I've started reading Flowers for Algernon and so far I really like it. Daniel Keyes uses the first person narrative really well when characterizing the protagonist, Charlie, and describing how he sees the world around him. What really stuck out to me was Charlie's reaction to being made fun of by the people he considers his friends: "Amos Borg who is the 4 man at Donnegans used my name when he lost a packige. He said Ernie for godsake what are you trying to be a Charlie Gordon." Keyes is able to both inform the reader of people's mistreatment of Charlie and convey the fact that Charlie himself cannot perceive that his "friends" are making fun of him. All he notices is that people laugh at what his "friends" say, so he keeps quiet about his confusion: "I dont understand why he said that. I never lost any packages." This must have been especially hard to do because Keyes had to stick to Charlie's simplistic writing style. I wonder how Charlie will react to his coworker's insults when his IQ is raised by the operation. I hope that he will call his coworkers out on their mistreatment of him because their behavior towards someone who trusts them so much is unacceptable.
I agree with you when you say that you hope Charlie will address his "friends" that they mistreated him when his IQ increases. It's only natural for Charlie to interpret their laughter as friendly because of his mental illness. Also I agree with you when you said that the author does a great job at bring us into the mind of a mentally ill person. It's quite interesting actually to see how different Charlie's thinking process is from ours specifically his memory. Charlie has mentioned on multiple occasions that he has a tendency to forget a lot of things from his past to what he did yesterday. In my opinion, forgetting details of my life constantly would make me severely frustrated. Considering Charlie is in his 30's he probably has learned to tolerate the frustration of his mental illness, but that is probably a motivation for him to get the operation done. I think that the author mentions his tendency to forget things to get the authors to somehow try to imagine their lives with a short term memory. I think that by creating the sense of frustration that a mentally ill person has to experience on a daily basis, he is allowing the readers to understand the reasoning as to why Charlie was so willing to go through with the operation whether it was legal or not. What are your thoughts?
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you. I also think that Charlie's forgetfulness helps him brush off his "friends" attitudes towards him. However, I think Charlie is mentally handicapped instead of mentally ill, (though I could be wrong) because he does not appear to have a mental disorder.
DeleteOkay I see where you are coming from. Usually I considered mentally ill and mentally handicapped as the same thing but after looking it up, it turns out that they are not. And after all that we have read it does seem he is mentally handicapped for that is what he was born with. He doesn't show signs of mental illness like depression or schizophrenia yet.
DeleteKeyes does do a fantastic job of writing in a manner that allows the reader to view things from the perspective of a mentally handicapped adult. It definitely helps me understand the choices Charlie made regarding his operation. I also never considered the difference between a mentally handicapped and ill person before. Thanks for shedding some light.
DeleteYes, he is mentally handicapped, not mentally ill. After you guys read this book, you should look at the short story version, "Charley."
ReplyDeleteReading this book has definitely given me a different perspective on the mind of a mentally handicapped person. I always knew that they processed things differently and more slowly than their peers, but I never fully grasped just how difficult their situation really is. Keyes' writing style and development of Charlie has provided further insight into the life of a mentally handicapped adult. I wonder how much research Keyes had to perform in order to be able to have the knowledge about mentally handicapped persons necessary to write this book. I am also curious about where the desire for writing this book come from because I feel like he has a deeper purpose than just writing for the reader's enjoyment.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great question Alversia, I did some research and saw that he had a few motivations for writing the book but the one that stuck out the most was that his experience as a teacher, who taught standard level classes, created Charlie. He had a few students who were willing to work hard to succeed even if they had were slow when it came to learning new things. Here is the link to the full web page I found that has the information on his motivations: http://academic.depauw.edu/aevans_web/HONR101-02/WebPages/Fall2009/Rae/Daniel%20Keyes's%20Flowers%20for%20Algernon/pages/keyes_inspiration.htm
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