Study Guide: Flowers for Algernon (A BookCaps Study Guide)

By BookCaps

The perfect companion to Daniel Keyes’s "Flowers for Algernon," this study guide contains a chapter by chapter analysis of the book, a summary of the plot, and a guide to major characters and themes.

BookCap Study Guides do not contain text from the actual book, and are not meant to be purchased as alternatives to reading the book.

We all need refreshers every now and then. Whether you are a student trying to cram for that big final, or someone just trying to understand a book more, BookCaps can help. We are a small, but growing company, and are adding titles every month.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookCaps
• Release date: Dec 6, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465989314

BookCaps

We all need refreshers every now and then. Whether you are a student trying to cram for that big final, or someone just trying to understand a book more, BookCaps can help. We are a small, but growing company, and are adding titles every month.Visit www.bookcaps.com to see more of our books, or contact us with any questions.

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Daniel Keyes’

Flowers for Algernon

By BookCaps Study Guides

© 2011 by Golgotha Press, Inc.

Published at SmashWords

www.bookcaps.com

Historical Context

Daniel Keyes was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1927. Before Keyes attended college, he worked as a merchant seaman; but then he went on to receive both his Bachelors and Masters degrees from Brooklyn College. After college, he worked as a teacher for adults who were developmentally disabled, and he also worked as a fiction editor for Marvel Science Fiction. Keyes had always had an interest in science-fiction and had been publishing short science-fiction stories throughout the 1950’s. It was Keyes experience working with the developmentally disabled and his love of science-fiction that led to the publishing of a short story called Flowers for Algernon in 1959.

Flowers for Algernon is a story of a developmentally disabled man who undergoes an experimental procedure which has the effect of tripling his IQ. This short story achieved huge popularity and acclaim; it even earned Keyes an enormous honor in the field of science fiction, the Hugo Award. In 1961, a television show was adapted from the short story; it was called The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon. The television show inspired Keyes to expand the short story into a full length novel version of Flowers for Algernon which was published in 1966. This novel earned Keyes yet another prestigious science-fiction award – The Nebula Award. The novel was adapted several times for both the big and small screens.The success of Keyes’ Algernon stories left him very well-known though he was not prolific; he published only a handful of other works in his career.

Plot

Charlie Gordon is a mentally handicapped man who is in Miss Kinnian’s class for mentally retarded adults at Beekman University. He is being considered for an experiment in which he would undergo a procedure that would greatly increase his intelligence. In order to be chosen for the experiment, he must write progress reports where he records all of his thoughts and participate in multiple tests.Charlie is introduced to a rat named Algernon which is the only living thing to have ever undergone the procedure, and successfully. When Charlie is chosen, the doctors get permission from his estranged sister Norma to do the operation. Charlie’s intelligence, problem-solving skills, and analytical skills greatly increase at a rapid pace, though Charlie does not realize it is happening at first. The smarter Charlie gets to more he begins to