Review of Flowers for Algernon: A Tearjerker Novel

Flowers for Algernon is one of my best reads in 2023, and I didn’t think twice about giving it a 5-star rating! The novel written by Daniel Keyes successfully made my heart shattered into pieces, made me feel numb and cry, and gave me new perspectives on the issues raised in the novel. This novel was first published in 1959, and I just read it in 2023! Oh, how I wish I had found and read this novel earlier. Since I have a special room in my heart and mind for this novel, I want to recommend it to people by reviewing it!

Thoughts

Flowers for Algernon explores human intelligence. It tells how intelligence cannot always bring happiness to someone. In some cases, intelligence can make someone feel isolated and not belong to the world because their surroundings cannot stand their intelligence. These two things about the other side of having high intelligence are experienced by the main character in the novel, Charlie Gordon, who undergoes artificial intelligence surgery that changes him from an intellectual disability person to a genius. When reading this novel, I can feel Charlie’s dilemmas and struggles to live around his surroundings with his IQ. When Charlie still has an IQ of 68, he cannot understand himself and his surroundings. However, one thing that Charlie likes when he has a low IQ is that he feels that he has “friends” when people around him laugh at him. Meanwhile, after Charlie undergoes surgical IQ surgery and has an IQ of 204, he can understand and learn about the world and grant his mother’s wish to have a “normal” son. Nevertheless, his intelligence makes him feel lonely because his surroundings do not want to accept the genius Charlie.

When reading this novel, I often feel sad and angry because people keep treating Charlie badly and abusing him. It feels like I just want to hug Charlie and tell him that he has been doing well all this time. This novel got me thinking that what we want does not always bring a happy ending to us. Besides that, I can understand that intelligence is not everything. Of course, intelligence makes us human, but it doesn’t mean it is the only aspect we need to become a decent human being. Moreover, after reading this novel, I learned that whether we are genius or stupid, it does not guarantee us that the world and people around us will treat us kindly. This novel shows the reality that when someone is stupid, people will make fun of them. However, when someone is a genius, people will hate and shun them. What I write here is only the surface of the novel because it does not only explore intelligence issues but also other issues, such as family issues. It tells of a son who needs validation from his mother, and it haunts him until he grows up because he has never received his mother’s love since childhood. 

For me, the novel can evoke my emotions when reading it because it uses a first-person point of view, and it expresses Charlie’s emotions precisely, not too much. This novel suits you who need an emotional and tearjerker novel. It has only around 200 pages (depending on the publisher you choose), so you can finish it in a short time, but I cannot promise the damage after reading this novel will affect you in a short time, too! Nevertheless, if you are interested in reading this novel, make sure you check the trigger warning(s) first. There are child abuse and bullying scenes that kinda triggering.

About The Story (Contain Spoiler)

The story of this novel is told from the main character’s point of view, Charlie, in the form of a diary. In the beginning, readers will find many spelling and grammatical errors in Charlie’s writing. This is intended to tell readers that Charlie has limitations in writing since he is a 32-year-old man with an IQ of 68. He also has limitations in talking, responding to his surroundings, remembering memories, and is still childish. Charlie's diary is an obligated report on the progress of a research project that involves him. He becomes the object of the research project that has a goal to increase humans' IQ. This research has been successfully done on a mouse named Algernon and it is proven that Algernon becomes a genius when humans try to test him. The reason why Charlie wants himself to be the object is he wants to be a genius and wants to understand the world.

Through Charlie’s diary, readers can witness every progress that Charlie makes. Readers will know the increase in Charlie’s IQ by seeing the progress of his writing, which becomes more neat. As his IQ increases, his past experiences start to appear in his memories, and he writes them down in the diary. From his writings, readers will be invited to witness Charlie’s bitter and bad experiences in the past. Readers will know that Charlie has experienced childhood abuse from his mother and bullying from his colleagues.

Charlie then completely became a genius person. He finally becomes the person he wants. Charlie can finally read and understand books, talk in a proper conversation, and gain new knowledge in a short time. However, as his IQ increases and he becomes a genius, he starts losing himself. The more he becomes a genius, he cannot adapt to his surroundings, and his colleagues cannot stand his intelligence. They do not like to see Charlie become more clever than them because it means they cannot make fun of him again. People around him also tell him that he has changed and is different from the old Charlie they like. It frustrates him because he loses his friends and job, which makes him feel lonely. 

The climax of this story starts when Charlie is invited to attend a research conference along with Algernon. They are considered successful research objects that should be shown off to the academic world. However, Charlie starts to realize that all this time, he is only a research object. The scientist and the professor only care about him because he is their object, not because he is a human being. Charlie decides to leave the conference and bring Algernon secretly. After that, they stay in an apartment to avoid contact with people. As time passes, Charlie finds that Algernon also experiences frustration as he shows declines. Algernon ends up dying and Charlie buries him.

Algernon’s death is a hint that Charline will experience the same later. He then decides to visit his mother before he returns to his old self. When Charlie visits his mother and sister, I feel so broken. I think it is the saddest part of this novel. I can feel Charlie’s longing for his mother even though he is a victim of childhood abuse. It shows that Charlie keeps loving his mother despite receiving many wounds from his mother. He still wants to grant his mother’s wish to have a normal son, so he wants to use the limited chance to show his mother that he can be a normal son for her. Regardless of the complicated relationship between a child and their parents, a child still needs their parents’ validation because it is the source of their strength. 

The ending of the novel shows the drop in Charlie’s IQ. Readers will see the decrease in Charlie’s memories that become bad and the errors in his writing. When I spot the errors in his writing, I can feel the ache in my heart. It feels like I have been accompanying his journey, and now I have to accept that he cannot be a genius forever like he wanted.