Lessons from 'Flowers for Algernon'

 

I don't know what is worse; to not know what you are and be happy or to become what you've always wanted to be and feel lonely.

 

Flowers for Algernon is one of its kind. Despite having numerous works regarding abnormality and dis-functioning of human brains in the world of literature, I doubt there is any other work as appreciable as this for it not only talks about a person's experience for being different but also addresses other problems and terms, so much more than that.

Charlie, the protagonist of the novel, was loved by his mother. More because hed was her son than for what he was. For years, when Charlie failed to prove himself as a normal kid, his mother tried everything she could to make him smarter, to make him feel belonged, in the world of 'normal' people. Before Charlie's sister was born, his mother felt miserable and she blamed herself for what was of Charlie. But when Charlie's sister was born, her mother accepted the fact that there was a problem with Charlie and not her.

Charlie's mother always worried what other people thought, it mattered to her a lot how people perceived her and her family. Sooner or later, the sheep everyone talked about, the sheep that polluted her home had to be taken care of. Slowly the story unravels itself about who Charlie was before he was a janitor in a bakery, as Charlie gains back his memories as a series dreams.

Charlie is an optimistic guy at the beginning of the novel. Despite the abnormalities of this over-30 guy, he was loved by all. He doesn't remember much of his past but the bits had remained with him that he had been a failure. He had failed to become a smart fellow like his mother expected of him, he had disappointed his family. He was clear about what he wanted to be. He wanted to be a smart fella, a guy who knew stuffs, and a guy everybody looked after and admired.

Charlie is very passionate about learning and becoming a better person. He tries very hard every day. He goes to informal education classes for slow adults. And that's basically where meets professors who 'might be' able to make him smarter. They claim to have carried out numerous experiment on other animals which had brought significant results. But they don't know, they're not sure, if the result will be permanent or short lived, and they don't know what will come up as a consequence.

Charlie admits without a second thought. That's what he had wanted all his life. Ever since he was a kid to now, when he was over 30 years of age. He wanted to be a smart man, someone his family and friends would be proud of. This is the basic synopsis of the novel.

Now, you ask me, what's use of this, what I learn? It's hard to put it all on words, but I'll try my best.

This novel talks about the life of a mentally challenged person. This novels talks about how hard we push people to become what they are not. And how popular it is to be 'normal' to fit into a certain image of the society. That's probably why Charlie wanted to be a normal person, a smarter person. Other is how much it matters to us what people think about us that so much of our life is shaped, unaware and unintentionally, trying to become what people think is 'normal', trying to fit in.

This book isn't that much of a fiction, except for the operation part. So much of this work was inspired by writer's real life experience. It had occurred to the writer's mind often 'what if people could be made smarter?' as his parents expected him to pursue a career in medicine, whereas he was driven to pursue one as a writer. It was also inspired by his talks with his students while he was teaching English to students with special needs and one of them asked him if it would be possible to be put into an ordinary class if he worked hard and became smart.

When I surfed through the internet, I came to know that many characters in the novel were inspired by people in the writer's life. The scientists who worked for making Charlie a smarter man, Nemur and Strauss were inspired by the professors the writer met while studying psychoanalysis in grad-school. Algernon, the laboratory mouse, was inspired by a university dissection class, and the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne was the inspiration behind its name.

I think, the book doesn't speak of great things, the mainstreamed things but the little important things that are often ignored, and he's written about them in a great way. What, I think, makes this book so precious is that it is very personal. It addresses significant human behaviors that aren't usually spoken of and are unnoticed.

What breaks my heart is that the things mentioned such a long time ago are still as fresh. What the writer wanted to point with this work of his is not only that humans are taken in the lab and are treated nothing more than a specimen, and forget that they too were someone before they entered the scientist's experiment but also that it's not a just for any animal/creature too. They did, have and will always do have a life apart from the experiment and that they do not owe any creature they carry out experiment upon.

He also portrays how vague and unjust this thought might be for the scientists, as they too are someone. Someone, with vision and dreams. And if an experiment specimen ran away, got lost or died, what they worked for - all their lives - would go in vain. Everyone has his own stories.

The irony of this novel, I think, is that Charlie lives more than 30 years of his life to be a smart guy but when the time comes and he really is a smarter guy, perhaps, the smartest, he feels more isolated, aggressive, lonely and confused than ever that he questions if smartness was really a thing that mattered. However, when he realizes it's to slip off his hand soon, someday, he is too reluctant to let go of who he has become.