Flowers for Algernon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Author | Daniel Keyes |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Harcourt |
| Released | April 1959 (original novella) & March 1966 (full novel) |
Flowers for Algernon is a science fiction story written by Daniel Keyes. It was originally published as a novelette in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, winning 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, awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, in 1966.
The book is often found on required reading lists in North American public schools and major universities throughout the world.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
The story of Flowers for Algernon centers on Charlie Gordon, a mentally challenged janitor (37 years old in the original novella, 32 years old in the full novel), 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 more intelligent 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...".
[edit] Major themes
The story 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 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 several forms of alienation, 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. It uses the trappings of a science fiction premise to relate various notions of consciousness and awareness.
[edit] Literary significance & criticism
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 some people), the original short story does not. It is on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000 at number 47.[1]
[edit] Awards and nominations
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.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
- a radio play for BBC Radio 4 starring Tom Courtenay as Charlie
- a 1961 tele-play starring Cliff Robertson, on CBS's The U.S. Steel Hour.
- a 1968 movie entitled Charly, also starring Cliff Robertson. Robertson won the Best Actor Oscar for the title role.
- a 1979 London musical starring Michael Crawford
- a 2000 TV movie starring Matthew Modine
- a 2002 11-episode drama series for Japanese television, starring Yusuke Santamaria
- a 2006 Japanese musical starring Kenji Urai
[edit] Trivia
- Former football great Carlester Crumpler, Sr. named his son, Atlanta Falcons tight end Algernon Crumpler after Flowers for Algernon, citing it as his favorite book of all time.
[edit] Allusions/references from other works
- There is a recurring allusion to the story of Adam and Eve[citation needed], from the Christian bible(Genesis). In the story, Charlie repeatedly feels "naked" when he realizes that his friends are not really his friends, and he realizes that there is a price to knowledge. This is comparable to Eve when she eats the fruit.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- A list of the numerous adaptations of the story can be found here [2]
- 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. The NPC in question is missing his left arm and is holding a dandelion in his right hand.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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..."
- On "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart", a reference was made to a fictional book called "A Strap-On for Algernon."
- In episode 14 of season 5 (Smile Time) of the TV series Angel, Charles Gunn's memory implant is failing, and the doctor's diagnosis is "Acute Flowers For Algernon Syndrome".
- The 2006 video game Bully features a nerdy character named Algernon.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Charly at the Internet Movie Database
- Flowers for Algernon at the Internet Movie Databasees:Flores para Algernon
fr:Des Fleurs pour Algernon it:Fiori per Algernon ja:アルジャーノンに花束を simple:Flowers for Algernon th:ดอกไม้สำหรับอัลเจอนอน zh:獻給阿爾吉儂的花束
