Flowers for Algernon
The story of
Flowers for Algernon centers on Charlie Gordon, a 32-year-old
mentally retarded janitor, who volunteers to take part in an experimental
intelligence-enhancing treatment. His progress parallels that of Algernon, a laboratory mouse who had been "enhanced" earlier. The story is told from Charlie's point of view and written as a journal, or
progris riport, as he initially spells it, which he keeps as part of the experiment. Succeeding entries trace Charlie's ever-increasing comprehension and intelligence in the aftermath of the treatment, as he passes through "
normalcy", and then reaches super-
genius level. He becomes smarter than the doctors who invented the procedure.
He discovers both the advantages of intelligence and awareness, including his sexual-emotional relationship with his former teacher, Alice Kinnian; and the disadvantages, as he discovers that the people he thought were his friends had only viewed him as 'entertainment', and now resent his superior abilities. His courtship of Alice becomes turbulent and finally withers into misery when she too comes to resent his superior intellect, which lowers her self-esteem.
Yet, all else seems to be well, until Algernon's enhanced intelligence begins to fade rapidly. As Charlie himself confirms, the neural enhancement is only temporary, and he too is doomed to revert to his original mental state. Some say that Algernon's death is supposed to imply that the treatment will also eventually kill Charlie, but his own notes on the subject, dubbed the Algernon-Gordon Effect, say nothing of his impending death. He records his struggles to find a way to stop the decay until he realizes the futility of it all. The title's mention of flowers is a reference to Charlie's last request that
"please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard...".
The story is extremely effective because it is told from Charlie's point of view, and as Charlie's mental state shifts, it is reflected in his writings. He becomes depressed, for example, when he poignantly realizes that his cognition will decay away when he can no longer understand his own proof.
Various allegorical points are made throughout the book that involve various forms of alienation and acceptance and themes that allude to ignorance being a form of bliss. Intelligence turns out to be a double-edged sword for Charlie and he cannot help realizing that everything he previously believed was not as it seemed. The condescending attitudes of his 'friends' and co-workers register once he gains awareness. He discovers that his initial adolescent crush for Alice actually has the potential to be something more. He learns of the insecurities of other scientists when they realize that their experiment has turned him into someone whose IQ surpasses their own. The novel touches upon aspects of the human condition such as ambition, innocence, jealousy, pettiness, and emotional development that use the trappings of a science fiction premise to relate various notions of consciousness and awareness that most people take for granted.
In January
1970, the
school board of
Cranbrook,
British Columbia,
Canada, as well as
Calgary,
Alberta, Canada,
banned the novel-length expansion of
Flowers from the local grade-nine curriculum and the school library, after a parent complained that it was "filthy and immoral". The president of the BC Teachers' Federation criticized the action.
Flowers was part of the BC Department of Education list of approved books for grade nine and was recommended by the BC Secondary Association of Teachers of English. A month later, the board reconsidered and returned the book to the library; they did not, however, lift its ban from the curriculum. [
Mind War: Book Censorship in English Canada, p. 37;
Not in Our Schools! p. 9] While the full novel does contain material about the character's personal life (that is, flashbacks of experiences of puberty that may be objectionable to many people), the original short story does not.
*The 1986
Stephen King short story "
The End of the Whole Mess" is written in a similar first-person narrative style. In the story, the narrator also regresses to a mentally retarded state due to
Alzheimers and cannot understand his previous writings.
*The
1992 film
The Lawnmower Man features a plot seemingly inspired by
Flowers for Algernon. In it, a scientist experimenting with a
virtual reality program designed to make its subjects more intelligent uses a mentally challenged man as a test subject. The man acquires incredible abilities, including
telekinetic powers, and the treatments begin to affect his mental stability and he takes brutal revenge on those who abused him when he was retarded. He believes the final stage of his evolution will be to become "pure energy" in
cyberspace, and he plans to enter computer networks that reach into all the systems of the world. He eventually reverts to his former mentally retarded state in the sequel,
Lawnmower Man 2.
*The
1974 Doctor Who story
Planet of the Spiders features a minor character named Tommy, initially mildy mentally retarded, whose intelligence is improved to normal and beyond by contact with an alien crystal.
*An episode of
Aqua Teen Hunger Force involved Meatwad getting a brain implant to become smarter. The brain was in fact a toy that Frylock had put into his head to make him feel smarter than he really was. When Meatwad's new "brain" caused him to become arrogant and overly obsessed with his own intellect, Frylock removed his new brain and revealed it to be fake. Meatwad lost confidence in his intellect and it was drained and he became stupid again.
*In 2004, an episode of the
television series Century City had a plot line in which a formerly retarded man sues to keep the implant which had given him superior intelligence. It was discovered that the implants were causing their recipients to die.
*
Japanese rock singer Kyosuke Himuro's
solo debut album is named
Flowers for Algernon.
*The Glass Cat of Lyman Frank Baum's Oz series initially possesses pink brains, of which she is insufferably proud. Although the Wizard of Oz, now a modest magician, makes her brains transparent in the effort to stimulate humility, this attempt wears off seemingly of its own accord.
*An episode of
The Simpsons, entitled "
HOMЯ", is apparently a loose parody of
Flowers for Algernon; Homer is given an operation to remove a crayon from his brain, resulting in increased intelligence. He proceeds to lose his friends, and consequently requests that the crayon be re-inserted. Not unlike Charlie, he cannot understand a note he wrote to Lisa while intelligent. Indeed, even the misspelling of the main character's name alludes to the title "Charly."
*In an episode of the
comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug titled "Flowers for
Trinitron", the temporary loss of
cable television service causes a sedentary young man to blossom into a creative genius, until his TV starts working again.
*An episode of
SpongeBob SquarePants,
Patrick SmartPants, revolved around Patrick's being hit on his head after falling off a cliff and his head's replacement with
brain coral, resulting in his becoming extremely intelligent, but deliberately going back to normal because of losing his relationship with SpongeBob.
*A list of the numerous adaptations of the story can be found here [
1]
*In a slightly different interpretation of "Cultural references", the book itself includes a passage of
Plato's
The Republic. Quite applicable for the novel, it talks of how the
mind's eye is, like its biological counterpart, cannot see when used to darkness and then put into light. Neither can it see in the opposite situation. It is similar to
Plato's allegory of the cave.
*In the PC game
World of Warcraft, in The Undercity there is a
non-player character named Algernon holding a bouquet of Peaceblooms in front of the Alchemy trainer.
*In the 1999, 26-episode
anime "
Betterman," there is a sympton caused by an unknown factor, perhaps a virus or a mutation named Algernon, which causes people to become barbaric, similar to Charlie's regression but more emotionally and on a much larger scale.
Betterman also has so-called "Animus Flowers" that play significant role in the series.
*A similar storyline can be found in the film
At First Sight, based on a story by Oliver Sacks, about a blind man who regains his sight but learns that he will eventually lose it again.
*Another similar film, "
Awakenings (1990)," which stars
Robin Williams as Dr. Malcolm Sayer, who tries to cure a patient
Robert DeNiro, suffering from a form of comatose state (induced by brain damage caused by an
encephalitis epidemic many years earlier). At first, the patient, under the doctor's cure (which is a drug), the man "awakens" from his statue-like state. But after a while, he develops seizures and mood disorders, and slowly reverts to his former state. Based on a true story.
*In the episode "MACHINES DÉSIRANTES" of the
anime Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, one of the
Tachikomas, after gaining
self-awareness, states that it has an interest in reading books and is shown to be reading
Flowers for Algernon at the time.
*Pre-dating this story considerably is the
Laurel & Hardy feature
A Chump at Oxford in which Laurel receives a knock on the head and realizes that he is actually the brilliant academic and sportsman Lord Paddington. This inevitably causes a rift between the two friends, until a further knock on the head transforms Stan back to his normal stupidity.
*An episode of
Rugrats involved Chuckie being used for an experiment involving a cure for the common cold. A lab rat was also used for the experiment. At the end of the episode, it was revealed that the experiment was a failure and Chuckie and the lab rat's colds returned.
*In the
SNES RPG,
Breath of Fire II, when flowers bloom in a certain part of the world, a super-powerful optional boss named Algernon can be found and fought.
*In
Marvel Comics'
Spider-Man's Tangled Web #5-6 (
Flowers for Rhino), the notably unintelligent supervillain
Rhino undergoes an experiment to increase his intelligence in order to impress the girlfriend of his boss. While initially this improves his life, his exponentially increasing intelligence means he quickly becomes bored of her, and everything else (in one scene he goes to see
Hamlet, and starts making notes on how to improve it), before realising his now-superhuman intellect has separated him from humanity. On the point of suicide, he instead devises a way of reversing the machine, asking the doctor "Could you make me a little dumber, just to be on the safe side?"
* In
Marvel Comics'
Mutant X #24-25, the story behind how Hank McCoy, commonly known as the intelligent scientist, The Beast, (In Earth 616) ended up as The Brute on the Mutant X world. The theme was largely similar to the book when a psychic blot from the evil Prof. X resulted in Hank's intellect to be briefly restored, long enough for him to devise a way to send Havok back to his home world, i.e. 616. Towards the end of Episode 25, Hank came to the realisation that he would return back to the Brute and displayed a similar frustration as expressed by Charlie in his devolution state.
*In the
Star Trek: The Next Generation episode
The Nth Degree,
Lieutenant Barclay's intelligence is elevated by aliens, enabling him to do incredible mental feats, but later these gifts are lost, leaving him unable to explain how he accomplished them.
*In
The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, one episode,
Sheen's Brain involves Jimmy using a brain-gain helmet on Sheen to make him smart for a test. The helmet goes out of control, and Sheen becomes super-smart- and manaiacal. He even develops
telekenisis, and begins to call himself "Sheen, the god!" (which would be much more intimidating if it was not delivered in Sheen's usual nasal, whiny voice). However, he thus loses his friendship with Jimmy and Carl, and drains his brain to get it back.
*In the
Transformers episode
Grimlock's New Brain, the normally unintelligent character
Grimlock becomes super-intelligent when hit by function-inverting anti-electrons. He later builds a new group of robots called the
Technobots and transfers his newfound intelligence to them, causing him revert back to his normal self.
*The book is referenced in an episode of
Friends: when
Joey and
Chandler contemplate moving back from the large luxurious apartment to the small dingy apartment, Joey sees no problem with this. Chandler asks him incredulously, "Haven't you ever read Flowers for Algernon?!"
*The book is also referenced in the
Newsradio episodes Arcade and Flowers for Matthew. In Arcade, Lisa thinks she's getting dumber because Beth is faster at solving the jumble. Dave jokes, "Well we knew this day would come Algernon." Lisa, after a moment's pause, rattles off, "Flowers for Algernon written by Daniel Keyes inspired the 1968 film Charly for which Cliff Robertson won an Oscar for best actor I should have known that faster." Dave responds, "No, you shouldn't have known it at all," at which point Lisa wisely decides to retake the SAT's. The main plot of Flowers for Matthew is loosely based on that of the book. Matthew's intelligence is supposedly increased by a smart drink invented by Joe. However, the smart Matthew soon realizes that the drink had no effect, and his newfound intelligence was manifested by his own gullibility in believing that the drink would work. Once he makes this realization Matthew begins regressing to his old self.
*In the 2005 video game
Destroy All Humans!, if the player scans a Majestic Psi-Mutant, a possible thought is "Algernon... smarter... than.. Charlie..."
The novel (in its original form) won a
Hugo award for
Best Short Fiction in
1960. It was later extended into a full-length novel under the same title which won the
Nebula Award for Best Novel in
1966.
Charly in
1968*dramatized for
BBC Radio 4 with
Tom Courtenay as Charlie;
*a 2000
TV movie starring
Matthew Modine;
*a
2002 11-episode drama series for
Japanese television, starring
Yusuke Santamaria;
*a 1979 London musical starring
Michael Crawford.
Taglines* Of mice and men.
*
Unreliable narrator
