Flowers for Algernon, which was a Science Fiction book, was assigned to my English class. It was about a guy named Charlie, who was retarded because he has a lower level of thinking than a normal person. Charlie participated in a science experiment, to give him surgery on his brain. Charlie had to record his progress in his journal. In the book, readers can see how Charlie gradually becomes smarter and smarter.
Charlie lives in an apartment in a large city. At first it is hard to concentrate on the story itself because it is distracting for readers to read misspelled words. Charlie spells as well as my five year old brother, and so it takes sometime to figure out what the words are. Charlie’s character at first is like a young child who is forced to write down his thoughts.
Algernon is a lab rat who is experimented on like Charlie. The scientist who invented the experiment first tested the experiment on Algernon. Rats have a shorter life span than humans so it is easy for them to see what changes they have made with the rat in a couple of years. Charlie dislikes Algernon at first because it can beat him in mazes and Charlie gets frustrated that he can not beat Algernon.
After Charlie gets surgery, the reader can tell that Charlie gradually gets smarter. He learns more things and his grammatical errors decrease. He was more aware of the things around him and he was able to ask his teachers more in depth questions. After a few weeks, Algernon is enable to complete mazes. Charlie figured out that since Algernon became dumb, he would soon be dumb again in a matter of months.
Algernon dies after a few months after it got it’s surgery and hence the title Flowers for Algernon. When a person dies, people put flowers on their grave stone. Flowers for Algernon was also found in the book. Charlie wrote it in his journal when he started to lost his intelligence. He wanted to make sure that people would still remember Algernon even thought he, himself might not remember the rat.
I thought Flowers for Algernon was really long compared to the other short stories that I have read. Even thought it took me at least two hours to read the story, I felt that it was the best short story I have read because I like seeing Charlie change. It was like watching a young child grow up. I remember in class, I had trouble understanding what a Dynamic Character was and after I read the story I fully understood what it meant. I also like the cliffhanger at the end of the book. I had a fun time imagining what happened to Charlie after he lost his intelligence. I suggest people to read the story because it was a good literature work about Science Fiction. Many people thought the book was boring but if someone would read the story carefully, it will be very rewarding.
 Baby Snow Leopard · Fri Nov 07, 2008 @ 11:22pm · 0 Comments |
