is here that Charlie gets disgusted with his and Algernon’s ‘exhibit’ status and with the way he is
spoken of as if he was not human before the operation. The last straw is hearing of Algernon’s
erratic, unexplained behavior, which has been concealed from him. He then decides to release
Algernon from his cage and together they escape to New York. After this point he lives in a new
apartment with Algernon, takes charge of his life and relationships, and faces the outside world on
his own.
Outcome
The novel is undoubtedly a tragedy. It takes Charlie from a below-normal intelligence to the level
of a genius. He then develops the ability to look at himself, his family, and his environment with
new eyes, and become his own man. This also gives him the capacity to realize that, the
experimental surgery was defective and the research, incomplete. Ironically, it is he, the research
‘object’, who is able to track down the faults in the process, and hence foresee what a brief escape
he has had from a retarded intelligence. He also has the intelligence at this stage to suffer agonies as
he ekes out each precious day, till the old sub-normal intelligence claims him once again. As in
classical tragedy, the hero is able to come to a painful acceptance of his condition, and accept it
with dignity.
4
SHORT SUMMARY (Synopsis)
The novel’s action begins in Charlie’s thirty-second year in Donner’s Bakery, New York, where he
works. Charlie narrates his experience through ‘progress reports,’ which he has to submit to the
research team from Beckman College. Charlie is a retarded adult, and he has agreed to submit
himself to experimental surgery in order to improve his intelligence. The reports reveal Charlie’s
experiences in the bakery to which the owner, his uncle’s friend, has brought him from the Warren
State Home for retarded people. Charlie becomes a part of the bakery, and considers the people
there as his friends. Yet, he is dissatisfied and wants to be ‘smart.’ So, he joins a special school for
retarded people at Beckman College. After this, his teacher, Alice Kinnian, recommends him to a
research team at Beckman psychology department. The team is in search of a retarded volunteer, for
the experimental surgery to increase intelligence.
Charlie then undergoes weeks of testing and competing with a white mouse, Algernon at
completing mazes. He is depressed when the mouse beats him every time. The operation takes place
and Charlie is disappointed at not ‘getting smart’ immediately. However, he is assured that he will
progress gradually, but steadily. Over a period of time, Charlie finds himself being able to read
more, win some mazes and master complex processes at the bakery. The other workers resent him.
He is disillusioned with many of them. He has to spend a lot of time reading and being tested at the
Beckman lab. By now, he knows that Algernon has also had surgery similar to his, which accounts
for his intelligence. Charlie surges ahead in gathering knowledge and mastering languages. He
begins to see his supportive teacher Alice, as an attractive young woman. They become close and
he tries to make love to her. On several occasions, he finds he has a violent physical reaction when
he is making love to her and therefore has to stop. He can’t understand why this happens. Around
the same time, Charlie’s repressed memories of his home, surface. Disturbing scenes, like, his
mother pushing him to study or others when he is being pushed aside in favor of his younger sister,
flash through his memory. Charlie is upset, but he finds his newfound intellectual ability thrilling
and works hard.
He finds that he and Algernon are to be taken to Chicago for a convention, at which Nemur will
present the findings of the team. Once there, Algernon and Charlie are the prime ‘exhibits,’ objects,
and humiliating remarks are made in his hearing. He also discovers that the researchers have not
given sufficient time to verify their experimental findings before performing the experiment on him.
Charlie releases Algernon, and runs away with him to New York. He hides here for some time and
rents a house. He understands that his time is short and decides to check the same experiments, in
order to trace the reasons for its failure.
Charlie gets permission from the sponsors, to work independently on this subject at Beckman. His
relationship with Nemur becomes tense and hostile. He can’t overcome his problems with Alice and
gets involved with Fay, an unconventional artist living next door. With her, he can defeat his
inhibitions. But as his work gets more demanding, their relationship becomes strained and finally
breaks. In the meantime, Algernon’s condition gets worse, and he dies. Charlie knows this indicates
his own approaching end, and therefore he seeks out his parents. His father is alone in the Browse.
Charlie meets him but can’t bear to reveal who he is, for fear of disappointment. His meeting with
his mother and sister is anticlimactic, as the mother is old and senile, and his sister is having a bad
time coping with the responsibility alone. He is satisfied that he can tell them of his achievements.
He makes his peace with them and leaves. He confronts Nemur at a party and charges him of being
insensitive. Charlie is also charged of selfishness and arrogance, which he admits is the truth. He
accepts that the retarded Charlie is an important and enduring part of him. He and Alice get together
but only find fulfillment for a short time. As Charlie’s mind gets worse, he forces her to leave him.
He works at the bakery, and when his condition becomes very bad, he moves to the Warren Home.
5
THEMES
Major Themes
The Theme of Self-realization or an Understanding of Self
This is the chief need for Charlie and it makes the book one with a universal significance. Although
the situation in which Charlie finds himself is a bizarre one, with his rapid movement towards high
intellect and an equally rapid regression, it gives him the mental capacity to analyze and voice his
need for achievement, acceptance and love. He is also able to fulfill these needs and then accept his
regression in a philosophical manner, though after much suffering.
The Treatment of a Retarded Person by Society
This is another important theme of the novel, made more complex by the dramatic changes in the
hero, and in his awareness of people. The readers see the injustice against him, first in the family,
where egotism and frustration blind his mother to his tremendous need for love and support. Then
the readers see him with the crowd at the bakery, where a few are unreservedly kind and the others
make him the butt of their tricks. Finally, even the medical men, whose professed aim is to improve
the sad lives of mentally retarded people, treat him as an ‘object’ and a laboratory animal.
The Theme of Love
Charlie is shown to have a tremendous need for love. Having been pushed out by his family, he
seeks it among his coworkers in the bakery. This love is just affection and acceptance. He is not
shown to have a strong sex drive except after the operation. One notices that his genuine love for
Alice is constantly hampered by the repressive attitudes that have been fostered by his mother since
his adolescence. Yet, Alice and he do not part ways, but have a deep friendship. A relationship
develops between him and his neighbor Fay. He likes and admires many of Fay’s qualities, but he
seeks her only for a sexual outlet, not at an emotional level. His love for Alice reaches fulfillment
only in the final stages of the book but its intensity comforts him for all the lost days, and his bleak
future.
6
MOOD
The novel is very much a part of popular fiction. Thus, Keyes has varied the mood throughout the
book, and rarely allowed it to get too heavy or solemn. In spite of the hero being mentally retarded
or perhaps because of it, there is a lot of humor in the introductory section. This gentle laughter
gives way to excitement, as Charlie finds himself able to understand whole worlds of knowledge
that he never knew existed! Interspersed with this, are the disturbing memories of his family. The
seriousness of the mood deepens, as Charlie begins to view people around him with increasing
skepticism and even disillusion. His frustration in love depresses him immensely and evokes ugly
flashes from his adolescence.
At the climax, at the Chicago convention there is a farcical scene, with underlying bitterness. The
sight of the learned gathering ‘chasing a white mouse smarter than many of them’ is hilarious. But
this humor is superficial - almost macabre (black humor).
The poignancy of his visits to his father, and then to his mother and sister is heightened by the
knowledge that they don’t know about his approaching decline. There is a brief respite with the
fascinating Fay and later the intense rapture of fulfillment with Alice. But the rest of this section
captures the deep anguish of a human being who has enjoyed the heady heights of mental activity,
only to know that it is being snatched away, and even his mind is not his own to keep. As in
classical tragedy, when the suffering reaches an unbearable pitch, the individual, wanting to keep
his dignity intact, pulls himself together and forces himself to accept his fate. This is how the novel
ends.
Daniel Keyes - BIOGRAPHY
Daniel Keyes was born in New York and had a varied and interesting career profile, before he
settled down to creative writing. He has worked in the US Maritime Service, and then he worked as
an editor and a fashion photographer. Meanwhile, he got a B.A degree in psychology, a subject that
has been of enduring interest to him.
Still later, Keyes taught English in city schools in New York, and simultaneously worked for his
post-graduate degree in English and American literature. After getting his M.A., he has taught
Creative writing at Wayne State University and Ohio University, where he was a professor.
Flowers For Algernon was his first novel and won the Nebula Award for the Best Novel of the
year, from the Science Fiction Writers of America. First published in 1966 by Harcourt and in 1968
by Bantam, the novel, initially enlarged from a short story, has been through over thirty printings. It
has, since then, been produced as a stage play and as a musical in England, France, the US, Poland
and Japan. The novel was also adapted for the movies under the name ‘Charly.’ Cliff Robertson, in
the title role, won an Oscar.
Obviously fascinated by psychology and having majored in the subject, Keyes went on to write
three more novels with a psychological background. The Touch - (1968) on the terrible effects of a
radiation accident; The Fifth Sally (1980) whose subject is the multiple personality disorder; and
Until Death about a double murder in Florida. He has also written the following books in the
category of non-fiction: The Minds of Billy Milligan (1981) an award winning study of a man
acquitted of guilt for serious crimes on account of multiple personality disorder. This was followed
by The Milligan Wars: A True Story Sequel (1994). In 1986, he wrote Unveiling Claudia about the
secrets behind a woman’s false confession to murder.
7
CHAPTER SUMMARIES WITH NOTES / ANALYSIS
The novel has been divided into Progress Report as submitted by the narrator Charlie Gordon to
researchers in the Psychology Lab at Beckman College. These reports form chapters and their form
and language reflect Charlie’s state of mind.
Progris riport 1 - Martch 3
Summary
Charlie Gordon introduces himself. He is thirty-two-year-old and works at Donner’s Bakery in New
York, where he is paid $11 a week. He explains that he attends Miss Kinnian’s class for retarded
adults at Beckman College, where he has learned to read and write. He has been introduced to Dr.
Strauss and Prof. Nemur who ‘will see if they can use me.’ Charlie wants ‘to be smart.’ Miss
Kinnian tells him that perhaps the two experts can help. The readers also learn that Dr. Strauss has
asked him to write down, what he thinks and what happens to him during the day. He is therefore
maintaining this record for the psychologists to study.
Notes
The progress report form has been used innovatively by the author. It is organic to his subject which is the transformation of a mentally retarded young adult into a genius, and his later
regression.
The report format and the first person narrative involve the reader directly in the functioning of
Charlie’s mind. This first report establishes the emptiness of Charlie’s own life and his innocence the readers are told that he is thirty-two-years old, works in Donner’s bakery at a low wage, and is
keen enough to study on his ‘time off.’ His ‘guinea pig’ status is also established when Charlie says
that, they ‘will see if they can use me.’ The severe limitations of Charlie’s capacity for thought are
clear in, ‘I can’t think any more because I have nothing to rite so I will close for today.’ This and
the brevity of Charlie’s first report, emphasize his mental state. The simple sentences peppered with
bad spelling and wrong usage contribute to this impression.
Progris report 2 - Martch 4
Summary
Burt, a doctoral student at the college, conducts Charlie’s first test. Charlie is afraid that he has
failed it and won’t be ‘used.’ The lab and the white coat make him feel Burt could be a doctor,
except that he doesn’t tell Charlie "to open my mouth and say ah!" Burt’s repeated suggestions that
he should relax only gets him "skared becos, it always means its gonna hert." For the test, Burt
shows Charlie a lot of white cards with red and black ink splattered on them. Burt explains it’s a
‘raw shok test’ (Rorschach Inkblot test) and asks Charlie to describe what he sees in the inkblots.
Charlie tries desperately hard but is unable to visualize anything but an ‘inkblot.’ He is sure he has
failed the test when Burt’s frustration makes him break his pencil-point. Charlie feels that, even his
‘luky rabbit’s foot’ hasn’t helped.
8
Notes
Charlie’s fear of the unknown and his ‘normal’ expectations of pain and bad treatment from those
around him, are underlined by this chapter. He clings to ‘lucky’ objects for comfort in a hostile
world. The reader gets a graphic picture of the experience in the lab, and the subject’s keen desire to
please and win approval. It is a re-creation of every individual’s childhood horror story of a visit to
a doctor. Charlie tries hard, putting on and off his reading glasses, trying to pump the researcher for
hints, but failing. He is shown to be like a child in some ways, but he does not have the ability to
imagine and fantasize, like a normal child. In spite of his anxiety, Charlie’s determination to
continue and ‘get smart’ is unshaken.
3rd Progris report - Martch 5
Summary
Charlie is very worried about failing the test, and assures Dr. Strauss and Nemur that he hadn’t spilt
any ink on the cards. They tell him it doesn’t matter and Charlie hopes that, ‘maybe they will still
use me.’ They say he was highly recommended by Miss Kinnian as her ‘bestest pupil.’ They probe
into his reasons for learning and he says, "all my life I wanted to be smart and not dumb and all my
life, my mom always told me to try and lern, just like Miss Kinnian tells me, but its very hard to be
smart and even when I lern something at Miss Kinnian’s class, --- I forget a lot."
Prof. Nemur warns Charlie that they have experimented only on animals so far, and are not sure of
the effects on human beings. Charlie replies, "I don’t even care if it herts or anything because I’m
strong and I will work hard." They inquire about his family, as they require their permission to
operate on him. Charlie says he hasn’t seen his parents or his sister Norma for a long time, but he
thinks they lived in Brooklyn.
The report ends with Charlie hoping that he won’t need to write many more, as he has to cut down
his sleep in order to write it, and this makes him very tired for work the next morning. He has begun
to make mistakes at the bakery and as a result Gimpy, his surly friend, has been angry with him.
Charlie hopes that he will surprise Gimpy when he becomes ‘smart.’
Notes
This report shows the researchers trying to delve into the mind of Charlie Gordon. His singleminded desire to be ‘smart’ is shown in contrast to his severe limitations in the capacity to express
himself. The other characters are gradually introduced. So far, the researchers appear as faceless
men in white coats. Miss Kinnian is seen as a kindly, maternal figure and a source of hope and
encouragement to Charlie.
There is a brief reference to his family, which has obviously broken off ties with him. The only is
his Uncle Herman. But unfortunately, he is now dead. Charlie’s loneliness and his traumatic past
are just beginning to surface in these passing references. The ‘guinea pig’ aspect is underlined by
his finding the reports tiring, and the strain affecting his work at the bakery.
9
Progris report 4 - Martch 6
Summary
The reader learns that more tests have been conducted on Charlie, when he says, "I had more crazy
tests today in case they use me." He asks the lady, who gives him the test, to spell the name of the
test, so that he can write it in his progress report. The lady tells him that these are Thematic
Apperception Tests. The first test ‘looks easy because I could see the pictures.’ But the ‘nice lady’
tells Charlie he has to ‘make up story’s about the pepul in the pictures.’ He refuses, as that would be
telling lies and he ‘always got hit’ when he told lies as a child. He offers to tell lots of stories about
his sister Norma and his Uncle Herman, but she isn’t interested. Charlie becomes irritable about the
tests. He reports -"She looked angry and took the pictures away. I don’t care. I guess I faled that test
too." Then Burt Selden, the other research assistant, takes him to the lab, "Where they make
spearamints. I thot that he ment like where they made the chooing gum but now I think its puzzles
and games because that’s what we did." Once again he is at a loss-"it was all broke and the pieces
coudnt fit in the holes." The mazes too confuse him utterly. Then Burt takes him to a place where
‘pepul’ in white coats are playing with animals ‘so I thot it was like a pet store but their wasn’t no
customers.’ Then Burt introduces him to Algernon, a white mouse who can solve the maze ‘real
good.’ Charlie guffaws at the idea of a mouse doing anything that is so difficult. He is therefore
amazed to watch Algernon solving the maze with a triumphant squeak.
Then Burt suggests that Charlie should race Algernon. Both are given similar wooden mazes.
Charlie has a pointer, which gives him a mild shock when he makes a mistake. Burt tries to hide the
fact that he is keeping a record of the time each one is taking at the maze. Charlie races Algernon
eleven times and the mouse wins every time. Ultimately, Charlie observes and learns from him. He
concludes, "I dint know mice were so smart."
Notes
The chapter takes the reader further into Charlie’s progress as a research subject. Algernon, the
white mouse, is central to the novel, as he is Charlie’s ‘alter ego.’ This symbolic parallel is rich in
meaning. It shows Charlie as currently inferior to Algernon in ability, but very willing to learn from
him. Not only are the readers aware of this parallel, but it is clear in Charlie’s mind as well.
Algernon is the mouse on whom the experimental surgery has already been carried out. Charlie is
the future subject of the same surgery. The bond between the two, on which the title is based,
begins from this point.
So far the ‘men in white coats,’ seem distant and sinister while Charlie’s humble status is inferior
even to that of the mouse! Only Charlie’s unwitting humor and lively curiosity lightens the
atmosphere.
10
Progris report 5 - Martch 6
Summary
Charlie is informed that his sister Norma has agreed to the experimental operation. He is delighted.
Then he overhears an argument between Nemur and Strauss. Nemur is worried about possible
negative effects, and whether the dramatic rise in Charlie’s I.Q will harm him. Strauss argues that
Charlie’s motivation is very strong, in spite of his current low I.Q, that it is similar to Algernon’s,
and also that his rare enthusiasm makes him a good subject. This confuses Charlie who knows
Algernon’s "motor-vation is the chees they put in his box. But it can’t be only that because I dint
have no chees this week."
Strauss and Burt manage to quell Nemur’s doubts, and he finally agrees. Charlie is so happy, he
jumps up and shakes Nemur’s hand, thus startling him. Nemur decides to take him into his
confidence. He warns Charlie that this is the first time such an experiment is being conducted on a
human subject. It could fail completely, or succeed temporarily and leave him worse than what he is
now. It may even end in his having to live permanently at the state-run Warren Home for the
mentally retarded. Charlie responds with great optimism - he is thrilled at this ‘second chanse’ and
the idea of "making a grate contribyushun to sience."
Notes
The till now faceless men in white coats are revealed in the flesh here. The irony of explaining the
dangers to Charlie when he hasn’t the capacity to grasp the consequences is sharp. The story now
clearly moves into the realm of science fiction with the idea of a person with an I.Q of 68, being
seen as the raw material for a ‘new intellectual superman.’ The ominous significance of the risks
being taken with Charlie’s life is hinted at, but the researchers are shown to be open about it.
The mysterious Miss Kinnian is mentioned but not yet brought into the action. Above all, Charlie’s
tremendous enthusiasm stands out. These otherwise drab chapters are made appealing by Charlie’s
unintentional humor.
Progris report 6th - Martch 8
Summary
Charlie is made ready for the operation. He has lots of visitors from the medical school and the
bakery. The people from the Psychology Department send him flowers. Charlie has brought along
his lucky rabbit’s foot, penny and horseshoe. He is not convinced when Dr. Strauss tells him that
being superstitious is againt science. Miss Kinnian comes to visit him and makes him comfortable.
One can gauge that, she is obviously worried about his safety. The staff at the bakery sends their
good wishes and a chocolate cake. One also learns that, the staff at the bakery has only been told
that, Charlie is sick and therefore needs treatment. This is because they are not sure whether the
operation will work.
11
Charlie is very happy and looks forward to defeating Algernon in the race after the operation. He is
less interested in Prof. Nemur’s pep talk about possible fame. He only wants ‘to be smart like other
pepul so I can have lots of frends who like me.’
Notes
Charlie reports events with his usual childlike directness. All the attention he gets makes him
happy, yet his fear is revealed by all the lucky charms he clings to. That his good humor and
simplicity have won him many friends is clear from the number of visitors he has. Miss Kinnian
and the research team are all keyed-up. She, because she is concerned for Charlie, they because, for
them, it is the experiment of a lifetime and could affect all their fortunes. In contrast, the man whose
future is most at stake is more concerned about beating a mouse at a game, and about having ‘lots
of frends who like me’ and "being smart like other pepul.’ The irony at this stage is that, Charlie is
doomed never to ‘be like other pepul.’ His sub-normal I.Q now, and superior intelligence later, will
always raise barriers between him and others. He doesn’t know this or the fact that, the innocent
satisfaction he has in his ‘friends’ will soon be shattered.
The seriousness of the situation is tempered by Charlie’s unwitting humor as he tells the reader, "I
don’t know what sience is ---- maybe its something that helps you have good luk" and again in "you
cant eat before a operashun. Not even cheese." The bareness of the style not only reflects Charlie’s
limited expression, but also lets the reader draw conclusions about the attitude of people to a
retarded person, without overt comments from the author.
Progress report 7 - March 11
Summary
Charlie has recovered from the operation and resumed his report three days, after his bandages have
been removed. He describes whatever he knows of the operation in minute detail. He remembers
how surprised he was to see the observer’s gallery so full of doctors, who had come to see the
operation. ‘I dint no it was going to be like a show!" The familiar surgeons, unfamiliar in
professional gear, the frightful sensation of being strapped down, the fear of wetting his pants, are
all documented here.
When he awakes, to his astonishment, it is all over. He now looks forward to being ‘smart’ like Joe
Carp and Frank and Gimpy at the bakery. He longs to be part of their heated discussions about God
or about "all the money the president is spending." He has always felt left out when ‘they get all
excited like their gonna have a fite.’ He wants to be like them so "you never get lonley by yourself
all the time." Nemur now asks Charlie to write down all that he remembers about his past. He can’t
remember, and this worries him. "What do smart pepul think about or remember. Fancy things I bet.
I wish I new some fancy things already."
Charlie adds daily entries to the report. He is frightened by his skinny, intense nurse, Hilda. She is
against the operation, believing that Nemur and Strauss are tampering with nature. She talks about
Adam and Eve, and the apple, and the fall. Charlie protests-"I dint eat no appels or do nothin sinful"
but the fear of angering God remains.
12
The next day reveals that Hilda has been banished to the maternity ward where ‘it don’t matter if
she talks too much.’ Charlie fires questions at her successor. When Miss Kinnian comes to visit
him, he expresses his worry that, he is not ‘smart’ yet. Miss Kinnian tells him it will come slowly
and that he’ll have to work hard. Charlie is very disapointed to hear this because he thought that he
would become smart immediately after the operation. He confides in Miss Kinnian about his plans
to become an assistant baker, and to find his family and show them how smart he has become, ‘so
they wouldn’t send me away no more.’ She is sympathetic and tells him she has faith in him.
Notes
The reports become more detailed as the action and Charlie’s mind get more complex. The author
plays a little trick on the reader, allowing Charlie to spell ‘progress report’ correctly this time, then
having him explain how the nurse had spelled it for him!
The nurse Hilda’s conservative doubts help build up the tension about the coming changes in
Charlie. Miss Kinnian also appears tense about the outcome. Only Charlie has a sense of anticlimax, as he had expected an instant transformation!
Once again, the hints of tragedy, like the memories of being sent away by his family, the nurse’s
doubts about the experiment, are hidden among the humour of Charlie’s musings about his future,
his protest about not eating ‘appels’ and so on.
Miss Kinnian is still a shadowy, kind, maternal figure in Charlie’s mind, and hasn’t emerged as a
character in her own right.
Progress Report 8
Summary
March 15
Charlie comes out of hospital to face a battery of tests and puzzles. He hates Algernon, as "he
always beets me." He is fed up of all the ‘amazes", tests, and progress reports and of the fact that he
is not allowed to return to his work at the bakery. Charlie reports that, he gets headaches when he
tries to think. One also gets the impression that he doesn’t like it very much when Dr. Strauss
makes him lie on the couch. Miss Kinnian comes to see him and Charlie once again expresses his
disappointment that, he has not become ‘smart’ yet. She reassures him by saying that it "will happin
so slowly you won’t know its happening."
March 16
Charlie passes time sitting in the college cafeteria. He is fascinated by the students and their talk "about art and polatics and riligeon." He does not understand the first two, but he knows that,
‘riligeon’ has to do with God. He remembers that his mother used to make him pray to God a lot "to
make me get better and not be sick."
13
Burt spends a lot of time with him and reveals more about the other characters. Burt is a doctoral
student, a Psychology major. This confuses Charlie as he used to think that, one can find majors,
‘onley in the army.’ Burt introduces Charlie to a lot of students and Charlie gets the feeling that,
some of them are looking at him in a strange way, as though he does not belong to the college.
Charlie is about to tell them that he will soon become as smart as them but, Burt stops him and tells
the students that, Charlie is a cleaner in the Psychology lab. He tells Charlie that there mustn’t be
any publicity about his case, as Nemur doesn’t want anyone to laugh at him, if things don’t work
out. This is surprising to Charlie who has always been laughed at by people who "are my frends and
we have fun." He can’t imagine why anyone would laugh at the humorless Nemur, who is "a
scintist in a collidge."
March 17
Each morning, Charlie wakes up thinking "I’m goin to be smart but nothing happens." He is
plagued by fears that the experiment is a failure, that maybe he will have to live at the Warren
Home. He hates all the tests, and Algernon even more as, "I never new before that I was dumber
than a mouse." He admits that he doesn’t like writing progress reports anymore and that at times he
finds it difficult to read his own handwriting. He is frustrated and often suffers from headaches.
March 20
Strauss and Nemur decide to send Charlie back to work at the bakery. Every night he has to come to
the lab and spend two hours writing "these dumb reports", for which he will be paid. Strauss tells
him that he doesn’t have to write progress reports everyday but asks him to keep a notebook in his
pocket and suggests that he should report only special happenings or when he thinks of something
special.
To Charlie’s great relief, Strauss explains that Algernon, too, has had a similar operation and has
taken a long time "to get smart." Charlie now understands that this is the reason why he could not
defeat Algernon in the different races. Dr. Strauss tells Charlie that there is a probability that
Algernon will remain smart permanently. Dr Strauss also tells Charlie that this is a good sign as he
and Algernon have had the same operation.
March 21
Charlie returns to the bakery to a chorus of jokes about the operation. Joe Carp asks him whether
they "put any brains in." Charlie is tempted to reveal the facts, but doesn’t. He is upset at finding a
new boy, Ernie, doing his work. Mr. Donner consoles him, explaining how his best friend, Charlie’s
Uncle Hermann, had first brought him to work at the bakery. After Hermann dies, his mother
admitted Charlie to the Warren Home. Then Donner had got him released for outside work
placement. All this had happenned seventeen years ago. Donner promises Charlie that he will
always have a job there, and that Ernie will eventually train as a baker. Charlie is puzzled when
Ernie’s mistakes are called "pulling a Charlie Gordon." He doesn’t remember making such errors,
but lets it pass as, "their all my good frends and we have lots of jokes and laffs here."
Charlie asks Mr. Donner whether he too could be an apprentice baker like Ernie. Donner is stunned
at these new signs of ambition in Charlie. He puts him off gently. Charlie wishes his experiment
was working and he could "get smart like everybody else."
14
March 24
Strauss and Nemur visit Charlie to find out why his visits to the college have stopped. He explains
he doesn’t want to race with Algernon. Strauss says he need not, but his visits to the lab are
essential. He lends him "a teeching machine that works like a T.V," which Charlie has to switch on
before he goes to sleep. Charlie is mystified, but Strauss insists that he follow his instructions if he
wants to get smart. He also explains to Charlie that, the changes in Charlie will be so slow, he won’t
notice them - "like you don’t notise how the hour hand on a clock moves."
When Nemur tells him how to operate the machine, Charlie demands to know its effects. Nemur is
furious, but Strauss pacifies him by pointing out that there’s been a change in Charlie, he is
beginning to question authority. Nemur explains to Charlie that the machine will teach him things
before and during his sleep. It will also stimulate him to remember his past. Charlie is scared. He
asks when he can return to Miss Kinnian’s class and they tell him that she will give him special
lessons at the testing center.
March 25
Charlie is annoyed by the "T.V" which keeps him up all night - "How can I sleep with something
yelling crazy things all night in my ears." He asks, "if you can get smart when your going to school,
why do pepul go to school?" He is sure its not going to work as he’s been watching late late shows
on T.V for a long time and they haven’t made him smart. He thinks maybe certain shows like
quizzes could do that.
March 26
The "T.V" disturbs his sleep, so he finds it hard to keep awake in the daytime at work. He
remembers how he first went to Miss Kinnian’s class. He had asked Joe Carp how he could learn to
read but he had laughed at him. But Fanny Berden at the bakery had overheard, and got the Center’s
address for him. He had been so excited that he had bought a newspaper, planning to read it
immediately "after I lerned!" He had met Miss Kinnian there. She had been friendly and
encouraging but had warned him that it might take years for him to read.
March 27
Now that Charlie is beginning to remember his past, Nemur tells him he has to have therapy
sessions with Strauss, as "when you feel bad, you talk to make it better." Charlie wonders why he
should go as I don’t feel bad and I do plenty of talking all day." But Nemur insists on it. Charlie still
feels therapy is silly as he anyway writes his thoughts down in the progress reports. So he takes the
latest reports with him and asks Strauss if "he could just read it and I could take a nap on the couch.
I was very tired because that T.V kept me up all nite." Strauss refuses to listen to him and tells him
that he has to talk. Charlie begins to talk but falls asleep on the couch, in the middle of the session.
March 28
Charlie wonders what good it does to get smart in his sleep, when what he wants is to get smart
when he’s awake! But Strauss explains about his having two minds, the conscious and the subconscious and how "one don’t tell the other what its doing." Charlie looks up the words in the
dictionary, but can’t understand the entry there.
15
He reports that he has a headache. He has got it because of a party at Halloran’s Bar. Joe Carp and
Frank Reilly from the bakery had invited Charlie to the party. They had plied him with whisky, and
he had danced on the bar with a lampshade on his head. He remembers Joe asking him to show the
girls how he mops the toilets. Charlie had obliged and told them proudly how Donner and Miss
Kinnian had praised him and told him to take pride in his work. Everyone laughs uproariously at
this, and Joe asks if he is making out with Miss Kinnian. Charlie does not understand what he
means. Charlie is very happy and says, "we have some good times but I can’t wait to be smart like
my best frends Joe Carp and Frank Reilly."
The party ends for Charlie when they send him out "to see if it was raining." He is lost in the
unfamiliar streets and is brought home, bruised and sore, by a "nice poleecman." That night, he
dreams about the time when he had gone to a department store with his parents and had got lost.
Charlie was terrified, until a man had consoled him and given him a lollypop. Next day, Joe laughs
at his bruises. Charlie decides not to drink whisky anymore.
March 29
Charlie he beats Algernon eight times in a row and therefore he is very excited. He is sure, "I must
be getting smarter to beat a smart mouse like Algernon. But I don’t feel smarter." He feels sorry
about beating Algernon and asks Burt if he can feed him. Burt refuses to give him permission. Burt
also tells him that Algernon is so smart that he has to solve a problem with a lock that changes
every time he goes in to eat, so that he has to learn something new whenever he wants to eat. That
makes Charlie sad-"How would Burt like to have to pass a test every time he wants to eat."
Strauss tells Charlie he must sleep well and gives him sleeping pills because he is very excited. He
says the greatest change will come about when he is asleep. Charlie’s memory connects this with
his Uncle Hermann sleeping at their house when he stopped getting work as a house painter. He had
got too old to climb ladders. Charlie remembers saying he wanted to be a house painter like
Hermann. His sister Norma had mocked him, saying that he was going to be the artist in the family.
He remembers his father slapping Norma for saying this. "I always feeled bad when Norma got
slapped for being mean to me. When I got smart, I’ll go visit her."
March 30
Miss Kinnian begins to coach Charlie to cope with his increasing intelligence. She says that she has
great confidence in him. She says at worst he will have the increased intelligence only for a short
time, but he will still have done something for retarded people everywhere. They begin reading
‘Robinson Crusoe,’ which Charlie finds very difficult. He feels very sorry for Robinson because he
is all alone. He hopes he’ll find a friend soon.
March 31
Charlie is taught new words by Miss Kinnian. The irrationality of English spellings troubles
Charlie. Miss Kinnian tells him not to worry, as "spelling is not suppose to make sence."
Notes
Charlie’s directness and positive attitude to all around him, is seen in all his observations about
people. He now moves away from the restricted world of the bakery. The carefree college students
and their incessant arguments about subjects completely alien to him fascinate him. Upto this point,
16
the last word in ‘smartness’ to him was represented by Joe Carp and Frank Reilly, his loutish
‘friends.’ Now the larger world begins to open up before him. Charlie soaks it all in wide-eyed, and
without any of the ‘ego problems’ which plague the others around him. He is astounded that anyone
could laugh at Prof. Nemur. In his experience people only ever laughed at him because he was less
than ‘smart.’ Even then he has no grudge against the Carps and Reillys or against the childhood
cruelty of his sister, Norma.
However, Charlie’s personality is shown to be gradually altering after the operation. First, he is
inevitably disappointed that he has not transformed instantly after the operation. Then there is anger
at being pressurized by Nemur and Strauss, and frustration at being less than a mouse! Gradually,
he begins to question the decisions made for him-the boring tests, the intrusive "T.V" and the
contests with Algernon. His unconscious critical comments on the English language are very apt.
Another new feature is his emerging memories of his family. So far, they are brief flashes set off by
associations with something in his present experience. Memories of his mother, which are more
central to his life and more traumatic, have still not surfaced.
Charlie’s awareness of Algernon’s situation grows everyday. He enjoys holding the mouse. He feels
sorry and angry that Algernon is fed only after he solves some problems. The earlier anger at being
beaten by a mere mouse now grows into a bond of kinship, when he realizes that Algernon too has
been experimented upon. Charlie is puzzled when Burt and his associates try to conceal from the
students, his reason for being at the lab. But he is still only absorbing impressions and is not yet
able to draw conclusions from them.
Of the others described, Strauss, Donner, Miss Kinnian are portrayed as sympathetic. In this sense,
Strauss differs from Nemur. Of the people at the bakery, Joe and Frank represent the most
backward and insensitive attitude that some have towards a physically or mentally disabled person.
Only Gimpy, himself lame, protects Charlie from their crude practical jokes. Miss Kinnian now
begins to change from the vaguely maternal image - "she looks younger than I remembered her,"
Charlie says. Nemur is the only one in the research team who seems to see Charlie as an
experimental object. Both Strauss and Burt are very patient with Charlie’s anxieties and
frustrations.
The first person narrative suits the theme perfectly. Its low key humor, pathos, and bare reporting
style reflect the still underdeveloped intellect of the narrator. It also permits the author to avoid
technical explanations about the experiments, and allows the reader to form independent
conclusions about people and events without interference from an omniscient author.
The bare early reports are slowly expanding along with the narrator’s increasing awareness and
power of expression.
17
Progress Report 9
Summary
April 1
Oliver who works the dough mixer quits his job. It is April Fool’s Day, and Joe and Frank plan to
play a trick on Charlie. They egg him on to mix the dough before Gimpy comes in. Only Fanny
Birden, who is kind to Charlie, protests and asks them to leave Charlie alone. The rest hope that
when Charlie inevitable messes up the dough, they’ll get the day off. To their surprise, Charlie gets
the mix right. Even the dour Gimpy is bewildered. So is Mr. Donner. Everyone is surprised,
especially Frank. Fanny is thrilled for Charlie. He doesn’t understand why Joe and Frank are hostile
and aloof after this. Charlie overhears Frank telling Joe that, "there is something peculiar lately
about Charlie." Mr. Donner insists that Charlie does the mixing permanently and gives him a 5dollar raise. Fanny explains to Charlie that "This is April Fools Day and the joke back fired and
made them the fools instead of you." Charlie wonders, "Does that mean I’m getting smarter?"
April 3
He finishes reading Robinson Crusoe and wonders what happens to him later. Miss Kinnian says
that’s all there is. WHY? Charlie wants to know.
April 4
Miss Kinnian is happy about Charlie’s promotion, but she says he shouldn’t feel bad if he finds out
that everybody isn’t as nice as he thinks. Miss Kinnian starts crying when Charlie tells her that, "all
my friends are smart people and their good. They like me and they never did anything that wast
nice." He has faint memories of his mother, who he remembers was as nice as Miss. Kinnian. He
remembers her telling him to be good and always to be friendly to people but "that some people
might think you are trying to make trouble." This connects with another flash of memory. His
mother had come from the hospital with a new baby girl. He remembers how the baby’s crying used
to keep him awake in the night. One night, she had woken him with her cries, and he had picked her
up "to hold her to get quiet the way mom does." His mother had rushed in screaming hysterically
and had hit him hard. Charlie realizes now that she had thought he would hurt the baby, which he
never would have. He decides to tell this incident to Dr. Strauss.
April 6
Charlie learns about commas from Miss Kinnian who says people could lose a lot of money if a
comma is in the wrong place. Charlie is completely confused by this, but enthusiastically uses them
throughout his sentences!
April 7
Miss Kinnian explains different kinds of punctuation, but Charlie mixes them all up! He feels "she
is a genius" to understand it all and also have answers for all his questions. Charlie wishes he could
be like her.
18
April 8
Charlie wakes up in the middle of the night and reads through a grammar book. He now
understands all that Miss Kinnian had been trying to explain. Looking over his own old progress
reports, he is horrified at his chaotic spelling and punctuation. Miss Kinnian however doesn’t let
him change them. She says that these will show what progress he’s made. Charlie visits Algernon
and plays with him. They no longer compete.
April 10
Charlie is depressed. It’s the first time he’s stayed away from work on purpose. It all started with a
party with his friends at the bakery. He had avoided whisky but the coke they gave him tasted
"funny." Then Joe had egged on a girl, Ellen, to dance with Charlie and "give him a good time."
Every one else had watched them dance and someone had made Charlie trip several times. In the
beginning, Charlie too had laughed with them but eventually, he no longer found it funny. Ellen
then offered him an apple, which he discovered was a fake one. Joe has said, "I ain’t laughed so
much since we sent him around the corner to see if it was raining that night we ditched him at
Halloran’s." Charlie now realizes that they had got rid of him deliberately.
This unpleasant incident sets off old memory - of kids in his childhood neighborhood allowing him
to play hide and seek, with him as IT. By the time he opened his eyes, they all would have vanished
and then he would go back home, alone. At last Charlie understands that Joe, Frank and the others
only wanted him around to make fun of him. He also understands what they meant by "to pull a
Charlie Gordon." Charlie runs home, heart broken. That night he has a wet dream about the
experience with Ellen.
April 13
Charlie misses work again because he is depressed about his "friends," yet he feels "it’s a good
thing about finding out how everybody laughs at me." He’s happy about his reading, and about the
fact that he is able to remember most things, but the disturbing aspect is the past, which keeps
intruding - "it was like a big hole opened up in the walls of my mind and I can just walk through."
He sees himself as another person - a young, skinny, scared man looking for Donner’s Bakery and
watching scenes on the street nearby. He hears boys in the neighborhood calling him "Charlie!
Charlie! ...fat head barley!" He remembers how they had called him into a dark alley and urinated
all over him, how Uncle Hermann had run after them, in fury, with a hammer in his hand. Then he
remembers a scene in the bakery, when tired after his work he had been dozing until someone had
kicked his legs out from under him.
April 14
Charlie tells Strauss all that he remembers. Strauss tells him that it is important for him to learn
about himself so that he can understand his problems. Strauss laughs when Charlie says he does not
have any problems. Strauss tells Charlie that his problems will multiply with his increasing
intelligence, especially as his intellectual growth will outstrip his emotional growth. He assures
Charlie that he will always give him help when he needs it. Charlie reports the wet dream and feels
queasy about it. He thinks the cause of the queasiness may be that, "I always thought it was dirty
and lead to talk about it." Strauss reassures him, saying it is a natural thing that happens to boys. He
19
thinks Charlie "is still a boy about women." All these new ideas are disturbing, but Charlie resolves
"to find out all about my life."
April 15
Charlie reads history, geography and arithmetic and begins to learn foreign languages. He is to start
college subjects in a couple of weeks, and Strauss instructs him not to read Psychology, as it will
divert him from his own experiences and into thinking about psychological theories. Charlie reads a
lot of American literature and is impressed.
April 16
Charlie is filled with anger when he thinks of all the times people have laughed at him. Yet, he
hopes that when he doubles his I.Q of 70 as Prof. Nemur tells him he will, "people will like me and
become my friends." He hears Strauss and Nemur and later, Burt, arguing about what I.Q really is.
Nemur says it is a measure of intelligence while to Strauss, it "showed how much intelligence you
could get ...you still had to fill the cup up with stuff." Charlie reacts with "I don’t see how if they
don’t know what it is or where it is-how they know how much of it you’ve got!"
April 17
Charlie has a frightening dream in which he is unable to write any progress reports any more. He
asks Gimpy to write them for him and when Miss Kinnian reads them she is furious, as they are full
of foul language. She tears them up later they turn into lace valentines covered with blood. Charlie
lets the associations run freely through his mind as Dr. Strauss has taught him. He is back in
memories of P.S. 13 where he studied as a child, aged 11. The boys allowed him to be in the middle
of the ball game, but they did not allow him to throw the ball. A little girl, Harriet, with dimples and
long curls passes by. All the boys loved her, therefore Charlie loved her too, though it did not mean
as much to him as it did to them. Harriet was never cruel to him and he played the fool in order to
amuse her.
On Valentines Day, since all the boys wanted to give her a valentine, Charlie too decided to do the
same. He wrapped up his heart shaped locket with red ribbon and asked a boy Hymie Roth to write
his message on a paper. Hymie had done it, sniggering all the while. After delivering the gift,
Charlie waited anxiously for Harriet’s response. She snubbed him at school next day and
afterwards, to the delight of the other children, Harriet’s two elder brothers beat Charlie up in the
schoolyard. It is only now that Charlie can remember and understand what Hymie had done, the
obscene note he had written. At the time he had been completely bewildered, hurt, his hopes
shattered, but still completely in the dark. He concludes, "I was pretty dumb because I believed
what people told me. I shouldn’t have trusted Hymie or anyone." The incident had caused him to be
shifted away to another school.
April 18
Charlie is subjected to the Rorschach Tests again. He realizes that, they are the same inkblots,
which had caused him so much tension earlier. When Burt gives him the instructions, Charlie gets
very angry, saying that the last time he was asked to find pictures hidden in the inkblots and now he
is being asked to say what these cards make him think of. He becomes very angry and walks out.
Nemur, who was just passing by in the hall, and Burt follow him. When Charlie refuses to believe
20
that the instructions were the same both times, Nemur tells him that he can listen to their taped
conversation. Charlie immediately says that he will believe them only when he hears the tape. They
make him come back and listen to the earlier taped conversation. He is shocked at his own childish
remarks on tape. He suspects the psychologists of laughing at him, but sees what they are seeing his growing doubts, anger at the world around him, which are intensifying as his intelligence is
growing. He is also amazed to see that the inkblots do suggest pictures. Even so he suspects a catch,
and peeps into Burt’s notes and at the backs of the cards. The test doesn’t make sense to himcouldn’t anyone make fools out of the researchers by lying about what they saw in the inkblots?
Along with this skepticism, he also begins to resent the idea that his thoughts and feelings are being
exposed to the psychologists. He decides to ask Dr. Strauss the permission to keep some of his
papers private for some time. He wonders why this has begun to bother him now, when it didn’t do
the same earlier.
Notes
The success of the operation is clear from the gradual, but unmistakable, changes in Charlie. The
incident on April Fool’s Day is exciting but also threatening. Charlie is delighted at being able to do
things he could never do before, and being able to explore knowledge he had never known about.
But people’s attitude towards him change. His boorish "friends" at the bakery become increasingly
hostile and suspicious. This is balanced by the increased interest of the psychologists and Miss
Kinnian’s joy in his development.
Charlie is shown to be wary and self-analytical about these changes. He is defensive when Miss
Kinnian suggests that his friends are less than kind. He becomes suspicious and hostile to the
psychologists and is surprised at himself. The author brings in these differences gradually, so that
they are quite convincing. He also makes digs at the methodology of psychological research through Charlie’s digs at the meaning of I.Q. - his query about how psychologists know how much
it is, if they aren’t quite sure what it is or where it is! He is equally critical of the validity of the
Rorschach tests and whether a mischievous subject can’t fake their results. Through these reactions,
the author brings in some valid criticisms of the tools of research, as well as an insight into
Charlie’s growing intelligence. The earlier retarded Charlie had been passive, eager to see the best
in all around him. Now, like most normal adults, he is proud, suspicious of people’s intentions
towards him, and jealous of his privacy. His questioning of the research methods used stems partly
from his resentment at being spied upon and being "manipulated."
On the one hand, there is Charlie’s excitement and joy at being able to explore new fields of
knowledge on the other; he is plagued by memories of his unhappy past. The fearful child in him
doesn’t want to remember the painful incidents of his childhood and adolescence. There is an
intense pathos in the memory of his mother’s reaction to his holding his baby sister. In this, the
novel goes way beyond the realms of science fiction and stirs a deep sympathy in the reader for the
vulnerability of a mentally retarded person. It also has the unusual device of Charlie, now ‘normal,’
feeling empathy for his earlier self.
Most of the women in the novel - Fanny at the bakery, Harriet in his childhood and Miss Kinnian,
are depicted as kind, warm and nurturing figures.
21
Progress Report 10
Summary
April 21
Charlie makes history at the bakery. He rearranges the baking machines so as to speed up
production. Mr. Donner gives him a ten-dollar weekly raise and a fifty-dollar bonus. Charlie is
thrilled and wants to go out for a celebration. Unfortunately, no one seems free to join him. He
notes that everyone seems frightened of him. They no longer play tricks on him like Frank once did,
like knocking his legs from under him when he had been sleepy once. They aren’t friendly either.
Charlie recalls a scene when Frank had knocked him down. This had made Gimpy very angry and
he had asked the boys to leave Charlie alone. Gimpy, bluff and dour, with a bad foot, had been
Charlie’s champion. On that day, Frank had suggested that they teach Charlie to bake rolls. Charlie
was excited but he didn’t have the confidence to assert himself.
Finally, everyone had got in on the experiment, and both the bakers had tried to show him how to
mould the dough. Charlie was eager to please Gimpy, who had always been kind in his own gruff
way. He watched both bakers but found their different styles confusing. Gimpy tried to tempt him
with a cheap shiny pendant on a chain. He accepted the dough and then panicked. The words
‘teach’ and ‘learn’ bring back an oppressive childhood memory of his mother’s arm raised to strike
him for not learning something. The other people in the bakery told him to continue and finally he
started rolling the dough into a ball and making little rolls the way Gimpy was doing it. Then
Gimpy insisted that Charlie should repeat the activity on his own, without watching them. The
second time, Charlie had forgotten everything and while he was trying to remember, the others had
given up on him and moved away. In spite of him not ‘deserving’ the shiny medallion, Gimpy had
given it to him. Charlie was touched by his kindness, but had wished, that the others would be more
patient with him. He is sure that he would have remembered the work if they had given him time.
When they had discussed him with a casual "Go on, you big baby", Charlie had fooled around with
his comic book, acting as if it was a hat, to make them laugh. Looking back on that scene, Charlie is
wistful.
April 22
Charlie is now beginning to notice a change in the attitude of the people at the bakery towards him.
He is conscious that he owes the huge change in his life to Nemur and Strauss, but "the pleasure’s
gone because the others resent me." Charlie attributes this change to the fact that they don’t
understand what has happenned to him and therefore does not blame them. He feels lonely, and
decides to ask Miss Kinnian to go to a movie with him.
April 24
Charlie wants permission from either Nemur or Strauss before inviting Miss Kinnian, so he visits
the campus. Here, he overhears a heated argument between the two. Nemur has agreed to present a
paper on their experiment with Charlie at a convention in Chicago. Strauss objects to this idea as he
feels that it is too early. Charlie overhears them hurling abuses and criticisms at each other. He
suddenly realizes he has no right to listen, as "they might not have cared when I was too feebleminded to know what was going on, but now that I could understand they wouldn’t want me to hear
it." He therefore leaves the campus. Their quarrel upsets him as, for the first time, he sees them as,
"not gods or even heroes but just two men worried about getting something out of their work."
22
April 26 & 27
Charlie finds himself getting more and more attracted towards the intense literary and intellectual
discussions between students at the university luncheonette. He is shocked and then excited by their
debates on the existence of God. He soon becomes deeply involved in reading a lot of literature and
he describes this as, "feeding a hunger that can’t be satisfied."
April 28
His identifying with the students rekindles an old memory, and he dreams of a scene between his
mother and his teacher at P.S. 13, his first school. His mother tries to scratch the teacher when she
advises the family to send Charlie to a special school. He remembers that he was six years old then
and his sister Norma was not been born. His mother, a tense, talkative woman, "was always
fluttering, like a big, white bird-around my father, and he too heavy and tired to escape her
pecking." She screams at his father, refusing to accept Charlie’s condition - "He’s not a dummy.
He’s normal. He’ll be just like everyone else." His father objects to her "driving him as if he were
an animal that could learn to do tricks." The loud voices frighten Charlie who takes refuge in a
game with his bunch of beads. His mother flings them away, commanding him to play with his
alphabet blocks. His mother’s sudden outburst scares him and by looking at him his mother realizes
that he has to go to the toilet. She asks him to go the toilet alone but Charlie is too petrified to move
and therefore spoils his clothes. She goes towards him to hit him and Charlie turns to his father for
comfort. Unable to influence her, Charlie remembers his father walking out of the apartment.
Now, Charlie suddenly recalls that their names were Rose and Matt. Even in the dream, he is unable
to see their faces clearly. It has been a long time.
Notes
The progress Charlie makes after the operation is shown almost imperceptibly. The device of a first
person narrator is very effective in this novel. It allows him to depict Charlie’s thoughts and
condition without the distancing or patronizing attitude that an omniscient narrator might have had.
It also underlines the huge difference between the original Charlie and his persona after the
operation.
Three major developments are seen in this chapter. One is the disappointment of the post-operation
Charlie’s hopes, of the deepening his friendship and of shared enjoyment with his "mates" at the
bakery. The earlier "dumb" Charlie had believed them to be his friends and had been happy in their
company. Now he is increasingly isolated from Frank, Joe and even Gimpy, his protector in earlier
days. At another level, the reader is shown that even the earlier ‘friendship’ was more in Charlie’s
mind. Joe, Frank, and others had treated him sometimes with tolerance and at the others times, with
a gleeful spite.
The second important development is Charlie’s slowly revealed memories of his home life, which
appear mostly in his dreams. The dominant figure is that of his mother. Her fanatical determination
that Charlie should be "normal," makes her the center of his youthful fear and discomfort. She is
seen as a bird of prey pecking at his gentle father.
The third important element is Charlie’s new perspective of Nemur and Strauss, the two
experimental scientists. Earlier Charlie was shown as accepting them as agents of hope in his life.
There was irony in the depiction of their puppet-master attitudes, but the irony was not in Charlie’s
23
mind. After the operation he looks at them analytically, they are not ‘Gods’ any more, and in their
confusion and egotism, lies Charlie’s insecurity.
The readers also notice that, the Progress Reports become longer and more complex, with the
increasing intelligence and complexity of Charlie’s mind.
Progress Report 11
Summary
May 1
Charlie takes Miss Kinnian to see a movie. She attracts and excites him and he has an urge to touch
her like all the dating couples around. When Charlie tries to confide his newfound feelings for her
he becomes clumsy and drops things, but Alice is always patient. She refuses to accept any deeper
commitment in their relationship as she feels "it might have a negative effect." Charlie on the other
hand is furious and frustrated "with her easy answers and her maternal fussing." The evening ends
on an uneasy note with Charlie’s resolve "next time, I’m going to kiss her good night."
May 3
Charlie has a nightmare. He sees a red-haired girl embracing him. The more caressing she becomes,
the more he retreats as, "I know I must never touch a girl." The dream ends with her holding a
bloody knife in her hands. He wakes up disturbed, and tries to let his mind go into a free
associations process. He sees a picture of himself watching his growing sister Norma through a
keyhole, as she is taking her bath. The memory then shifts to him being chased with a kitchen knife.
He also remembers finding Norma’s bloodstained underwear one-day, and being frightened by that.
He tries to connect his memories - "I can understand why I was taught to keep away from women. It
was wrong for me to express my feelings to Alice." Yet, this is contrary to another need-"I’m a
person. I was somebody before I went under the surgeon’s knife. And I have to love someone."
May 8
At work another disturbing factor surfaces. Charlie realizes that Gimpy is cheating Donner. When
he works at the cash counter, he under charges the regular customers and gets a cut from them.
Charlie is horrified to see this. He is grateful to Gimpy. But he also loves and owes an immense
debt to Mr. Donner. He is disillusioned and troubled about what to do next. He thinks about
Donner’s kindness to his employees, especially Gimpy. At that moment a red-haired lady comes to
the bakery. Charlie realizes that, under Gimpy’s instructions, he has often delivered orders to her
house. Charlie also realizes that, she usually comes to the bakery when Mr. Donner is not around.
Charlie notices that, Gimpy undercharges her purchases. Charlie now realizes that Gimpy has used
him as a go-between to deliver packages to such chosen customers. The fact that Gimpy has taken
advantage of his ignorance makes Charlie furious.
24
May 9 & 10
This is the first time Charlie has been faced with such a moral problem. He is torn between two old
friends. Gimpy has three children and a clubfoot. What if he loses his job? On the other hand, why
should he be allowed to cheat his employer? What about Charlie’s own role as an unwitting
"accomplice?" Charlie takes his dilemma to Dr. Nemur. Nemur tells him not to get involved. He
compares Charlie’s innocence in the matter to the position of a knife used in a stabbing. Charlie is
furious - "But I’m not an inanimate object," he argues. "I’m a person."
Later, Strauss and Charlie discuss the matter during counseling. Strauss feels Charlie should tell
Donner. This confuses Charlie even more. He is unable to make a decision and decides to speak to
Alice about this and therefore asks her to meet him in the same cafeteria that they had met earlier.
When he tells her everything, Alice pushes him to make his own decision. She says he should trust
himself to do so. Charlie is excited at her advice. Charlie confesses that he loves her, but Alice does
will not accept this seriously. She tells him he is changing very fast; that he will soon develop to a
level beyond hers, and they may not have much in common. Charlie is terribly disappointed. He
insists that he needs her for what she is, and that she should sometimes meet him outside the
campus.
May 11
Charlie decides to watch Gimpy for some more time. His doubts are confirmed and he decides on a
"compromise." He tells Gimpy about an imaginary ‘friend,’ who has discovered his colleague
cheating his boss. He also tells Gimpy that, if the colleague stops stealing then the ‘friend’ will not
report the matter to the boss. Gimpy says that the friend should mind his own business. By now, the
reader can understand that Gimpy knows who Charlie is talking about. He tells Charlie to tell his
friend that, the colleague doesn’t have a choice. While leaving, he asks Charlie whether the friend
would be interested in a cut but Charlie refuses saying that the friend only wants this to stop. Gimpy
is livid - ‘you’ll be sorry you stuck your nose in. I always stood up for you. I should if had my head
examined."
May 15
Charlie reads books related to varied fields, like ancient languages, the calculus of variations and
‘Hindu’ history. But he grows more disillusioned with those around him. He no longer enjoys
listening to the student’s debates as they are, "on such an elementary level." He meets an economist
with whom he wants to discuss the use of the military blockade as a weapon during the peacetime.
However, the man says he can’t answer as it is outside his area of specialization. Charlie is shocked.
He has similar experiences with many other ‘learned’ professors. "They would always find excuses
to slip away, afraid to reveal the narrowness of their knowledge."
May 17
Charlie takes Alice to an open-air concert in Central Park. All around them, there are couples
making love. Charlie hesitantly caresses Alice, and is angry because he feels that she is responding,
only physically, "while she kept her mind on higher things." Suddenly, he has a feeling that a
teenage boy is watching him. He imagines he is in the boy’s place, watching Alice and himself. He
asks Alice whether she can see him but she says that she doesn’t see anything. He starts to chase the
boy but fails to catch him. Charlie feels faint and dizzy. Later, after counseling he feels this
25
experience was a hallucination. Strauss tells him that emotionally, he is still an adolescent and
therefore is not ready for a serious relationship.
May 20
Charlie is sacked from his job at the bakery. Donner calls him into his office and explains "Nothing’s wrong with your work. But something’s happened to you, and I don’t understand what it
means... They’re all upset, Charlie, I got to let you go." Charlie pleads with him to let him stay, but
Donner says the other employees are dead against him. Charlie asks for a chance to convince them.
Donner unwillingly gives it to him. But it's no use Frank bursts out with - "you come pushing in
here with your ideas and suggestions and make the rest of us all look like a bunch of dopes." While
Gimpy plainly says - "you can go to hell!"
Only Fanny Berden one of the girls talks kindly to him. But she is very suspicious. "Charlie if you
done anything you wasn’t supposed to - you know, like with the devil or something - maybe it ain’t
too late to get out of it."
Charlie ends up feeling lonelier than ever before. He wonders - " what would happen if they put
Algernon back in the big cage with some of the other mice. Would they turn against him?"
May 25
Against his own better judgement Charlie goes to Alice when he’s in trouble. By the time he
reaches her house he is soaked to the skin because of the rain. When Alice goes to the kitchen to
make coffee, he studies her house and her choice of furnishings. He feels that there’s a clash
between the more intellectual Alice and her more conventional and romantic self. "As if Alice
couldn’t make up her mind who she was and which world she wanted to live in." When Alice
returns with the coffee, he pours out his misery about being thrown out of the bakery, - "before I got
involved in this experiment, I had friends, people who cared for me... I’m like an animal who’s
been locked out of his nice, safe cage."
Alice explains that his rejection at the bakery is a "a symbolic repetition of experiences you had as a
child. Being rejected by your parents... being sent away..." Charlie rejects her "nice, neat label."
Charlie tells her that the fear that he experienced for things like, being strapped for not listening to
his sister Norma or his teacher tying his hands to prevent him from fidgeting, were all justified.
However, the terror that he is experiencing now at being thrown out of the bakery is something that
he doesn’t understand. Talking about these things makes Charlie very upset and Alice holds him
close in order to comfort him. She tries to give an explanation for his fear by saying that, he wants
to be an adult, but he is still a little boy underneath.
This sets of a series of memories - one of a middle-aged woman taking a delivery from the bakery
and then exposing herself to Charlie’s eyes. Then back to his father trying fruitlessly to shield him
from his mother’s beatings because he had an involuntary erection while looking at a friend of
Norma’s. He remembers her threat - "If you ever touch a girl, I’ll put you away in a cage like an
animal, for the rest of your life." Charlie feeling still overwhelmed by the past asks Alice "You do it! Hold me!" But even when she does, the old panic overcomes him and he cries himself
to sleep in her arms.
26
Notes
Charlie’s rapid intellectual growth excites him, but emotionally he is in anguish, both at his past
that he remembers and at his increasing loneliness in the present. Earlier Charlie was shown lacking
the basic understanding to evaluate a relationship correctly. He was happy when Frank or Joe
laughed, not knowing that they were laughing at him. They are his ‘world’ and he believes he is
happy in it with his ‘pals.’ When he had felt unhappy, he hadn’t the capacity to know why or blame
anyone for it.
The operation frees him from his ‘nice safe’ emotional cage in many ways. It exposes his ‘pals’ and
their so-called friendship with him as an exploitative relationship. The occasional pitying and
kindness is swept away by their hostility when the ‘moron’ begins to judge them and see their
mistakes. They can’t bear to see him around and have no peace till they get rid of him. The whole
spectrum of people at the bakery, whether Frank and Joe, or Gimpy, or even Fanny Berden, all
mistrust the unfamiliar and can’t accept the ‘new’ Charlie. Even the most sympathetically drawn
characters like Donner and Fanny feel that there is something wrong about him and won’t accept
rational explanations. This makes Charlie’s earlier even deeper. He cannot turn to the researchers,
who see him more as an experimental subject than a person. Inevitably, the only person he can turn
to is Alice.
The author shows his earlier childlike dependence on Alice as a sort of kindly maternal figure, is
changing with his development. From ‘Miss Kinnian’ she has now become ‘Alice,’ who is young,
lovely and desirable. Charlie then tries to fulfill his own needs through Alice, but she holds back.
She is aware that during such rapid change, the Charlie of today, who is closer to her, may change
dramatically in the future. She tries to hold back from a deeper commitment, but she seems to be
weakening.
Meanwhile, this chapter shows the background of Charlie’s fears of intimacy with a woman. It
reveals to him and to the reader, his fear ridden past with his mother as, at one level, a villain. Yet,
even in her depiction, there is a kind of ambiguity, as it exposes the desperation of a parent with a
retarded child. It shows her determination that he should make progress, that he can be ‘normal’ and
that he should do nothing to attract hostile feelings in people around him. Her attitude is in contrast
to his father’s softer, more tolerant one, of acceptance of his retarded state.
His mother’s determined efforts to suppress his sexuality haunt Charlie, the emerging adult. Now
after the operation when sexual activity would be ‘permitted’ for him, he finds himself paralyzed
sexually. His inability to understand the reason leads him to more free association, with the aim of
probing his own past, and brings before the reader a series of haunting dream-like sequences of the
Gordon family. The recurring images in these sequences are of a woman bathing, of blood and a
knife upheld by an unseen hand. The hand is later seen to be that of the mother. The fear she has
implanted in Charlie is so strong that he becomes physically ill and almost blacks out when he
comes close to having a sexual encounter. In the incident at the open-air concert, he actually feels
he sees a peeping tom spying on Alice and him. Gradually it turns out that it was his own younger
repressed self he had seen.
This peeping tom image is an important one in the novel. It signifies the alienation, which Charlie
has always felt from those around him. He just exists and doesn’t see himself as really living, but
only as an observer of other’s lives. After the operation he can participate ‘directly’ in life but the
old image haunts him. He is alienated even from himself during his moments of deepest feeling.
27
Progress Report 12
Summary
June 5
Charlie is to go to with Algernon to Chicago for the International Psychological Convention. They
are the ‘prime exhibits’ for Dr. Nemur’s presentation of his experimental work. Nemur is tense
because Charlie has not submitted any progress reports for two weeks. Charlie is irritable about
writing because he finds it too slow when he needs other complex activities which his mind can
chew on. Charlie takes up Strauss’ suggestion that he type out his thoughts. Charlie therefore begins
to type, which is a faster process. Strauss also asks him to express himself simply, so that people
will understand. Charlie appreciates the irony of finding himself "on the other side of the
intellectual fence."
Charlie is being paid by the Wellberg Foundation since the loss of his job. But the rejection at the
bakery means much more to Charlie than losing his job. He has frightful dreams about it. It
represents his only concrete connection with his past-his window, "the window reflecting my image
becomes bright, as the glass turns into a mirror I see little Charlie Gordon..."
He remembers a scene when his sister had come home triumphant after getting an ‘A’ in a test. She
demands a puppy, as promised by her mother. Her father refuses, as they have refused to buy a
puppy for Charlie earlier. Charlie supports Norma’s demand and says that he will help her look
after the pup. At this Norma throws a tantrum saying that the puppy will be hers alone and she will
not share it with Charlie. She refuses to play with her brother, calling him a "dummy" and becomes
hysterical. Bewildered, Charlie wets his pants, his common response to frightening events in his
world. Charlie now remembers another fragment when Norma tells a friend, "he is not my real
brother! He’s just a boy we took in because we felt sorry for him!"
These memories arouse an intense mixture of anger and sorrow in Charlie.
June 6
Charlie quarrels with Alice. He waits for her outside her class and can’t resist going in to see the
students. Some remember him from the past. After they leave he realizes that Alice is angry. She
lashes out at him for his changing attitude to people, and for losing his ‘warmth, openness, a
kindness that made everyone like you.’ She also says he had undermined her own self-confidence
and that he ‘takes liberties with other people’s minds.’ Finally, she cools down and says she doesn’t
want to disturb him before the all-important Chicago convention. Charlie leaves, angry and
disappointed. Suddenly he has an astonishing insight. He realizes that his feeling for Alice has
moved from ‘worship to love, to fondness, to a feeling of gratitude and responsibility.’ He sees that
he has clung to Alice out of fear of being forced out on his own and "cut adrift."
June 8
Lonelier than ever, Charlie roams the streets at night "wanting someone to talk to and yet afraid to
meet anyone." He finally stops at Central park, where he meets a woman sitting alone on the park
bench. They start talking and she tells him about her husband and her family. While they are
28
talking, Charlie realizes the kind of woman she is. He is quite eager to take her to his room, until
she reveals that she’s pregnant. He is shocked and angry, this frightens her and she screams. Seeing
people coming towards the screaming woman, Charlie flees. The People start hunting for him,
believing he tried to rape her. At one level, Charlie feels he wants the people to catch and punish
him. Why? He is frightened of his own feelings of guilt. At the same time, the incident of the
pregnant woman sets off the memory of his mother, when she was pregnant with Norma. "When
she was holding me less, warming me less with her voice and touch, protecting me less against
anyone who dared to say I was subnormal."
Notes
This chapter builds up the tension regarding the all-important Psychological Convention. It shows
Charlie getting increasingly restless and disturbed with his environment. His exile from the bakery
gives him nightmares. In the course of his too-rapid progress from pre-adolescence to adulthood,
his dismissal from the bakery is necessary for his development yet it leaves him feeling naked and
unprotected.
Interspersed with his bad dreams, are vivid, hurtful scenes from his childhood. Here the author
brings in the character of Charlie’s younger sister Norma. Bright and pampered, she had become the
focus of the mother’s attention. Her earlier obsessive concern for Charlie has obviously faded into
indifference. The father is always shown struggling to be fair to his son, always kind, but having
little influence on anyone in the family. The scene with the young sister reveals a harshly
convincing picture of the way a retarded child is regarded as a liability, even by another sibling. The
only company and friendship available to him is also withheld and her stinging rejection hurts him
afresh even after so many years. His rejection by various people in childhood not fully realized
then, but vividly so in the present, causes him intense pain.
This chapter shows a fresh stage in Charlie’s relationship with Alice. She exposes her insecurity
with him and her mistrust of the person he is becoming. Charlie also realizes that he is outgrowing
her intellectually, and his feelings have altered with his changing needs. Alice also comes out of the
stereotype she seemed earlier. She comes across as a normal, intense human being, worried about
whether she can deal with the unusual situation of Charlie. She has a strong attachment to him, but
it doesn’t meet her needs. It is clear to both of them that their relationship cannot lead to marriage,
children, and settling down.
The gradual withering of his earlier ties with people leads Charlie to prowl around, seeking human
contact, but unsure how to deal with it. He tries to have to sexual fling with no ties, only to find the
past too haunting, it’s influence still too dominant.
The brief sketch of the woman in the park bench is vivid-she is seen through Charlie’s fresh
viewpoint, not as a stereotyped pick up. There is an odd contrast between her aspect as, ‘the kind of
woman who had been around’ and her assertion that "I’m going to keep the baby." Her confidences
about her marriage to this stranger make her seem naïve, in contrast to his sudden outburst and the
chase that follows.
29
Progress Report 13
Summary
June 10
June 10 Charlie is flying to Chicago for the convention. He has been asked to tape his thoughts
instead of writing them. The new experience disturbs him, and he keeps thinking of a crash and this
reminds him of God and his mother’s teaching. God has no particular relevance for Charlie. He has
always vaguely imagined him as a departmental store-Santa Claus! He cannot distract his mind
away from this fear of flying. Suddenly he remembers another fearful experience in childhood - a
visit to a Dr. Guarino who was "going to help you get smart." This is one of his mother’s attempts
to get him to be ‘normal, whatever we have to do whatever it costs.’ His parents have their usual
tug-of-war before the visit-Matt his father distrusts the doctor and anticipates exorbitant fees. The
doctor snubs him when he asks him about his charges. Rose shows her eagerness and sweeps away
any resistance. Charlie remembers the doctor as being kind but he had been terrified at being
strapped on to the table. Mechanical sounds and flashing colored lights upsets Charlie and he wets
himself. Dr. Guarino didn’t lose his temper and assures him that he’ll be ‘the smartest boy on your
block’ before long. Later he let slip that "you’ll stay just the way you are-a nice kid." The parents
quarrel all the way home, with a trembling Charlie trying to shut out their voices. As usual, his
father walks off at the end.
Charlie comes back to the present. He feels now that his mother was the catalyst for his unusual
motivation to become normal. "Only after Norma proved to her that she was capable of having
normal children, and that I was a freak, did she stop trying to make me over. But I guess I never
stopped wanting to be the smart boy she wanted me to be, so that she would love me."
Charlie remembers the charlatan Guarino with tolerance - "He treated me-even then-as a human
being." He contrasts this with Nemur’s attitude to him as a guinea pig. "He doesn’t realize that I
was a person before I came here."
June 11
They arrive in Chicago. Things don’t begin well for Nemur, as everyone pays attention to Charlie,
questioning him about everything, including his own condition. When the opportunity appears
Charlie draws Nemur into the informal technical discussion on his condition. He suddenly realizes
Nemur is unaware of research into the subject in India and Japan. When Charlie questions him,
Nemur brushes him off. On appealing to Strauss, he finds that he knows even less. Charlie is
horrified and thinks they are frauds. Burt disagrees with him-pointing out that Nemur’s "just an
ordinary man trying to do a great man’s work, while the great men are all busy making bombs." He
also informs Charlie that while he has himself developed a superb mind now, he hasn’t got
understanding or tolerance. He also tells him of Nemur’s ambitious wife, who is always pushing
him into influential positions and the public eye.
This incident frightens Charlie - he realizes that "my fate is in the hands of men who are not the
giants I once thought them to be, men who don’t know all the answers."
30
June 13
It’s Nemur’s big day, when he makes his presentation. Charlie and Algernon are on stage, along
with Strauss, Nemur, and Burt. Burt begins the presentation with his report on the intelligence tests
he has put the white mouse through. Here a disturbing fact is revealed - that Algernon has been
recently rejecting his food reward, hurling himself against the cage after the test and has been
behaving ‘erratically.’ Charlie has not been told about this. To add to this, the psychiatrists show
films on Charlie’s early behavior in the lab, making the audience roar with laughter. His change of
expression in later films is discussed as if he were "a newly created thing." "Charlie and Algernon"
are constantly bracketed together-"two experimental animals with no existence outside the
laboratory."
Charlie seethes, but the final straw is when Strauss’ report reveals to him that they have not waited
long enough before presenting their work. Charlie feels like jumping up and declaring this but he
can’t. He then hears himself described as "a feeble-minded shell, a burden on the society," who has
now become "a man of dignity and sensitivity." Charlie has been flirting with the idea of freeing
Algernon from his cage. Now he can’t resist the temptation any more. Unseen, he pulls down the
latch, and Algernon darts across the white tablecloth and disappears. Women scream and a
confused mouse-hunt is launched! Women stand on chairs screaming and are knocked down by the
mouse-hunters! The dignified gathering is reduced to a frantic rabble chasing "a white mouse
smarter than many of them." The mouse enters the Ladies Room. While others hesitate Charlie slips
in and puts Algernon into his jacket pocket and escapes to New York. Charlie feels he’s running out
of time, after the momentous realization he had had about the experiments on him. He decides to
find a hotel room and to meet his parents.
Notes
This is a climactic chapter in the novel. Charlie’s mental growth has reached a peak, he knows a
dozen languages and can understand a variety of technical subjects. But this only brings home a
bleak awareness. First, he remembers more of his early life and the driving force his mother was to
make him "smart." However, the birth of his ‘normal’ sister and her growth, had made his mother
reject him completely and turn her attention to the other child.
The episode with Guarino reveals the way quacks take advantage of desperate families with
handicapped children. Yet, Guarino is shown as a sensitive person kind to an innocent boy. His
comments on parents who want their ‘normal’ children transformed into geniuses reflect back on
society. Guarnio is juxtaposed against Nemur who regards Charlie as a laboratory animal and not a
person. He is unable to take it when his "creation" knows more than he does. Algernon’s erratic
behavior signals the beginning of the end, and Charlie foresees his doom.
The author reflects on the pettiness of so called ‘great minds’, with the rider that the ‘really great
minds’ are making bombs. In the midst of these horrifying discoveries by Charlie, there is a wry
humor in his report of the conference. Algernon’s escape makes the whole thing farcical. The
climax for Charlie is very much an anti-climax for Nemur and his associates.
The parallel of Algernon and Charlie is drawn further, and obviously Algernon’s negative responses
reveal the chinks in Nemur’s work and Charlie’s own dismal future. The bond between the two is
cemented when Charlie determines to escape along with the mouse - "two man-made geniuses on
the run."
31
Charlie, the retarded child and man, is the ultimate ‘object’ for others to act upon as they wish. The
treatment of a vulnerable person as a non-person, even by those who claim to be working for ‘his
good’ is exposed here. So too is the nightmarish situation in many families, with one mentally
retarded member. His mother struggles and drags Charlie through all varieties of treatments because
her ego is at stake - "whose fault was it: hers or Matts?" is the question that haunts her regarding
Charlie’s condition. She struggles to change him, as she cannot accept him. Ultimately, Norma’s
‘normal’ state makes her reject him completely. Nemur shows the same lack of interest and
insensitivity personally. Charlie doesn’t resent Strauss or Burt as much as he resents Nemur.
As a counter to this, one can see Burt’s viewpoint - that Charlie is intolerant of Nemur’s human
weaknesses and negates his real achievement. Thus, Charlie is expected to treat others
sympathetically as human beings, while he himself is not treated as one!
Humour is one of the most striking aspects of this chapter. Starting with the ironic description of
Nemur’s petty egotism over the hotel accommodation, to his defensive feeling of superiority over
Japanese and Indian researchers, and culminating in the hilarious force of Algernon’s escape and
the frenzy into which it throws the august gathering.
Progress Report 14
Summary
June 15
The next day’s headlines are all about how the "Moron Genius and Mouse Go Berserk." Charlie is
astonished to read a news item about his sister who had thought him dead until the Beckman
University asked for her permission for the experiment on him. He finds that his father is living
separately, with a barbershop in the Bronx. Charlie wants to meet him in the time available to him.
His mind hesitates to conjure up Rose’s face because he both feared and loved her. She used to
alternate between tenderness and fierce outbursts till Norma’s birth. Then, while "Norma flowered
in our garden I became a weed, allowed to exist only where I would not be seen, in corners and dark
places." He is suddenly filled with hate for her, but he still needs to see her, perhaps to trace his past
or to just show her that he is better than normal. A flash of memory reminds him of the painful
incident, when she insists that he go the Warren State Home. His father resists, furious that "Now
you’ve got her, you’ve decided you don’t want him any more." She however remains unmoved
saying that, she is "not going to sacrifice her daughter for him." Charlie burns with anger at the
memory and decides he can’t see her till he has worked out his feelings.
June 16
Charlie checks into a hotel, with his small savings, and Algernon. He feels guilty about Nemur and
Strauss, but consoles himself by the fact that he is still recording his project reports. He has a hard
time preventing himself from calling up Alice.
He calls her once and hangs up even before she picks up the telephone. He moves into a rented
apartment with a separate room for Algernon. He plans to build him more interesting mazes "to
keep in shape" but with rewards other than food. For himself, he plans to read and discover himself.
32
June 19
Charlie meets his unconventional neighbor, Fay Lillman. Locked out of his flat, he approaches her
to let him use the fire escape. He finds a slender blonde dressed only in bra and panties, standing
before an easel, with a brush in her hand. Contrary to Charlie, she is quite unconcerned about her
state of undress. He expects her to remember her state suddenly and start screaming. She however
asks him into her messy, paint filled home and offers him a drink of beer or ale. Her home is filled
with her paintings some of which, are nudes of herself. He is interested in her because of, "her
robust, athletic movements," her preference for sitting on the floor and her avoidance of people
"who come to sneer." She coolly follows him onto the fire escape saying, "Let’s see your place."
Having seen it, she is horrified by its neatness! "All the straight lines in the walls, on the floors, in
the corners that turn into boxes-like coffins----ugh! If I lived here I would have to stay drunk all the
time."
Her moods change like quicksilver. She strums his piano, asks for a five-dollar loan and teases him
about Algernon’s mazes, all in a few minutes. Suddenly, recalling a date, she dashes off onto the
fire escape, promising to repay him when her alimony arrives. Charlie can’t believe he has someone
so attractive, so full of life and excitements, "just a fire escape away."
June 20
Charlie is excited at the thought of meeting his father, Matt. He approves of Matt having given up a
salesman’s job in favour of having his own barber shop. Rose had opposed this tooth-and-nail, and
Matt’s walking out on her had freed him to do what he always wanted. Charlie has warm memories
of Matt who always protected and accepted him as he was, without reservations. He longs to meet
his father in order to share his new life with him.
Matt does not recognize Charlie and takes him to be a customer. Charlie is too keyed up to confess
and meekly asks for "the works." While sitting under the suntan lamp, Charlie’s memory flashes
back to the last time he had seen his mother.
His mother’s shrieking wakes him up. He overhears her demanding his father that he should take
him to the Warren State Home that very night. When his father protests, she picks up a kitchen
knife saying, "He’s better off dead." A desperate Matt promises to take him to his Uncle Herman’s
immediately, till other arrangements can be made. Charlie is hurried away by Matt. Charlie
remembers his mother turning away from him as he is leaving. This is the last time that he had sen
her.
After his shave, Charlie asks Matt if he knows him, but he doesn’t - "What is this? A gag?" Then
the familiar nausea and fear overcome Charlie. He doesn’t want to be sick before Matt. What he
really wants is for his father to be proud of him, to boast about him to his customers-"the old glow
of satisfaction that came to his face when I learned to tie my own shoelaces and button my
sweater." But at the end, Charlie chickens out. He doesn’t want Matt to "resent me-as the others at
the bakery resented me-because my growth diminished him." He walks out forgetting to pay. A
suspicious Matt summons him back, and Charlie in his embarrassment, gives him a large tip.
June 21
Algernon easily masters Charlie’s new mazes. He does not seem to require the reward of either food
or water. He now learns only to succeed. But he still has fits of rage, throwing himself against the
walls of the maze. Is it frustration or something else? Wonders Charlie.
33
One day Fay brings home a female white mouse, a partner for Algernon. She takes Charlie away
from the maze after putting "Minnie" in, accusing him of having "no sense of romance."
June 23
Next day, Fay brings a man home from the Stardust Ballroom where she loves to dance. She
introduces him to Charlie and then they both go into her room. Charlie sits down to read but is
unable to concentrate as he pictures Fay and the man in bed. But an hour later he hears sounds of a
fight, and the man leaves, cursing. Fay casually visits Charlie and complains about the man’s
advances. She rejects Charlie’s view that she had given him the wrong signals. Later she hints that,
her response would have been different if Charlie were involved. He is uneasy and she asks if he’s
homosexual. She incites him and he tries to respond. The old awareness of a third person watching
them returns, this time without the old panic. He puts Fay off, but agrees to a drink. The next thing
he knows is that he’s got up with a hangover next morning. Fay tells him that he acted "strange" the
previous night. He had told her he couldn’t play with her, as his mother would take away his
peanuts and put him in a cage. Fay was frightened of him, yet she had stayed-"you were like a
scared little kid. I was sure you wouldn’t hurt me, but I thought you might hurt yourself."
Charlie is horrified on hearing about how he had behaved. He longs to reach out for her but it is
obvious to him that, "Charlie was still with me."
June 24
Charlie goes on a binge of watching movies. He moves from one cinema house to another. He dare
not drink for fear of the old Charlie surfacing once again. Then in a sudden revelation, he
understands that it is not the movies, but the audiences that he needs. Sitting with crowd of relaxed
people in the dark makes him feel that he is a part of them. This gives him a sense of belonging,
something, which he craves. Otherwise, his life has become aimless. Until one evening, he visits a
diner. The teenaged boy, who has recently been appointed to wash the dishes, is similar to what he
was before the operation. The boy suddenly drops a stack of dishes, breaking them. His fear
followed by uncertain grins when the customers joke about him, reminds Charlie unbearably of
himself. He reacts furiously -‘for God’s sake, have some respect! He’s a human being!" He walks
out feeling ashamed on behalf of both of them.
The incident gives him a new determination. Charlie decides to get back to the Welberg Foundation
for permission to work on increasing human intelligence, in order to help others, who are like him.
He decides to share this with Alice.
June 25
Alice welcomes Charlie warmly and scolds him for disappearing earlier. He explains that he had to
find some answers. He tells her that he had locked out the ‘old Charlie Gordon’ but couldn’t
succeed and that, "Charlie exists now in me and around me." It had not been his increasing
intelligence, which had come between them, but his persona of Charlie "the little boy who’s afraid
of women because of what his mother did to him." He pours out his fears and discoveries to Alice
until she is in tears. He longs to make love to her and decides to pretend she is Fay. He feels that
"Charlie" is afraid of Alice, not of Fay. But, in spite of their feverish efforts, he can’t go ahead. He
is shattered but decides not to run away this time. He tells Alice that he loves her. He leaves, gets
34
drunk, and seeks Fay. But she is not at home. Charlie waits impatiently for her and at last, Fay
comes home. Charlie asks her to help him "erase the straight lines," which bothers her so much. Fay
however is doubtful. She doesn’t want this time to end in the same frustration as before. Charlie is
impetuous and determined and promises her that it won’t recur. He still sees the old Charlie
watching them make love, but this time he is able to ignore him and find fulfillment.
June 29
Energized by his new self-awareness, Charlie begins work on the psychophysical side effects of the
experiment done on him and Algernon. He contacts an expert in the field who thinks he is crazy
until they have a discussion. Charlie continues work in the lab.
June 30
Fay and Charlie develop a serious relationship, although both know that permanence is not for
them. They accept each other’s failings, and Charlie values her as "a free and independent spirit."
Only her craze for dancing all night wears him out! About their feelings he says-"it's not love-but
she’s important to me." Charlie stops "watching" them.
July 5
Charlie gets to know Fay better and starts valuing her generosity. Charlie learns that it is because of
this generosity that she has run out of money. A week before meeting Charlie, Fay had befriended a
girl at the ballroom and had invited her home after listening to her sob story. The girl however
vanishes with all of Fay’s latest alimony payment. Yet, Fay can’t be ruthless and complain against
the girl to the police. She says that the other girl must have needed the money pretty badly! Charlie
feels that Fay is exactly what he needs now.
July 8
Fay’s lifestyle makes it hard for Charlie to work, but he tries to work on a "linguistic analysis of
Urdu verb forms.’ He has also compelled a piano concerto, which he dedicates to Fay. Charlie
admires the dedication of other researchers, but feels they are "studying more and more about less
and less."
Alice calls to ask him when he will return to the Beckman lab and he tells her that he will do so
after completing his current projects. On one of his binges with Fay, Charlie’s old persona
reappears and does a tap dance on the stage of a club. Fay thinks he is a wonderful comedian with
his "moron act." Algernon behaves erratically again, frightening Minnie.
July 9
Fay has developed a habit of feeding Algernon who is quite friendly with her. One day, as she tries
to pick him up, he bites her thumb. He then hurries back into the maze. At this point, they also
discover that he has injured Minnie. As they try to rescue her from the cage, Algernon resists
violently.
Algernon calms down but Charlie notices that his actions are restless and confused. Instead of
carefully determining his directions, he moves about hurriedly and seems out of control. It is
35
because of this that, he often crashes into barriers. This gets Charlie worried and he decides to take
Algernon back to Nemur’s lab.
Notes
This chapter shows Charlie’s struggle to "grow up" normally, especially in emotional and sexual
terms. He also explores the intelligence he has got after the operation. His escape from the
convention gives him the chance to control his life to some extent, and take stock of what he has.
The realization he has at the convention that, the experiment on him might still fail, gives him a
sense of urgency and maturity. His mind reveals to him the traumatic events of his past, like his
mother’s ultimate and complete rejection of him. He wants to meet his family desperately and prove
to them that he has gone beyond their wildest dreams! But, in the moving and sad scene with the
father, Charlie cannot confront him. He is afraid that, as with other past relationships, this one too,
will fail. Thus, his desperate need for warmth and love remains unsatisfied. He loves Alice but can’t
resolve his old problems with her. When Fay enters his life, she succeeds, to a certain extent, in
freeing him from all the taboos that he is imprisoned within. Fay is a non-conformist, a strong
character outside the framework of his childhood conditioning by his mother. She has rejected all
the conventions, but is warm and generous and "just what he needs." It is a one-sided relationship in
which Charlie’s essence, his past, is unknown to her.
Charlie’s life has changed so dramatically that he is unsure about who he is. He cannot resolve the
difference between the ‘old Charlie Gordon,’ who was only an observer of life and barely tolerated
by others, and his new self. It is only when he accepts that these two selves are part of who he is, is
he able to move on. Thus he gets involved with Fay. He also starts a study on the operation done on
him and Algernon, and it's effects.
This chapter documents his struggle to adapt to his new life, and to take responsible decisions for
himself.
It also brings out the contrast between his mother and Fay, and Alice and Fay. His mother is almost
the main antagonist in his life. But she is also shown to have been under great pressure. Her
hysteria, her egoism, and her final cruel rejection are repeatedly revealed. Both Alice and Fay
accept him, but they are very different. Alice has been a sort of kindly maternal figure to the old
Charlie. The new Charlie is attracted to her sexually but can’t banish the old Charlie’s feelings for
her completely. Also, Alice is a more conventional woman and falls within the category of those
who were taboo for the old Charlie. Fay is unknown to the old Charlie and she also is
unconventional. The old taboo therefore does not apply to her. Perhaps too, the relationship with
her is less intense, hence doesn’t make for soul-searching for Charlie.
Another line of development in the chapter is that of Charlie’s work. He is shown initially, as just
enjoying his new intelligence and dabbling in all kinds of reading. After the convention, when the
seriousness of his own condition is brought home to him, he decides to escape with Algernon. Then
he experiments with Algernon’s mazes, never using food as a reward. When he works with his
"alter ego," the mouse, knowing that their situations are parallel, his work is convincing. Yet, when
he is said to work on a piano concerto on "the pair production nuclear photo effect for exploratory
work in biophysics," or on "linguistic analysis of Urdu verb forms, or the "Hindu Journal of
Psychopathology," it sounds like gibberish. This is the weakest area of the novel - it’s claims to
belong to the genre of science fiction. Whenever the author strays into a technical area, he seems to
be quite ill at ease. Charlie’s constant movement from one area of work to another could suggest his
restlessness and insecurity about his future. But, the superficial references to that work are not
convincing.
36
Project Report 15
Summary
July 12
Charlie and Algernon go back to the Beckman labs. Nemur is cold and formal. He resents the fact
that the Wellberg Foundation has agreed to Charlie working there. He now depends on Charlie to
provide explanations for the changes in Algernon’s behavior. If Charlie fails, it will negate his own
work. Either way, his ‘creation’ has become his equal.
Burt eagerly takes Algernon to the lab. He sadly observes that the mouse is ‘solving problems on a
much more primitive level than I would have expected.’ Algernon can no longer figure out
sequences, he depends on trial and error.
Burt introduces Charlie to all the features of the lab, except one last unit. On inquiry, Burt tells him
that it contains the deep freeze and incinerator, where dead specimens are disposed off. Charlie is
chilled to hear it. Charlie pleads with Burt that if Algernon dies, he should be handed over to him
and Burt agrees. Drawing a connection, Charlie asks, what plans have been made for him if the
experiment on him fails. Nemur is startled but explains plainly that Charlie would be committed to
the Warren State Home. Charlie is furious. He demands to know why this will be done, when
before the operation he was considered fit to run his own life and work at the bakery. Nemur
explains that they had to visualize all the possibilities and that he might lapse into a worse condition
than his earlier state.
For Charlie, the Warren State Home is equivalent to the "deep freeze." He jokes bitterly that at least
they won’t consign him to the incinerator! He asks to visit the Warren Home and see its
arrangements for himself, while he can still understand them. Nemur is upset. But, Charlie feels it is
essential for him to know, not only what his past was, but also what his future holds, to find out "the
meaning of my total existence." After this, he puts himself through an intensive course of
psychology tests of every school and approach. Fay wants to visit the lab but he forbids her from
doing so.
Notes
A common motif in life and literature is the process of self-realization. This is difficult even for
ordinary people. For Charlie with his extraordinary history, it is far more complex. He finds it
difficult to take any action, interact closely with any person, because of his wildly contrasting
"selves." Is he Charlie Gordon the "moron," easily pleased and controlled by others? Or is he
Charlie Gordon, the genius-in-the making? How long can he be the latter? Is there any meaning to
his life? Can he give it some meaning? These are the questions that haunt Charlie.
In this chapter, the readers see a definite deterioration in Algernon’s capacities, and this signals the
beginning of the end for Charlie. Just when he has begun to see some direction in his life, it is to be
snatched away. The anguish this causes is the subject matter of this and the following chapters.
From now on Charlie has to race against time to do something of value. Hence, his desperate efforts
to study, to master psychology in a short time and try to defeat the errors made in his own and
37
Algernon’s case. The researchers have been scrupulous about his future, but for them it is only one
more experiment. For him it is his very existence!
Project Report 16
Summary
July 14
Charlie is in a bleak mood during his visit to the Warren State Home and Training School. It is a
sprawling gray estate, discreetly set on a narrow side road. The head psychologist is unexpectedly
young and very earnest. He explains that there is no high security system at Warren. Some "highmoron" types wander off. If they can’t adapt to outside life, they return. Charlie learns that, the
institute has a waiting list of fourteen hundred and can barely take twenty-five new people each
year, as their members are there for a lifetime. Charlie meets Thelma who looks after the adolescent
boys. She seems robust and kindly and tells him that, she feels her work is hard but "rewarding
when you think how much they need you." He also sees some deaf and mute boys who are also
mentally retarded, working on their carpentry. He is moved by the injustice that life has done to
them. He observes an older boy caring for a younger one and Thelma comments, "They know
enough to seek human contact and affection from each other."
The staff consider Charlie as just another ‘normal’ academic from Beekman, doing some sort of
observation. This is a contrast to the poignancy of his actual feelings and doubts about his future.
He watches the boys there, their behavior, and their work, with exaggerated sensitivity, as he
identifies with every one of them. When a boy touches him to signal goodbye he almost breaks
down. His resentment is stirred when the motherly school principal calls the inmates her children,
and says they are "beyond help." Yet, he is moved by the dedication of all the staff he has met. But,
he is chilled by the fact there "had been no talk of rehabilitation, of cure, of someday sending these
people out into the world again. No one had spoken of hope. The feeling was of living death..."
His visit leaves him with a hopeless feeling that "I may soon be coming to Warren, to spend the rest
of my life wit h the others ---waiting."
July 15
Charlie is eager, but at the same time apprehensive, about visiting his mother. His uncertainty about
his future also adds pressure.
Algernon is getting worse. He refuses to run the maze and won’t even eat. Watching Burt forcefeed him, Charlie gags and has to run out of the lab for fresh air. He starts drinking in order to
escape from the situation and his relationship with Fay sours. He feels there’s just dancing, painting
and sex in her life, of which they share only sex. Fay is also becoming possessive about him.
Eventually, Charlie decides to cut down on his drinking.
38
July 16
Something that Charlie has always avoided happens. Fay and Alice meet - without any fireworks!
Alice worries about Algernon’s regression and therefore comes to comfort Charlie. As they sit
talking late, Fay appears via the fire escape. The two women size up each other, then get absorbed
in talking, until Charlie feels unwanted. Later, Alice tells Charlie that Fay loves him. Charlie denies
it but he does not deny their sexual relationship. He insists that he loves only Alice, which is why he
can’t make love to her. Alice goes home.
July 27
Charlie concentrates on his work with desperate urgency. To Fay’s disgust, he even moves a cot
into the lab. He busily makes notes on "the calculus of intelligence" and only the cages and mice
and lab seem real to him. Fay withdraws, jealous of his obsession with work. Alice helps him now,
with food and coffee, making no demands. Charlie is aware of a heightened perception, where
concentration and judgement are hypersensitive and acute. Algernon lies almost unmoving in the
lab, and his condition worsens all the time.
July 28
Fay has a new lover. Charlie says, "It’s almost a relief." He moves back to the lab and to Algernon.
The white mouse greets him and seems eager to work. He solves the maze twice, but fails the third
time. Then he goes into a wild frenzy, until, exhausted, he curls up into a tight ball. Charlie is
desperate to understand why, not only to help himself, but in order to add even a scrap of
knowledge to the work that has already been done. If he can do this and help ‘others like myself,’
he feels he ‘will have lived a thousand normal lives.’
July 31
Charlie is filled with a joyful, bubbling energy and a zest for work. This disturbs the others who
think he’s, "killing himself at that pace." He hopes that he will be able to get the knowledge he
needs in order to make a breakthrough. He finds out that, Fay’s lover is a dance instructor at her
favorite dance hall. However, it doesn’t bother him.
August 11
Charlie reaches a blind alley in his reasoning. He can’t answer the question about how Algernon’s
regression affects the basis of the experiment. He decides to leave it for now, as pushing too hard
makes his mind go blank. He goes to Mrs. Nemur’s cocktail party. Fay refuses his invitation to
accompany him. Charlie feels isolated among the academicians and their financiers. Mrs. Nemur
baits him about working on the ideas of others, like her husband. Charlie is annoyed with the
discussion between Strauss and a sponsor, and is steered away by Strauss, just when he is about to
interrupt the discussion. Charlie decides to sit quietly in a corner, but he’s had too many drinks. He
begins muttering to himself, quite unaware of others’ reactions. The guests trickle away, and Nemur
confronts Charlie, furious at his behavior. The two argue and Nemur calls him an ‘arrogant, selfcentered, antisocial bastard.’ Charlie accuses Nemur of treating him as an experimental animal, "to
be kept in a cage and displayed when necessary to reap the honors you seek." He says that he was
better off before the operation as he then had friends. He feels that intelligence without the capacity
to give and receive affection is sterile. He speaks of "Charlie Gordon" as another person waiting
patiently inside himself.
39
In the middle of his "sermon," Charlie’s speech becomes slurred, his language becomes limited, and
the old Charlie is back. He makes it to the bathroom just on time, and manages to get control of
himself. Finally, he insists on walking home alone. While in the bathroom he looks into the mirror,
to find the other Charlie looking questioningly at him. Charlie raves at his other self, asserting that
he won’t give up his intelligence without a struggle, "I’m going to keep what they’ve given me and
do great things for the world and for other people like you." He then leaves for home. Alone, he
admits to himself that he has become what Nemur has called him, and is therefore ashamed of
himself. He seeks Fay’s company but she is with her new lover. Charlie goes to bed and dozes off.
Suddenly at 4.30 a.m, the answer to all his queries comes to him, and he is wide-awake!
August 26
Charlie discovers that, "artificially-induced intelligence deteriorates at a rate of time directly
proportional to the quantity of the increase." He writes a letter to Prof. Nemur stating this and
encloses all his notes and mathematical analyses of data. He also christens his discovery as the
Algernon-Gordon Effect. Charlie also apologizes for the fact that, through his discovery, he is
negating the work done by the researchers. After sending it, he turns to his immediate problem-what
is to become of himself? For the purpose of verification, Nemur sends Charlie’s report to the top
men in the field, but Charlie is confident about his findings. He tells Alice about his discovery and
she breaks down. Charlie is concerned that, she should not feel guilty about his fate.
September 2
Charlie is in a state of suspense. All he can do is wait. He once again says that he does not blame
anyone, as the researchers had taken every precaution in order to make sure that there is no physical
danger. However, they had failed to foresee the psychological pitfalls. Charlie’s main concern now
is, how much he can retain in the future.
September 15
Nemur’s sources confirm Charlie’s findings. Charlie recommends that no further tests be conducted
on human beings until their bases are clear. He feels that, the line of research favoring the study of
enzyme imbalances, and treatment with hormone substitutes, probably has the best potential. He
would like to help follow it up, but he knows that time is running out.
September 17
Charlie finds himself becoming forgetful and irritable. Early one morning, he comes to the lab and
finds Algernon dead in one corner of his cage. Dissection reveals that his brain had shrunk and the
cerebral convolutions and smoothened out. Charlie is terribly afraid the same is happening to him.
He puts Algernon’s body in a small box and buries him in his back garden. He weeps as he puts
wild flowers on his grave.
September 21
He can’t put off the visit to his mother any more. He begins to dream of her, and feels that he must
understand her and not hate her. He decides to visit her the next day, and that he would "come to
terms with her" before he sees so, " I won’t act harshly or foolishly."
40
September 27
Charlie goes back to his childhood home in Marks Street. The first shock is that, it's a poor and
shabby neighborhood. There are no children playing, only "old people standing in the shade of tired
porches." Then he sees an old woman in a shabby brown sweater, washing her windows from
outside the house, even in the cold wind. She is old and weak - far from the way he had imagined
his mother. He stands staring. When she questions him, all he can say is "Maaaa," forgetting all the
words he had mastered in a dozen languages. She recognizes him, is shocked, and he moves
towards her. She retreats into the house and Charlie follows her. As he pushes the door open, he
gashes his hand on the broken glass. Charlie tell her about the operation and and why he has come
to meet her. As she listens to him, transfixed, he says, "You can be proud of me now and tell all the
neighbors. You don’t have to hide me in the cellar when company comes. Just talk to me. Tell me
about things, the way it was when I was a little boy that’s all I want." She sees his bleeding hand
and offers to wash it. Clicking her tongue at his clumsiness, she slips back twenty-five years"Charlie, Charlie, always getting yourself into a mess---" She apologizes for the "mess in the
house," saying that she wasn’t expecting company, asks if he has come about the electric bill and
promises to pay it soon. He asks her whether she has any children apart from the daughter, who is
out at work. She says that she had a brilliant son, until someone put the evil eye on him - "They
called it the I.Q. but it was the evil-I.Q." Then she starts scrubbing the already clean floor. Then
suddenly, she turns to him joyfully wondering how he had changed and thanking God for answering
her prayers. Finally she weeps in his arms, "All the pain was washed away and I was glad I had
come." Charlie gives her a copy of his report and promises to write and send money. Norma returns
home, just as he is about to leave. Norma recognizes him at once. Charlie is surprised to see that she
has changed. She’s warm and affectionate, not the spoiled brat that he remembers. She says how
proud she’s been of reports about him in the press, and how she had shown them to her colleagues
at the office. She wants him to eat with her and swap news. She informs Charlie that their mother is
senile, but she doesn’t want to put her in an institution as the doctor has advised.
Charlie asks Norma to clarify childhood memories and she weeps over how mean she had been to
him. She explains that, unlike him, she was always under the pressure to excel at everything and
this is what had made her resent him. The other children had harassed her too, calling her, "moron’s
sister," and leaving her out from birthday parties. She cries with shame and remorse about how she
had treated him. She feels a fresh guilt that Charlie had been sent away for her sake.
Charlie himself feels a new compassion and acceptance, of his family’s actions towards him. He
tells his sister, "Don’t blame yourself. It must have been hard to face the other kids. For me, this
kitchen was my world ----you had to face the rest of the world." Norma pours out her daily fears for
her mother’s safety, her sole responsibility for the two of them, with no one to share it with. Charlie
is struck by the irony of the situation. He had always wanted to be "the big brother." Now when he
is needed for the role, he does not know whether he has the time to fulfill the role.
While brother and sister are comforting each other, the mother suddenly picks up a knife and raves
at Charlie for "looking at his sister with sex in is mind." Both are horrified and Charlie explains that
this is why he had been sent away, for Norma’s safety, at least as it appeared to their mother. "I
must not hate Rose for protecting Norma. I must understand the way she saw it. Unless I forgive
her, I will have nothing." - Charlie takes his leave without making promises, except to send money
for as long as possible. He suppresses his tears until he is out of the house and then loses control.
The old rhyme, "Three blind mice" runs through his mind, illuminating their unhappy state. He
looks back and imagines his own childish face peering out from the window.
41
Notes
This chapter brings Charlie to the acceptance of his mental regression. He is magnetically drawn to
the Warren Home, which he feels is his inevitable home. In a way, the visit shows him the human
face of the home - it’s handful of sincerely dedicated staff struggling to give a human aspect to the
lives of those society can’t face or deal with. From fear and revulsion, Charlie moves towards
unwilling acceptance of the Home and it's conditions. He aches for the sad-faced inmates of whom
he will soon be one. The author doesn’t pin the blame for the treatment of the physically or
mentally handicapped on any person or agency, but he shows everybody as uncaring and selfish.
Another event that he had feared had been a possible meeting of Alice and Fay. It now takes place
without fanfare, and he realizes they like each other. Charlie tells Alice that he loves her, but at this
stage, he still keeps his distance from her. Meanwhile, he admits that, "by keeping the secret about
myself, I had somehow not committed myself to Fay completely." The divided mind makes it
impossible for Charlie to really commit himself to anyone, since he doesn’t know what his "self"
really is! Thus, he tries to make love to Alice by trying to pretend that she is Fay. Later, he makes
love to Fay, "but kept thinking of Alice."
These tensions however pale beside the dominant one, that is, the possibility of his regression. So
he devotes himself entirely to work. Even there, he hovers on the edge of his major finding, but is
unable to get there. He realizes or rather makes his discovery only after his major rave with Nemur.
The frank speech on both sides clears his thinking. He honestly admits to himself, that Nemur is
right about his (Charlie) arrogance and selfishness. Charlie realizes that love and the sharing of
affection is central to life, more so than intelligence. He also realizes that the "old" Charlie is still
within him, waiting. He decides not to give up his new found intelligence without a fight, not to
give it up until he has completed the work he has taken on. Armed with this awareness, his mind is
unlocked and he is able to discover what exactly has gone wrong with the experiments on Algernon
and himself.
Charlie is able to meet his mother with a changed attitude, without "acting harshly or foolishly."
The visit is an eyeopener. His mother is an old sad woman, and Norma an over-burdened, lonely
one. Charlie is now able to see things from his mother’s perspective and is therefore able to forgive
her. His inability to say anything except "Maaa..." when he first meets his mother, underlines how
the child is ever-present in an individual, and the fact that need for love and acceptance from one’s
family is a basic need. It is an intensely emotional chapter, culminating in Norma’s leaning against
him, and saying how much they need him - a need which Charlie would have given anything to
fulfill.
In this chapter Charlie makes the discovery of his life, which signals his own doom. He accepts his
own failings and his fate and finally makes peace with his family. With the death of Algernon, the
end of the "intelligent" Charlie is fore shadowed.
42
Progress Report 17
Summary
October 3
Charlie is going downhill. He is depressed and thinks of suicide. Then thoughts of the "other"
Charlie make him ashamed - "His life is not mine to throw away. I’ve just borrowed it for a while
and now I’m being asked to return it." He keeps reminding himself he’s the only person to have
such experiences and realizes that he must document them as his contribution to mankind. Charlie
works very hard and avoids sleep. He plays loud music in order to keep awake and the neighbors
call the police. His relationship with them becomes hostile, but he doesn’t even notice the change.
October 4
Charlie has an abrasive session of therapy with Strauss. Charlie is irritable and constantly tries to
provoke Strauss. He compares him to a barber who gives "ego shampoos," and asks whether an
"idiot" can have an "id?" Strauss lets him rave, and refuses to be provoked. Charlie lies back on his
couch and has a strange experience. He sees "a blue-white glow from the walls and the ceiling
gathering into a shimmering ball...forcing itself into my brain...and my eyes.... I have the feeling of
floating...and yet without looking down I know my body is still here on the couch..." He feels as if
he is released from the earth. "And then, as I know I am about to pierce the crust of existence, like a
flying fish leaping out of the sea, I feel the pull from below." Unwillingly, Charlie is pulled back to
earth and comes to consciousness. He wonders whether it is a hallucination or is it the kind of
experience described by the mystics? He returns to reality feeling as if he is being thrown against
the walls of a cave, beyond which is a "holy light" which is more than he can bear. He is filled with
"pain" and "coldness and nausea" and he screams.
Charlie ends the therapy session, telling Strauss that he won’t come back. He is immensely
depressed and is haunted by Plato’s words, "--the men of the cave would say of him that up he went
and down he came without his eyes..." They seem to reflect the bizarre see-saw that his life has
been, and the dreaded shrinking of his intelligence.
October 5
Charlie still struggles with his reports. He goes unwillingly to the Beekman lab, as he feels that he
owes it to the team there. But, he balks at the grind of the same old mazes he used to do with
Algernon. He notices that it is taking him much longer now than it did before to solve a maze. Burt
puts him through the Rorschach inkblots, but he realizes that he has forgotten what to do. He
becomes incoherent, then tells Burt that he is not a guinea pig and therefore should be left alone. He
rejects Burt’s sympathy saying, "we don’t happen to belong on the same level. 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." He then rushes out of the university.
October 7
Strauss visits Charlie but Charlie refuses to open the door to him. Charlie tries to read ‘Paradise
Lost’ which he loved, but he can’t ‘make sense’ of it. He relives the awful past when his mother had
43
tried to teach him reading and had threatened ‘to beat it into him until he learns.’ In anguish,
Charlie breaks the binding and rips the pages out. He leaves it lying on the floor "its torn white
tongues were laughing because I couldn’t understand what they were saying." He prays, "I’ve got to
try to hold onto some of the things I’ve learned. Please God, don’t take it all away."
October 10
Charlie wanders about at night, aimlessly. He first stands on the streets, looking "at faces." Once, a
policeman takes him home when he is lost. Another time, a pimp cheats him of ten dollars.
October 11
One morning, Charlie walks home to find Alice asleep there. She refuses all attempts to put her off,
and insists that she has come, "because there’s still time. And I want to spend it with you." Charlie
says there’s only enough time for him to spend with himself. She refuses to pity him, saying that,
the future "was no secret" and intellectually, he is at her level now. She reaches out determinedly
and this time the psychological barriers don’t go up. Charlie loves her "with more than my body."
He feels he has "unwound the string she had given me, and found my way out of the labyrinth to
where she was." This sexual experience is not simple - "it was being lifted off the earth, outside fear
and torment, being part of something greater than myself. ... We merged to re-create and perpetuate
the human spirit." It reminds him of the ‘strange vision’ he had experienced during his therapy with
Strauss. He finds a kind of comfort in knowing that what they have, "is more than most people find
in a lifetime."
October 14
Alice and Charlie go to a concert, but he finds he can’t pay attention for long. Alice’s presence is a
"bad thing" because it makes him feel that he should fight his fate, "freeze" himself at this level, and
not lose her.
October 17
Alice tells Charlie he has blank spells when he lies around for days and doesn’t know her. He
knows it is inevitable, but he can’t help wondering if he can fight the regression, fight against
becoming like all those at the Warren Home, like Charlie Gordon as he was. Charlie is in torment as
he thinks about all this.
October 18
Charlie wants to look up some reference in his Report on the "Algernon-Gordon Effect" and
discovers that, he can’t even understand the report any more. He is suffering and is angry at
everything. Alice’s attempts to care for him and keep his home clean enrage him. The more she
humors him, the wilder he gets remembering how the staff at the Warren home patiently humored
the inmates. Charlie however is repentant when Alice weeps.
October 19
Charlie’s physical activity is getting affected. He blames Alice and prefers to think that her
rearrangements are to blame. She responds with patience and pity and this irritates him further. The
44
only thing he enjoys now is the T.V, which he watches all day and night. It is the "window" through
which he is doomed to watch life, always as the observer. He is disgusted at giving in to drugging
himself, "with this dishonest stuff that’s aimed at the child in me. Especially me, because the child
in me is reclaiming my mind." Yet, he wants to forget everything that has happened to him as well.
On finding a German research paper he had used in his work, he is shattered to find that he can no
longer read German. All the languages he had learnt have been wiped clean from his mind!
October 21
After a constant struggle over the deliberate mess he had made of his apartment, Alice and Charlie
have a final rave. Alice charges him with "wallowing in his own filth and self-pity," of mindlessly
watching T.V and of snarling at people. She tells him that he was loved and respected more when
he was retarded, and had a sense of humor. Charlie finds it increasingly hard to understand what she
is saying. He accuses her of pushing him as his mother used to, and asks to be left alone now that he
is "falling apart." Alice breaks down, then packs her bags and leaves.
October 25
Charlie can’t type any more. He broods over what Alice has said and decides that, if he keeps
learning new things while forgetting old ones, he may not sink so fast. He starts reading feverishly
at the library, hoping "to keep moving upward, no matter what happened." Strauss comes to see
him. Charlie says that he can look after himself, and when he feels he can’t, he’ll board a train for
the Warren Home. Fay now avoids him, she seems afraid of him. Only Mrs. Mooney, the landlady,
visits him with hot food. Charlie is sure that Strauss or Alice must have asked her to do so.
November 1
Charlie reads, irrespective of the fact, whether or not he can understand. He reads "Don Quixote"
and has a constant feeling that he knew the meaning behind the windmills, the castles and the
dragons, but he can’t remember. He watches people from his window, and lies in bed most of the
time. He now finds it difficult to write the progress reports.
November 2
Charlie says that, every night he watches a woman in the building across the road, having a bath. He
never sees her face, but admits that her body excites him. He admits that it is wrong to watch, but
then tells himself that, it does not matter as she doesn’t know that he is watching.
November 5
Mrs. Mooney worries about Charlie’s apathy and tells him not to lie around like a "loafter." He tells
her that, he thinks he’s sick. The weather is cold, but he still puts flowers on Algernon’s grave,
which Mrs. Mooney thinks, is a very silly thing to do. Charlie goes to visit Fay, but she asks him to
go away and later changes the lock on her door.
November 9
It is Sunday. Charlie has nothing to do as his T.V has broken down and he has forgotten to have it
fixed. He has also lost his monthly cheque from the college. Life is bleak - he gets constant
45
headaches and Mrs. Mooney is his only friend. The lady across the road now pulls her
windowshade down and therefore he is unable to see her. Charlie therefore feels cheated.
November 10
Mrs. Mooney calls in a new doctor, who asks Charlie about his family. Charlie tells him about
Algernon and how they used to race together. He also tells the doctor that he used to be a genius
and this amuses the doctor. Charlie is angry that, the doctor is making fun of him and therefore
chases him out.
Charlie believes that he is having bad luck, since he has lost his "rabits foot and my horshoe."
November 11
Strauss and Alice come to meet Charlie but he sends them away. Later, Mrs. Mooney brings food
and tells him that they have given her money to take care of him. Charlie is upset and wishes he
could get work as he "won’t take charety from anybody." He thinks of going back to the bakery
because that is the only work he knows, but he is afraid that those at the bakery will laugh at him.
November 15
Charlie can’t read some of his old progress reports. "I think I wrote them but I don’t remember so
good." He has bought some books from the drug store but he feels tired when he tries to read them.
The only books he likes are the ones, which show pictures of pretty girls. But the feelings they
arouse are "not nice," so he decides not to buy them any more.
November 16
Alice comes to the door. They both weep, but Charlie still sends her away "because I didn’t want
her to laff at me." He tells her that he doesn’t like her nor does he want to become smart. But he
later admits to himself that this is not true but, he had to say this so that she would go away. Mrs.
Mooney tells Charlie that, Alice has given her some more money to look after him. Charlie does not
like this and decides to take up a job soon. He prays that, he doesn’t forget, "how to reed and rite."
November 18
Charlie goes back to Donner for his old job at the bakery. Donner is very sad and employs him.
Seeing him alone, a new worker, Meyer Klaus, harasses him by twisting his arm. Charlie tries to
free himself but is unable to do so. He dirties his pants and cries with humiliation. Then Joe comes
to his rescue. When Charlie returns after cleaning himself in the toilet, he overhears Frank, Joe and
Gimpy talking among themselves about asking Mr. Donner to fire Klaus. Charlie doesn’t want that,
because he remembers that he had hated it when he was sacked from Donner’s. Gimpy tells Charlie
that he and the others will protect him if anyone bothers him. Charlie muses, "It's good to have
frends."
46
November 21
Charlie wanders into Alice’s class at the adult center. "I said hello Miss Kinnian I’m redy for my
lessen today only I lossed the book we was using." She runs out crying and Charlie says to himself,
"I reely pulled a Charlie Gordon that time." He leaves the class.
After this, he decides to leave for the Warren Home, as he’s afraid of doing something
embarrassing again. He doesn’t want everyone to feel sorry for him. He plans to take a few books
and practise hard saying, "may be I’ll even get a littel bit smarter than I was before the operashun
without an operashun." He also takes with him a new "rabits foot and a luky penny and even a littel
bit of that majic powder left and maybe they will help me."
He appeals to "Miss Kinnian" not to feel sorry for him as "I’m glad I got a second chanse in life like
you said to be smart." "Now I know I had a family and I was a person just like everyone."
Even now, he hopes to get "a litel smarter" and remembers the joy that he had felt on reading, "the
blue book with the toren cover." He remembers the man who tore the book as looking like him but
then he feels that it couldn’t be him, as he had seen the man through the window. He knows that he
is the "first dumb person who found out something important for sience," but he can’t remember
what it was. He ends his progress report, saying goodbye to Miss Kinnian and Dr. Strauss, telling
them to ask Prof. Nemur not to be "such a grouch." He also asks them to put some flowers on
Algernon’s grave.
Notes
Charlie has already accepted that he can only move downwards now. The suffering of Algernon has
made that amply clear. Yet, the day to day agony, facing the petty irritants of a meaningless routine
with nothing to hope for, is well documented in this chapter. He faces his return to a retarded state
with dread and the attraction towards death is very strong. The "strange experience" he has on
Strauss’ couch represents this. The longing to be released from earth, free "like a flying fish leaping
out of the sea," but the claims of the "old Charlie Gordon" are too strong. The novel has constantly
dwelt on this dichotomy into two selves that exists within Charlie Gordon. Now, the "genius"
Charlie feels he has only borrowed the "retarded" Charlie’s body and has to return it to him. That he
is a person in his own right, in many ways a better human being than most, has been a continued
message in the book.
The lab sessions document the agony of a person, who knows that his mind is failing, but is helpless
to prevent it. The author reveals Charlie’s pain with sensitivity, and makes it a universal experience.
It could be any person with a mental or psychological condition, or Parkinson’s disease or simply
the tragedy of old age. The continuing loneliness of the human being, made ever worse by a
degeneration process, is chilling as is shown in the novel. The rest of the chapter shows the
unavoidable severing of personal ties, with Fay, with Strauss and Burt and even the people at the
bakery. The only bright spot is that when his powers are failing, Charlie’s inhibitions with Alice are
swept away. They finally unite sexually; a merging made more poignant by the knowledge that it
can only be for a short while.
The form of the novel has come full circle, with the earlier jerky miss-spelt sentences and words
resurfacing, as Charlie’s downslide progresses. Charlie is transformed slowly and painfully from
the lively, rebellious intellectual to the old Charlie - always watching the lives of others from his
window. However, the idea that, having lived so fully, Charlie will again slide into his old attitudes
and life-style is less convincing. Earlier, he had not known what possibility life could hold. Now,
47
having experienced them so vitally, could he resign himself so smoothly to perpetually living at a
sub-human level, peeping at naked women, reading picture books and "girlie magazines?" Except
for this possible weakness, the author awakens an exceptional empathy in the reader for Charlie,
always a victim but struggling to the end for self-respect and acceptance from society.
48
OVERALL ANALYSIS
CHARACTER ANALYSIS
Charlie Gordon
The character of Charlie Gordon, a young retarded adult, and the changes in him as a result of a
daring experimental operation, is the nucleus of the novel. When the book opens, Charlie is thirtytwo, lives alone, and works as a lowly cleaner in a bakery. He owes his job only to his uncle’s
lifelong friendship with the kind owner. Charlie is the butt of crude jokes by the worst of the bakery
workers, but is treated kindly by the others. He is "happy," in a way with all these people whom he
considers "smart," and he enjoys laughing with them, even when most of the laughter is against
him. At this stage the only signs of unhappiness are the fact that Charlie scarcely seems to
remember anything of his family, which has abandoned him, and his anxiety to learn and be
"smart." This drives him to enroll in a special class, which he attends after a long day of drudgery at
the bakery. Otherwise, he seems happy to entertain and be patronized by the co-workers at the
bakery, which is his "world." Though he is thirty-two, there isn’t any sign of sexual frustration, with
the few women in his life - Fanny Berden, Miss Kinnian, playing near-maternal roles.
It is the gusto with which he asks for the operation, never mind the risks he is told about, which gets
him apart from other retarded people. The surgery then brings a radical change in his life.
Before the operation, Charlie is childlike, eager to please and have friends and willing to work hard.
He thinks wistfully that he would like to be "smart like other pepul" so that they would treat him as
an equal. The operation changes him gradually. Soon, he is critical of people around him, especially
of the research team, which has treated him as a "guineapig." He doesn’t appreciate decisions being
made for him, but he revels in the intellectual powers the surgical changes have given him. He is
masters a dozen languages, and at least as many subjects - including literature, music, psychology,
maths and linguistics, among others.
Unfortunately, the progress from sub-normal intelligence to genius disrupts his life in many ways. It
makes him unfit for his earlier job and companions, even for the girl he loves, Alice Kinnian. It
makes him very suspicious of the experimental team, as he can understand how little they know of
the subject, and it arouses long-buried hurt and resentment against the horrible treatment meted out
to him by his family. This and the high degree of knowledge he is able to achieve in a short time
make Charlie, by his own admission, arrogant, opinionated and selfish.
Charlie is frustrated in his love affair because of the suppression of his sexuality, by his mother, in
his adolescence. Though his rational mind knows he had the right, and his feelings are returned,
Charlie can never achieve complete intimacy with Alice, until it is almost too late. But, he is able to
have a passionate, but less intense, relationship with Fay, his Bohemian neighbor. Yet, Charlie is
shown almost to be making use of both women, without giving back much. He is too troubled,
unsure of his own identity, to be truly committed to anyone else. His discovery of the defective
nature of the experimented surgery adds to his insecurity.
Another aspect of this is his constant awareness of two Charlies and the feeling that, the old Charlie
has just "loaned" the use of his body to the new one. After drinking with Fay, and at Nemur’s party,
the old Charlie surfaces. This increases the new Charlie’s uncertainty about, who he is. His fear of
being haunted by his old self drives him to seek out his family, whose rejection of him has been so
traumatic. After his return home, he comes to terms with his mother and sister as unhappy human
49
beings, who had acted the way they did because of social compulsions. He also accepts that the old
Charlie is part of himself, and will be the whole of himself when his intelligence leaves him.
Charlie goes through immense agony before he can accept these things. Agony he would never
have known with his earlier low I.Q. He has a lively love affair with one woman, Fay, but his
enduring love is only for Alice Kinnian who knows his past, present, and future, and had cherished
him when he was alone. Through his research, he has known the excitement of intellectual
discovery and the tragic fulfillment of being able to predict his own regression. Having had all this,
Charlie keeps his dignity and humanity, and accepts his tragic end with grace. The author makes the
readers share the thrill of Charlie’s expanding intelligence and the anguish of his regression in equal
measure.
Alice Kinnian
Alice and Fay are to an extent, archetypes. Alice is the nurturing, maternal type of woman. Initially,
she is just the kind "Miss Kinnian"-ageless and almost sexless to the retarded Charlie. When the
operation on Charlie is being considered, Alice constantly worries about its consequences, in spite
of Charlie’s eagerness to go ahead. Yet, she is always close building up his confidence, yet
cautioning him against getting involved with her, while he is still changing rapidly. She points out,
"when you mature emotionally, you may not even want me. I’ve got to think of myself too." Yet,
she goes to an open-air concert with him. She responds to his love making there, but with
reservations, until his other repressed self intrudes and inhibits him.
Knowing there is no future for them, Alice does not withhold her friendship from Charlie. But, she
is reserved about loving him. She tries to soothe his fears about his abnormal situation and explains
"You’re a new swimmer, forced off a diving raft and terrified of losing the solid wood under your
feet."
Yet, Alice is not one-dimensional. She is ill at ease with Charlie’s changing intellect and
personality, and does not conceal it - "There was something in you before... a warmth, an openness,
a kindness that made everyone like you and like to have you around. Now with all your intelligence
and knowledge, there are differences..." She says frankly that after their meetings - "I go home with
the miserable feeling that I’m slow and dense about everything. ...I wanted to help you and share
with you-and now you’ve shut me out of your life." She knows that he’s as far away from her with
an I.Q. of 185 as he was when his I.Q. was just 68.
While Alice is torn between her own conventional and more modern tendencies, she doesn’t give
up on Charlie, even during his involvement with Fay. She overcomes her resentment of Fay, and
tells Charlie that she is good for him.
When Charlie is deep in his research, Alice is the perfect helpmate, who brings him sandwiches and
coffee and does not make any demands. Finally, when Charlie’s mind is regressing and he is
lonelier than ever, Alice puts aside past quarrels and comes to him. She withstands all his efforts to
repel her and takes an assertive role in making love, until at last, Charlie can overcome his past and
achieve fulfillment with her. Alice doesn’t let him give up easily, but demands that he fight his
lethargy. When Charlie can’t take this, he drives her out. In the end, she once again becomes "Miss
Kinnian" for him. In his pride, he doesn’t let her get closer, yet she continues to see to his well
being through his landlady. Charlie acknowledges this in his last report, bidding farewell to his
friends.
50
In sum, Alice is drawn as an ideal lover and helpmate. The readers rarely see anything of her life
other than the way she relates to Charlie. Even her suffering is shown only in relation to him.
Fay Lillman
Charlie’s neighbor is the anti-thesis of Alice. In her mid-thirties, she is artistic and unconventional.
Charlie’s first sight of her is that of "a slender blonde in pink bra and panties," standing and
painting at an easel. Quite undisturbed by her semi-nudity, she invites him in and asks him to sit
amidst all the messy clutter of her room. Charlie discovers that she paints nudes, is divorced, drinks
and dances at all times of day or night. "She’s been around" as Charlie discovers, and this both
fascinates him and does away with his sexual inhibitions. Her own approach to sex is casual but
enthusiastic, and Charlie feels she is just what he needs. Here too, his needs are paramount and Fay
is more and less, just the means to fulfill them. Yet, he can’t help liking her as a human being,
especially her fearless friendliness and lack of curiosity about him. Yet Fay is independent and
makes her own set of values - "I don’t see that because I let a guy bring me home I’ve got to go to
bed with him." When she invites a down-and-out woman home, she is robbed of her month’s
allowance. But with quick generosity, she forgives and forgets, believing that the other woman must
have needed the money more than she did!
Fay is frightened when a drunken Charlie behaves like the "old Charlie," but she doesn’t leave him
alone all night, as she fears that he might harm himself. Charlie is thus as much attracted by her zest
for life and her novelty among his circle, as by her sexual appeal. However, he never confides in her
about himself or his past, and the relationship remains superficial. Once he is absorbed in his work,
Fay becomes jealous and bored with him. As his condition worsens, she goes off with a series of
lovers and snubs him when he tries to approach her. Thus, Fay is seen as Alice’s opposite, but like
her, is never allowed to develop into a really rounded character.
Rose Gordon, Matt Gordon & Norma
Charlie’s mother isn’t introduced in the novel, until after the operation. Then Charlie lets the
readers know that his mother had taught him to pray to God "a lot when I was a kid that he shoud
make me get better and not be sick." Then he mentions "Miss Kinnian was a nice lady like my
mother use to be." The first clear memory that Charlie has of his mother is when she returned home
from hospital with his new baby sister, after which her entire attitude to him changed. After this,
she is revealed in a series of vivid and disturbing flashes of memory. She haunts Charlie still in his
permanent feeling of rejection and his repressed behavior with women.
The readers see her intense involvement in Charlie’s welfare as a young child. She even attacks the
teacher who suggests that they move him to a special school, saying. She won’t let him play as he
likes but drives him to learn various things; to read and write, to got to the bathroom by himself.
Charlie remembers her as soft and warm but this changes after Norma’s birth. Charlie recalls,
"Norma showed all signs of normal intelligence, my mother’s voice began to sound different. Not
only her voice, but her touch, her look, her very presence - all changed. It was as if her magnetic
poles had reversed and where they had once attracted now repelled."
This repulsion becomes an obsessive concern for Norma who must have the best of everything.
Charlie is denied outings, pets, and is hidden away from "company" and the outside world. In all
this, Charlie only remembers Matt, his father, as a protective influence, constantly pointing out
injustice, attempting to curb Norma’s rudeness to her brother, and desperately trying to control his
wife’s hysteria. Charlie remembers his father warning Rose not to drive Charlie too much but
accept and love him as he is. In later years, he tries to reason with her, to reduce her obsessive fears
51
for Norma’s safety. Matt’s is therefore the voice of reason and acceptance, which is never allowed
to prevail before Rose’s stronger will.
Another difference between the parents is the father’s working class, laid-back attitude towards
social behaviour. Rose, on the other hand, has middle-class aspirations. This is seen in her constant
desire to keep everything impossibly clean, to make her children "amount to something." Rose
screams at Matt’s dream of having his own barbershop, by saying, "that a sales man was at least a
dignified occupation, but she would never have a barber for a husband." Matt gives in for some
time, but he can never live up to Rose’s dreams. Neither can Charlie, who becomes a serious
obstacle in her path.
Charlie’s adolescence becomes a new terror for her. She fears that he may sexually assault either a
girl visitor or his own sister. On finding him observing Norma dressing, she chases him with a
leather belt and threatens to put him away in a cage, for life.
Charlie leaves his home the night, Rose picks up a knife and demands that Matt take Charlie away,
that moment, to the Warren home, for good. Alternately, she argues that he’s better off dead.
Fearing her hysteria, Matt takes him away to Uncle Hermann. Later, Matt himself walks out on his
wife and daughter, and buys the barbershop that he had always longed for.
Years later, after the operation, Charlie finds Matt at the barbershop. He hasn’t changed much. He
is now at peace with himself although he is not prosperous. Charlie’s dreaded meeting with his
mother reveals her as a helpless and senile woman, a source of constant worry to his sister Norma.
Norma herself is overburdened and lonely, worn out between her work and caring for her mother.
The rational Charlie forgives Norma for all her cruelty to him, in their childhood. His mother’s
pride on hearing of his achievements is balm to his old wounds. Even then, her feelings towards
him are divided, the senile mind veering between maternal pride and suspicion.
Through Rose’s character, the author depicts the characteristics of the families with handicapped
children - the inability to accept the handicap, denial of its existence, or rejection. The situation
becomes more difficult when the resources are scarce. Charlie understands this in later life, but he
will always bear the emotional scars of the denial of love when he needed it the most. On the
positive side, Charlie realizes that he owes his tremendous motivation to learn and improve, to his
mother’s training. Some of the most vivid and disturbing passages in the novel are the ones dealing
with the Gordon family.
Harold Nemur & Jay Strauss
They are both neuro-surgeons with a psychiatric background and are the senior members of the
Beekman research team. Nemur is the more egotistical of the two. Initially, they are simply "the
men in white coats," remote and powerful enough to transform Charlie’s life. Nemur’s aim is to
create an intellectual superman of a retarded adult. He thinks of it as an act of creation. So far, he
has successfully experimented with just one mouse, and is now trying it out with a human subject.
Having accepted Charlie, he is scrupulous about explaining to him all the pitfalls of the operation.
Charlie, with an I.Q. of just 68 can’t observe him critically, but the reader can form an impression
through the words used by the researchers-"they will see if they can use me." On the other hand,
they make Charlie compete with the white mouse, without even telling him about Algernon’s
"superior" intelligence and the fact that, they explain the dangers of the experiment to a subject who
cannot possibly understand the consequences.
52
After the operation, Charlie’s view of the researchers changes. Their reactions to him change too,
especially in Nemur’s case. When the "TV" machine is to be installed in Charlie’s room, he
demands to know its effects. Nemur is furious at being questioned by Charlie. Only Strauss is
sensitive enough to notice and appreciate the changes in Charlie.
Both the researchers have a heated quarrel over the Chicago convention. During this Nemur is
revealed as being an ambitious man and a careerist, who is willing to risk the integrity of his
research for fame and promotion. Strauss is more concerned about validating their work and it's
reliability, but both are egotistical. Nemur gets very tense as the psychology convention draws
closer, and vents this on Charlie. Strauss is closer to Charlie as a person, and understands his
changing mind. He asks Charlie to write his reports simply, so people can understand what he has
written. He does not dismiss Charlie’s worries about co-workers at the bakery, but advises him
about the steps that he can take. From Nemur’s attitude towards him Charlie realizes, "He makes
me feel that before the experiment I was not really a human being."
Nemur resents the limelight on Charlie, when they go to Chicago for the convention. When Charlie
draws him into the discussions, Nemur lectures at length on his technique. This is the moment when
Charlie finds out that, Nemur and Strauss are not aware of the new developments, in the field, in
Asian countries! Charlie learns that, it is Nemur’s wife and her ambition that is driving him to
premature publication. He finds that Nemur has "the teacher’s fear of being surpassed by the
student." This is aggravated by the fact that Charlie was not even his student but was a sub-human
laboratory specimen! Nemur calls the old Charlie "a feeble-minded shell a burden on the society
that must fear his irresponsible behavior." He plays God, behaving as if he has "created" the new
intelligent Charlie and has been rewarded with ingratitude. To the end, he does not realize what
Charlie means when he says-"the other Charlie who walked in the darkness is still here with us.
Inside me." Strauss, on the other hand, understands at once. Strauss, during his therapy sessions, is
sympathetic and does not rise to Charlie’s provocation as he realizes that it is because of his
frustration. He also advises Charlie when he is facing a moral dilemma over Gimpy, not like
Nemur, who dismisses the problem. Strauss, along with Alice, continues to visit and support
Charlie till the end of the novel, when Charlie leaves for the Warren State Home.
Minor Characters
Burt Selden
Burt is the member of the team of researchers who experiment on Charlie. He is perhaps the only
one who spends time with Charlie. The readers are told that he is kind and speaks slowly, so that he
can be understood. Burt’s character is colorless and not clearly defined. He serves as a medium to
express views on his seniors - as when he tells Charlie about Nemur’s ambitious wife who pushes
him to seek publicity and promotion. Later, when Charlie is bitterly critical of the team at the
convention, Burt defends Nemur by saying, "He’s just an ordinary man trying to do a great man’s
work, while the great men are all busy making bombs."
Charlie considers Burt a friend, but Burt thinks nothing wrong in concealing from Charlie, the
extent of Algernon’s decline.
Thus, the author underlines the general lack of humility and the aloof bureaucratic attitude, by
which scientists distance themselves from those they ‘use,’ visualizing them as "objects" to works
on.
53
The bakery workers: Frank Reilly, Joe Carp and Gimpy
Frank and Joe are important to Charlie, who calls them his good "frends," and wants to become
"smart" like them. However, to the reader, they are clearly loutish bullies, whose idea of "fun" is to
pick on anyone with a physical or mental handicap. Their favorite game is to kick out Charlie’s legs
from under him, when he’s not looking. They exploit his gullibility for laughs. Once, hoping he will
sabotage the machine, they egg him on to work the dough-mixer in the regular operator’s absence.
This incident occurs a little after the operation and therefore Charlie masters the task easily. He’s
promoted, and his "frends" are mad at him. Only Fanny Berden, a woman worker, is happy for him.
Gimpy, the baker, is another of Charlie’s "frends." He himself has a bad leg and, in his blunt way, is
very protective towards Charlie. He is surly and rough, but kind. He is also one of the senior
employees, who is trusted by the proprietor. After the operation, Charlie finds Gimpy has been
conniving with the customers to cheat Mr. Donner. On being challenged by Charlie, Gimpy turns
hostile and nasty. Then most of the workers gang up on Charlie and demand his dismissal.
However, towards the end, when Charlie returns to the bakery in a regressing state, they accept him
and promise to "look out" for him. Their mixed approach to Charlie is typical of that of many
uneducated and unthinking people towards someone with a handicap.
Mr Donner
The kind proprietor of the bakery is an old friend of Charlie’s Uncle, Herman. A father figure to
Charlie, Donner is one of the old school - a paternal employer who looks after his workers as one
looks after his or her family. It is he who rescues Charlie from the Warren State Home where his
family dumps him. Acting as Charlie’s guardian, he gets him a permit to work and live outside the
home, and even employs him. However, when the delegation of workers demand Charlie’s
dismissal, as they can’t adapt to the "new Charlie," he reluctantly lets him go. Again, he takes back
Charlie in his state of regression. Mr. Donner is an idealized figure, one of the few who represents
security and warmth in Charlie’s chaotic life.
54
PLOT STRUCTURE ANALYSIS
The novel is arranged in the classical form of tragedy-the hero’s rise to a state of prominence, then a
reversal of his fortunes, and his fall. Yet, there is no tragic flaw or fault, which brings about his
downfall. The flaw is in the experimental surgery carried out on him.
Thus there is Charlie, thirty-two years old, mentally retarded bakery cleaner who lives alone, and
whose whole world is the bakery. His desire for improvement propels him to the special school for
slow learners. Here he meets Miss Alice Kinnian, his kindly teacher, who recommends him as the
best in his batch to a research team from the Psychology Department. From here on, the readers see
Charlie being initiated into the tortuous routine of psychological testing, followed by surgery. The
treatment includes, psychosurgery and enzyme-injection patterns, all intended to study whether an
adult with a sub-normal I.Q. can be made into a genius. This experimental treatment comes quite
early in the book, and is followed by a lull and then rapid improvement in Charlie’s mental powers.
This results in a traumatic change in Charlie’s outlook of the world. He sees people around him in a
totally different light and now views their actions and statements critically. This is a source of
disillusionment for Charlie. To offset this, the readers can experience his thrill in being able to learn
several languages, appreciate music and art, and study and master whichever subject takes his
fancy. The climax, eagerly awaited by the research team, not so by Charlie, is the psychology
convention at Chicago. Charlie and the mouse, Algernon, are dragged into the glare of the limelight,
and displayed as public exhibits. At the same time, the petty vanity, and the hasty and superficial
attitude of the experimental team, is laid bare. Charlie becomes aware that the methods used on him
are defective, which have already started showing signs of failure in Algernon’s case. He releases
the mouse and escapes with him in the melee that follows.
Now, Charlie is thrown back on his own resources, and has to find his own way in the outside
world. He does this with courage, struggles with his changing identity and two love affairs, and
decides to devote himself to finding out the errors in the surgery carried out on him and Algernon.
By the end of the book, Charlie has found his answer and is now faced with the possibility of his
regression, which he accepts with great dignity. At the end, the old retarded Charlie is back, but he
has retained his guts and his self-respect.
55
POINT OF VIEW / AUTHOR’S STYLE
The novel uses the technique of first person narrative. This, against the narrator’s background of
retardation, makes the novel technically complex and rich. One can see people’s changing
perceptions of him and his of the people around him. His world enlarges as his mind develops.
Long-suppressed memories of his traumatic childhood and adolescence emerge from the mists, and
this is intermittent, and in the stream-of-consciousness mode. Thus, small incidents in the present
trigger-off childhood memories of his family, which are sometimes pleasant, but are most often,
frightening. His parents quarreling over him, things he was forbidden to do, his sister’s tantrums,
and his mother’s hysterical and cruel rejection of him - these are the subject matters of vivid and
dream like scenes of his past, which the author inserts into his present life. These scenes then link
up with his present actions and problems and help to explain them, not only to the reader, but also
to the protagonist himself. That all this is done without interference by an omniscient author makes
it far more effective. It also has a structure, which lends itself to easy adaptation for cinema, which
was in fact done.
Another important feature of the style is the Project Report format. The arrangement of chapters
presented as Reports by Charlie to the research team allows for interesting variations in length and
complexity as the Narrator’s intelligence slowly expands, and later shrinks. The ideas and the
language used also reflect these changes.
56
THEMES - THEME ANALYSIS
An Understanding of Self
In first-person narratives, the narrator may play one of two types of roles. He may be a low profile,
colorless character, who acts as a medium to convey the actions of others around him who are more
dramatic and colorful. Alternately, he may be one of the central characters in the literary work.
Charlie belongs to the latter category. What makes him stand out is that he doesn’t know who he
really is. The Charlie with an I.Q. of 68 is wildly different from the one who is a genius. The person
considered sub-human by his surgeons goes on to become the one, capable of detecting the errors in
their work. The Charlie, who was forbidden by his mother to even look at a girl with sex in his
mind, finds that there are two women who find him attractive, but he can’t deal with the change.
How Charlie charts his passage through the strange territory into which his operation throws him, is
one of the themes of the novel. Before the operation, Charlie longed to "be smart and have lots of
frends." Afterwards, he finds himself looking at the old "frends" with new eyes and gradually
getting alienated from them. His conscious mind doesn’t remember much about his family, but he
has constant flashes of memory about them, and their rejection of him. Thus, Charlie after the
operation is lonelier than ever before. He then uses his new powers to understand the new, larger
world before him. He equips himself with a variety of knowledge. Yet, close personal ties evade
him.
Charlie’s earlier dependence on Miss Kinnian has developed into love. He is conscious of this, but
can’t bring his feelings to sexual completion. He realizes this is due to his mother’s forceful
conditioning in early days. He then attempts to achieve sexual fulfillment and friendship with Fay.
This works for sometime, but Fay does not know the ‘real’ Charlie. Charlie doesn’t ever commit
himself to the point of telling her about himself, and she drifts away.
At the climax, Charlie has the revelation that the experiment is defective and will definitely fail. He
then escapes with Algernon and works feverishly till he has the answer to the puzzle, that is, how
the treatment has failed. With no hope of a future, but with the triumph of achieving his work goal
behind him, Charlie seeks out his family and lays his ghosts. He forgives his mother and accepts his
sister, who is very happy to see him. His greatest conflict is his divided self. He finally accepts that
the "old Charlie" will not go away, and the "new" one has a short life. He strongly feels that the
"old Charlie" is a human being who has a right to live. With this understanding, he puts aside the
temptation of death. After making peace with his past, he is able to reach Alice, at last, as a lover.
They live together for a short time, till his regression takes over, but that is worth "more than most
people find in a lifetime." Charlie sinks steadily but keeps his control and admits himself to the
Warren Home voluntarily. He concludes, "I’m 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 world and I’m grateful I
saw it all even for a littel bit."
Treatment of the Retarded by Society
While the novel is part of the mode of science fiction, it also makes a strong plea for the acceptance
of the retarded. The cruelty with which Charlie is treated is all the more painful because he is the
one who tells the readers about it and they suffer with him.
In his childhood, his high-strung mother slaves over his education, determined to make him
"normal," even by force. His father’s softer and more positive influence is subdued. That this is
57
linked with her ego is clear with the birth of a second "normal" child, when she shuts him out
totally, and devotes herself to the younger child. The smaller cruelties like not letting him hold the
baby, or hiding him in the cellar when visitors call, are painful. But the harsh threat of caging him
for life if he shows "sexual" interests in anyone and the final rejection and dumping him at the
Home, are traumatic. Her treatment also brings out the worst in Norma, his sister, who rejects him
with childish insensitivity.
Donner’s kindness brings him out again into the bakery. But while Donner himself treats him with
kindness and respect, Charlie is constantly pushed around by the more insensitive of the workers.
Sometimes they are friendly and even protective, but it is a patronizing friendliness, with no respect
for the retarded person as a human being.
Finally, the researchers, especially Nemur, regard him as the raw material that they can "use" for
their work. Nemur considers him an object, a burden on society, and congratulates himself on
having "made" him a useful citizen. He expects "gratitude" for what he has done, and cannot
understand Charlie’s suffering when he knows he is losing his intelligence.
The novel thus makes a strong plea to the readers to enter into and empathize with the problems of a
retarded person and to accept him as a human being, who is different, and needs perhaps more love
than the ordinary person.
The Theme of Love
Charlie’s overwhelming need for love compels him towards one of the few women who has cared
for and cherished him --Alice Kinnian. When his mind develops, he sees her as a young and very
attractive woman. That, plus the fact that he can be himself with her, as she knows both his selves,
inevitably propels him to love her. Alice too returns his feeling of attraction and even friendship.
But, she is wary of anything more because of the rapid changes in him and the feeling that his
emotional dependence is not love. Yet she can’t cut herself off, in spite of repeated attempts. Their
relationship then runs aground because of his sexual repression. They try to step back into
friendship and Charlie depends on her support and criticism. Since he can’t settle his sexual
problems with Alice, he enters into an affair with Fay.
Fay, depicted as Alice’s opposite, being unconventional and sexually permissive, is also physically
attractive to Charlie. She is a vital colorful, strong-willed and outspoken individual. Charlie is
initially bowled over physically, but this generous and eccentric woman, so different from his past
experience fascinates him. He is aware that he loves Alice, but Fay and he share a mutual attraction.
He decides to have an affair with Fay almost as a means to liberate himself. He is close to her, and
tries to fulfill some of her conditions but finds her life-style too erratic for him. Besides, he has
never considered Fay capable of understanding what he really is. Thus, the affair peters out.
He finally achieves fulfillment with Alice, but it is short-lived. His regressing mind resents her
criticism, her tidiness, and even his attachment to her. Thus, they part, but Alice continues to care
for him and arrange for his welfare till the end. This is a modern love story in an unconventional
setting, not the traditional boy-meets-girl, with rivals, petty jealousies, and villains.
58
SYMBOLISM / SYMBOLS
A lot of the writing is bare and simple, as befits the narrator, but it is also a psychological study.
Hence, the latter part the book has several symbols, sometimes used as links, which set off
associations with the protagonist’s memories.
The author uses the knife as a repeated symbol of the mother’s threats and punishments. He has
dreams of sex, ending with the woman carrying a bloody knife. When he tries to make love to
Alice, he can’t go on. Later, he dreams of being chased by someone holding a bloody knife. This is
later connected to his mother’s threats when he had an unconscious erection while observing a girl.
It is also linked with the knife his mother picks up, when she demands that his father should take
him away from home.
Another symbol, which recurs in the novel, is the window. After the operation, the "new" Charlie
often imagines that his old self is another person who is often watching him from a window. This
window becomes a symbol of the retarded Charlie’s alienation from the outside world. It always
shows him as an observer, one who is not allowed to actually participate in life but can only watch
wistfully while others act.
In the final stages of the novel, Charlie frequently sees his existence as being a journey from a cave
into the light, and back again into the cave. The epigraph to the book is a quotation from Plato’s
"Republic," which contains this idea. There, Plato speaks of the "soul of man" which "has come out
of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from
darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light." His brief spell as the "new" Charlie is his period
in the sun, although he is always haunted by fears of the returning darkness. The cave appears again
in the experience Charlie has during his last therapy session with Strauss. He feels faint and sees a
brilliant light - "a blue-white glow...gathering into a shimmering ball" later called a "grotto of light"
in which the "core of this unconscious" blooms into " a shimmering, swirling, luminescent flower."
But "Charlie doesn’t want to know what lies beyond" and so he is drawn back to earth. Here the
light represents God and death, as a merging with God. The cause symbol becomes "the wet
labyrinth," "quiet and dark"-his earthly existence into which he is reluctantly pulled back.
Algernon, the white "super-mouse" is not so much a symbol, as a parallel, an "alter-ego" of Charlie.
Initially, he hates Algernon for beating him at every maze. Then he grows fond of him and is
comforted to know he is "smart" because of a similar operation. Charlie is upset that Algernon has
to "perform" to earn each meal, and later, after they escape, he invents mazes, which will stimulate
the mouse, but does not reward him with food. At the convention, he resents their "exhibit" status
and frees Algernon from his cage and escapes with him. At the convention, Burt’s report on
Algernon’s erratic behavior reveals to Charlie, his own future doom, making the comparison
between them overt. Later, he discovers the plans to dispose of Algernon after his death, and can’t
bear to think of him being disposed off that way. Ultimately, he buries Algernon in the back garden,
and puts flowers on his grave. His last thought in the book is that his friends place flowers on the
grave of Algernon. The treatment of the white mouse, as in the case of any other laboratory animal,
is exploitative and uncaring. Charlie, being considered sub-human is treated very much the same,
hence he considers the mouse as an extension of himself.
Thus, the author, while using symbols common to modern psychology, makes them an organic and
essential part of his theme.
59
THE ELEMENT OF SCIENCE FICTION
This novel received the Nebula Award for Best Novel of the year, awarded by the Science Fiction
Writers of America. Thus, it is acknowledged as a work of science fiction. Yet, one associates
science fiction with aliens, outer space, conquest of or by strange creatures, or mutant insects or
animals accidentally spawned by science. Here for a change, there is a story about experimental
surgery for the benefit of the mentally retarded. The idea is an exciting one, so is the approach. The
author does not concentrate on a technical description of the surgery or on external observation of
the patient. He goes into the mind of the protagonist and tries to depict the changes in his
personality.
As science fiction, the book may be disappointing. There is no delving into the procedures of
surgery beyond the mention of "psychosurgery" and "enzyme-injection patterns," but the whole
conception is viewed from the human angle. Another weakness is the idea that after succeeding on
just one mouse, researchers would operate on a human subject.
Only at the Chicago convention is there a more specific technical discussion. Here, Nemur explains
Charlie’s condition as "phenyl ketonuria" resulting in defective biochemical reactions. He says,
"Think of the enzyme produced by the defective gene as a wrong key which fits into the chemical
lock of the central nervous system-but won’t turn. Because it's there, the true key-the right enzymecan’t even enter the lock." He explains their surgery in the following way, "we remove the damaged
portions of the brain and permit the implanted brain tissue, which has been chemically revitalized to
produce brain proteins at a supernormal rate..." It is at this stage that Charlie realizes that both
Nemur and Strauss are entirely ignorant of the work done in their field by Indian and Japanese
researchers, who are ahead of them. The reason is that they are not linguists as Charlie has become,
and are complacent about work done in the West.
It is after this that, Charlie escapes and later returns to the lab with independent authority to analyze
the defects in the surgery performed on him and on Algernon. He vows that "I will have lived a
thousand normal lives by what I might add to others not yet born."
After this, Charlie concentrates on studying Algernon’s deteriorating condition in order to come up
with an explanation. Finally, he concludes that, "artificially-induced intelligence deteriorates at a
rate of time directly proportional to the quantity of the increase." Thus, the novel does not depict
any glorious advance in medical science, but a daring experiment which fails, and for which the
protagonist suffers the consequences. How he faces his own personal tragedy is what the novel
focuses on.
60