Reading Response

  Right now I am reading Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. The main character's name is Charlie. He is mentally retarded but has a deep want to be smart, like the other kids. The book is written by Charlie for his "progris riport" as he would spell it. Since Charlie has such a great will to learn he is picked for a new operation that will make Charlie "normal".

    At this point in the book I actually got excited for Charlie. All he has ever wanted was to be smart and to prove to everyone he could be smart. When the operation turns out to be a success Charlie turns into a sponge, he learns at such a rapid pace he soon passes up most college profesors. What everyone seems to overlook is all the memories he is uncovering from his childhood. As a reader it was hard for me to read some of his memories because they were SO sad. His mother wanted him to be normal so badly and the thought beating him was the solution. What I thought to be the saddest part was that no matter how much his mom beat him all he wanted to do was please her, and that was to become smart, an impossible task.

  On page 107 one of Charlie's co workers tells him "It's not meant for a man to know more than he was given to him to know by the Lord in the first place." This is when I started to think if scientist actually started doing this to people, would it be morally correct? I still can't make up my mind. On the one hand  it seems perfectly fine to give everyone a fair playing feild. To make mentally-slow people like us, if they wanted. On the other hand I was raised taught that God never makes a mistake and everyone is on this earth exactly as he wants them. So mentally disabled people have just as much reason to be on this earth as the greatest genius. Maybe scientist took a step to far by messing with Charlie's mind.

   Charlie begins to realize that living this life he always wanted to live is hard, even for a genius. He starts to see people for what they really are, and he doesn't like it. He begins looking down on people and now all he has is the mouse who had the same surgery as him, Algernon.




8/20- 40 min, 8/21- 78 min, 8/25- 40 min
Total- 158 min pp.1-181