"Flowers for Algernon" - flash book, emotion book

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Flowers for Algernon is a 1966 novel by Daniel Keyes based on the short story of the same name. The book leaves no one indifferent, and confirmation of this is the award in the field of literature for the best novel of the 66th year. The work belongs to the genre of science fiction. However, when reading its sci-fi component, you do not notice. It imperceptibly fades, fades and fades into the background. Captures the inner world of the main characters. They say that a person uses the potential of his brain by 5-10%. What is hidden behind the other 90-95%? Unknown. But there is hope that science will come to an answer sooner or later. But what about the soul? It's an even bigger mystery, with no prospect of finding a solution…

Flowers for Algernon

First page, second, third… "Sloppy" text with many grammatical errors. No dots or commas. Poor language, more like slurreda confused story of a five-year-old child who is trying to tell us something important, but he does not come out. Bewilderment and questions, because Charlie Gordon, the protagonist of the novel, on whose behalf the story is being told, is already 32 years old. But soon we realize that Charlie has been ill since birth. He has phenylketonuria, in which mental retardation is almost inevitable.

The protagonist of the novel "Flowers for Algernon" works as a cleaner in a bakery. He has a simple life with its joys and sorrows. Although he writes little about his sorrows. But not because there are many or few of them, but because he simply does not notice them. For him, they simply do not exist: “I told me it doesn’t matter if people laugh at me. A lot of people laugh at me, but they are my friends and we have fun.” He talks about his "friends" at work, about his younger sister Nora and his parents whom he hasn't seen in a long time, about Uncle Herman, about his friend Mr. Donner, who took pity on him and hired him in a bakery, and about Miss Kinnian, a kind teacher. at night school for the feeble-minded. This is his world. Let it be small and not always friendly - he doesn't care. He sees and notices a lot, but does not evaluate what is happening. People in his world without virtues and weaknesses. They are neither bad nor good. They are his friends. And Charlie's only dream is to become smart, read a lot and learn to write well, to please his mother and father, to understand what his comrades are talking about, and to live up to the hopes of Miss Kinnian, who helps him so much.

His great motivation to study doesn't stayunnoticed. Scientists from a research institute offer him a unique brain surgery that will help him become smart. He readily agrees to this dangerous experiment. After all, a mouse named Algernon, who went through the same operation, became very smart. She navigates the maze with ease. Charlie can't do it.

The operation is successful, but it does not bring instant "healing". And sometimes it seems that this will never happen, and most likely the guy was once again deceived and laughed at him. But no. We see how dots and commas appear in his daily reports. Fewer and fewer mistakes. More and more complex sentences. He is no longer limited to describing his daily duties. Gray everyday life is filled with deeper feelings, more complex experiences. More and more he remembers the past. The fog gradually dissipates, he remembers the faces of his father and mother, hears the voice of his little sister Nora, smells the smell of his home. There is a feeling as if someone took a brush, bright colors, and decided to paint white with black outlines pictures of past years. Others are also beginning to notice these amazing changes….

Charlie takes up his studies. What yesterday seemed incomprehensible and confusing, today is as easy as shelling pears. The learning rate of a cleaner in a bakery exceeds the learning rate of ordinary people by tens or even hundreds of times. After a couple of weeks, he is fluent in several languages and reads non-fiction. His dream came true - he is smart. But did it make you happy?his friends? Has he become truly happy himself?

At work, he independently learned how to bake bread and buns, made his own rationalization proposals that could increase the company's income … But the main thing is that he noticed that those whom he loved and respected yesterday can deceive and betray. There was a clash, and "friends" signed a petition for his dismissal. They are not ready to communicate with the new Charlie. On the one hand, there have been mysterious changes. And what is incomprehensible and somewhere even unnatural is frightening and alarming. On the other hand, it is impossible to communicate on an equal footing and accept into your ranks someone who was several steps lower yesterday. However, Charlie now can no longer and does not want to be close to those whom he loved and respected immensely just yesterday. He learned to read and write, but he also learned to judge and be offended.

Alice Kinnian, one of the bright female images of the novel "Flowers for Algernon", sincerely rejoices at his success. They are getting closer. Friendship develops into mutual sympathy, and then into love … But every day the level of his intelligence is growing. Sometimes Charlie's former teacher and mentor lacks the knowledge and ability to understand him. Increasingly, she is silent, blaming herself for her failure and inferiority. Charlie is also silent. He is annoyed by her stupid questions and misunderstanding of the "elementary". A small crack appears between them, a rift that increases in parallel with the growth of his IQ. In addition, another problem arises: as soon as he wants to kiss her, hug her and approach her like a man, he is seized by an incomprehensiblenumbness, fear, inexplicable panic, and he falls into the darkness, where he hears the voice of that feeble-minded Charlie. What it is - he does not understand and does not want to understand. That Charlie no longer exists, or maybe he never was. The circle is narrowing. The world laughed at him when he was weak-minded. Circumstances have changed, he himself has changed, but the world continues to reject him. Cynicism, fun and mockery were replaced by fear and alienation. A blue stamp with the words “not like everyone else” used to make others want to rise up, fill in their gaps at the expense of it. Further events did not erase the image of an outcast of society assigned to him, they only painted him in other colors. The new Charlie is not a man, but a "laboratory animal". No one knows how he will behave tomorrow, what to expect from him and how it will all end.

Bad news comes from the research institute - the strange behavior of a laboratory mouse. Algernon is experiencing a rapid decline in intelligence. The apparent initial success of the experiment ends in failure. What to do? Charlie Gordon takes Algernon and then runs with him away from worried scientists and psychologists, from Alice and from himself. He hides in a rented apartment and decides to figure out the causes of the inevitable collapse on his own. Algernon dies soon after. An autopsy shows that his brain is significantly reduced, and the convolutions are smoothed out. There is very little time left…

Why are we given life? A difficult question … From birth, we learn about the world around us and ourselves inthis infinity. What role does the soul play in this? What is the place of the mind? Why do some people have a broad soul, but a “meager” mind? Do others do the opposite? Man has always sought to uncover “this mystery”, to know what is hidden there, beyond “our understanding”, and every time, approaching the solution closely, he finds himself at its source. This is not surprising - we are not the creators, we are not the creators of all things. Scientific progress has allowed us to climb the nth floor of a skyscraper, and we look at the world from another window, naively believing that now the whole world is spread out before us, but forgetting that the house still has an unattainable “roof”. In this sense, the phrase of the nurse at the very beginning of the novel “Flowers for Algernon” sounds symbolic: “… she said maybe they had no right to make you smart because if God wanted me to be smart, he would have done so that I would be smart … And maybe Prof Nemours and Doc Strauss are playing with things best left alone"

Work to complete the experiment was in full swing. Charlie was in a hurry, because it was important for him to find mistakes and help future generations, and most importantly, to prove that his and Algernon's life was not just a failed experiment, but the first step towards achieving the main goal - real help to people born with such a disease. He found a mistake, and in his scientific article he left parting words - in the near future, do not conduct such experiments on humans. But the search for a scientific basis for what happened led him to ask other questions: "So what is the mind really?" He came to the conclusion that pure reason, which so idolizeshumanity and for the sake of which it rejects all those who do not possess it - is nothing. We stake everything for the sake of illusion and emptiness. A highly intelligent person without the ability to love, with an "underdeveloped" soul, is doomed to degradation. Moreover, "the brain for itself" is not able to bring any benefit and progress to humanity. And vice versa, a person with a “developed” soul and without reason is a “concentration” of love, the possibilities of which are endless, which brings true “progress” to the human race - the development of the spirit. And before you help people with mental disabilities cope with their problem, you need to deal with your own. And then, probably, the very concept of “the problem of mental retardation” will lose its relevance…

Charlie didn't let Algernon's body be burned. He buried him behind the house, and he left the city and settled in a hospital for the feeble-minded people. The book "Flowers for Algernon" ends with a remarkable phrase - he asks, if possible, to visit Algernon's grave in the backyard and bring him flowers …