Product Description
The "Heinemann Plays" series offers contemporary drama and classic plays in durable classroom editions. Many have large casts and an equal mix of boy and girl parts. This play is a dramatization of Daniel Keyes's story about a retarded adult who desperately wants to be able to read and write. ... Read more

Product Description

Term paper due tomorrow? Need to cram for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary work?

Turn to "Novels for Students" to get your research done in record time. Brought to you by Thomson Gale--the world's leading source of literary criticism and analysis--this e-doc contains: plot summary; character analysis; author biography; an overview of the novel's themes, style, and historical context; a compendium of in-depth critical material; study questions; suggestions for further reading; and much more.

Why choose "Novels For Students"? Because no other source offers so much in such a compact package. Trust the experts: Thomson Gale--and "Novels for Students." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Flowers for Algernon
Flowers for Algernon is about a young man named Charlie Gordon that undergoes an operation to increase is IQ. During his treatment, he begins to have memories of a young child that he never had before. He remembers his childhood and how his unhappy mother denied his illness as a "special needs" person. He also has some unpleasant memories, like his mother slapping him because he was holding his little sister. There is also a mouse named Algernon, that had also undergone the same operation as Charlie. Throughout the months, Algernon's IQ begins to drop, and he becomes ill and eventually dies. The same thing happens to Charlie, except he doesn't die. He becomes the same person he was before the operation.


The main character in Flowers for Algernon is Charlie Gordon. Charlie is a 32-year-old man with dark brown hair that has an April birthday. He works at Donners bakery and earns 11 dollars a week. He attends Beckman collage for retarded adults, and he also has a younger sister named Norma. Charlie and I do not share any traits, but we are very different. Charlie had a very terrible childhood. His father left Charlie at a very young age, so that means that he didn't really know his father very well. I have had a very good childhood, and have a great relationship with both my mother and my father. Charlie is also a very dependent person, but I am very independent.

I think that Flowers for Algernon is a very interesting book, and it had a good meaning. I think that it can teach people that you should be happy with yourself, and you shouldn't want to be anyone else. I really liked it, but it got confusing sometimes. My favorite part was when Charlie asks Mrs. Kinnian, his teacher, to put some flowers on Algernon's grave. I think that everyone should read this book.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Readable with some minor problems.
Three good points (and later three bad):

1. The author did a good job of slowly building up the protagonists increased intelligence. Strangely enough, the poor spelling and grammar made the reader slow down at the early stages of the book and it was those that actually had more of an impact than later stages of the books.

2. The protagonist's scaring away women with his intellect is something with which I can sympathize. That much was believable.

3. The characterizations were very believable and the characters well developed.


Three bad:

1. The reading took longer than I would like to have invested in a fiction book. Two evenings. When taking a break from the non-fiction books that I normally read, I only like to spend one afternoon/ evening reading.

2. The book was a bit wordy (even though it was only 210 pages). It could have been shortened by about 40 pages without much diminishment. I understand the author was trying to raise existential questions, but somehow that just came across as babbling.

3. The author drove home his point about people with higher IQs having a generally hard time with social adjustment. The only thing is that it's not quite correct.Is it really much better to be ignorant out of choice (=much of the general public) or ignorant with no choice (people with low IQs)?

People...People Being People
I started out reading this out loud to my five year old. That ended about a third of the way through as some adult situations. I remember reading this as a kid, albeit a little older than my girl is now, probably 8 or 9. I remembered this book with fondness, but almost all the details of the book escaped.

This story is about a retarded adult named Charlie and a mouse named Algernon. Algernon and Charlie are involved with a scientific experiment to increase their intelligence. We see Charlie progress from a lovable nitwit, to a self absorbed super-genius. As he gets more intelligent, he comes to realize the way people viewed him before he gained his intelligence.

I really liked how Keyes put this together. The best part was how Keyes exposes the issue of person-hood. By the super-intelligent Charlie being treated like an object rather than a person, the author also exposes that developmentally disabled persons are often treated like objects. This theme is later revisited when Charlie goes and visits his family, and finds his mother in the grips of senility.

A classic novel from my youth
I first read this novel in the tenth grade and was deeply impressed at how Daniel Keyes created such honest, living characters out of only words.The novel is expanded from its original short story format here and tells the story of a mildly retarded man named Charlie Gordon who undergoes an experimental surgical procedure designed to increase his I.Q.

The experiment works to a degree: Charlie now has a genius-level I.Q. of 185 and can read in several languages.However, he has all the emotional ability of his pre-surgical self and as his intelligence increases, his friends and family decrease in size due partly to his own arrogance and self-centeredness.

Keyes makes everyone in his novel a real person, with the exception of Bertha Nemur, the wife of the professor whose research Charlie benefits from; given only one or two scenes, she comes across as shrill and unlikable.But Charlie, his teacher (and lover) Alice Kinnian; Fay, his exotic neighbor, Dr. Strauss, his psychologist; even Rose, his mother and Norma, his sister: all come across as real people.The depth of Charlie's humanity is seen in how he reacts to these people before and after his intelligence increases.

The ending is heartbreaking, but this is a novel I'd recommend to anyone.This is probably the third time I've reread it over the years, and its emotional impact never leaves.

A good read
I remembered seeing this movie as a kid with Cliff Robertson who plays a retarded man named Charly who works in a bakery and is shunned by his mom after his sister is born and his sister. He has an operation and becomes smart for a short period of time. After reading this book, I felt sorry for him because when he was retarded he was treated shabbily and when he was really smart people wouldn't leave him alone. I liked both the boook and the movie a lot. A good story telling of Charlys progress reports, a mouse named Algernon and his story on how his life changed. 4.5 stars ... Read more