At 17, he joined the United States Maritime Service, eventually becoming a ship’s purser (he was responsible for managing the on-board money, supplies, and clerical duties of oil tankers). Daniel Keyes had a variety of jobs before becoming a novelist.īorn in Brooklyn, New York, on August 9, 1927, Daniel Keyes always valued education, hard work, and literature. When the mouse backslides, suffers, then dies as a result of the experiment, Charlie mourns not only for Algernon (with flowers on a backyard grave) but also for what he knows lies ahead for himself. As they are going through a similar experience, Charlie comes to feel deeply bonded to the little critter. The title Flowers For Algernon refers to a mouse.Īlgernon is a white mouse who underwent the experimental brain surgery before Charlie joined the human trial. Early on, his entries are full of misspellings, like “progris riport.” Later, his spelling improves and his descriptions of events become far more involved, even sharing his misgivings about the experiment. Along with giving the novella a first-person-perspective, this diary-like approach reveals how Charlie is progressing emotionally and intellectually over the course of the experiment. Flowers For Algernon is an epistolary novel.Ĭharlie’s story is told through progress reports he writes at the request of the scientific research team. The experience becomes traumatic for this human test subject as he learns things he can’t forget about his past, present, and future.
Published in 1966 (after having first existed as a short story), Flowers for Algernon tells the heartbreaking story of Charlie Gordon, a 32-year-old man whose IQ goes from 68 to 185 thanks to an experimental brain surgery. Daniel Keyes’s Flowers for Algernon is a poignant science-fiction novel that has won critical acclaim and popularity around the globe.
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