Flowers for Algernon: Character Analysis
Charlie Gordon: Born with an extremely low IQ, Charlie Gordon is the main character in the book “Flowers for Algernon”. Despite his disabilities, Charlie’s lack of intelligence has made him a trusting and extremely friendly man. Even though his coworkers at Donner’s bakery make fun of him all the time, he regards them as friends, and enjoys their company. As his intelligence grows though (due to the experiment on his brain), he comes to see the world for what it really is. He understands that the people who he worked with at the bakery had no intentions to be friendly toward them, and they found joy through his torment. He starts to lose trust in the people around him, and he starts to become distant and isolated, making it hard for anyone to get close to him.
Alice Kinnian: Alice Kinnian is the one person with whom Charlie forms a bond with and feels truly accepted by. Alice’s character represents warmth and kindness that that is very rare when it comes to society and the mentally retarded. Alice teaches literacy skills to mentally retarded adults because she cares about her students. Alice does not believe that their disabilities make them lesser human beings. She takes genuine satisfaction in helping people and recommends Charlie for Professor Nemur and Professor Strauss’s experiment because she admires Charlie’s desire to learn. Charlie appreciates Alice’s concern for his well-being, even though it is hard for him to expose his true feelings. She is a mentioned countless times in Charlie’s earliest progress reports, even though she is not a member of the scientific team that is examining him.
Professor Nemur: Unlike Alice, Professor Nemur shows no warmth or kindness towards Charlie. He has trouble interacting with others, but what he lacks in people skills, he makes up for it with his high intellect. Unlike his partner, Dr. Strauss, Nemur is never interested in Charlie’s human emotions (he doesn’t even consider Charlie as an actual human being); he cares only about Charlie’s progress as an experimental subject. Professor Nemur thinks of Charlie just as he thinks of Algernon—as a laboratory animal, one that is to be experimented on, and thrown away when its usage has expired. Pressured by his wife, Nemur is desperate to advance his career and longs for his peers to regard him as brilliant. Nemur cannot stand to be shown up by anyone—not by Strauss, and certainly not by Charlie, who quickly surpasses him on an intellectual level. Though Charlie resents Nemur for most of the novel, we see after the operation that Charlie himself is potentially at risk of becoming cold and loveless like Nemur.
Fay Lillman: Fay is Charlie's eccentric neighbor. In her mid-thirties, she is artistic and unconventional. Charlie’s first sight of her is that of "a slender blonde in pink bra and panties," standing and painting at an easel. Quite undisturbed by her semi-nudity, she invites him in and asks him to sit amidst all the messy clutter of her room. Charlie discovers that she paints nudes, is divorced, drinks and dances at all times of day or night. "She’s been around" as Charlie discovers, and this both fascinates him and does away with his sexual inhibitions. Her own approach to sex is casual but enthusiastic, and Charlie feels she is just what he needs. Here too, his needs are paramount and Fay is more and less, just the means to fulfill them. Yet, he can’t help liking her as a human being, especially her fearless friendliness and lack of curiosity about him. Yet Fay is independent and makes her own set of values - "I don’t see that because I let a guy bring me home I’ve got to go to bed with him." When she invites a down-and-out woman home, she is robbed of her month’s allowance. But with quick generosity, she forgives and forgets, believing that the other woman must have needed the money more than she did
Charlie Gordon: Born with an extremely low IQ, Charlie Gordon is the main character in the book “Flowers for Algernon”. Despite his disabilities, Charlie’s lack of intelligence has made him a trusting and extremely friendly man. Even though his coworkers at Donner’s bakery make fun of him all the time, he regards them as friends, and enjoys their company. As his intelligence grows though (due to the experiment on his brain), he comes to see the world for what it really is. He understands that the people who he worked with at the bakery had no intentions to be friendly toward them, and they found joy through his torment. He starts to lose trust in the people around him, and he starts to become distant and isolated, making it hard for anyone to get close to him.
Alice Kinnian: Alice Kinnian is the one person with whom Charlie forms a bond with and feels truly accepted by. Alice’s character represents warmth and kindness that that is very rare when it comes to society and the mentally retarded. Alice teaches literacy skills to mentally retarded adults because she cares about her students. Alice does not believe that their disabilities make them lesser human beings. She takes genuine satisfaction in helping people and recommends Charlie for Professor Nemur and Professor Strauss’s experiment because she admires Charlie’s desire to learn. Charlie appreciates Alice’s concern for his well-being, even though it is hard for him to expose his true feelings. She is a mentioned countless times in Charlie’s earliest progress reports, even though she is not a member of the scientific team that is examining him.
Professor Nemur: Unlike Alice, Professor Nemur shows no warmth or kindness towards Charlie. He has trouble interacting with others, but what he lacks in people skills, he makes up for it with his high intellect. Unlike his partner, Dr. Strauss, Nemur is never interested in Charlie’s human emotions (he doesn’t even consider Charlie as an actual human being); he cares only about Charlie’s progress as an experimental subject. Professor Nemur thinks of Charlie just as he thinks of Algernon—as a laboratory animal, one that is to be experimented on, and thrown away when its usage has expired. Pressured by his wife, Nemur is desperate to advance his career and longs for his peers to regard him as brilliant. Nemur cannot stand to be shown up by anyone—not by Strauss, and certainly not by Charlie, who quickly surpasses him on an intellectual level. Though Charlie resents Nemur for most of the novel, we see after the operation that Charlie himself is potentially at risk of becoming cold and loveless like Nemur.
Fay Lillman: Fay is Charlie's eccentric neighbor. In her mid-thirties, she is artistic and unconventional. Charlie’s first sight of her is that of "a slender blonde in pink bra and panties," standing and painting at an easel. Quite undisturbed by her semi-nudity, she invites him in and asks him to sit amidst all the messy clutter of her room. Charlie discovers that she paints nudes, is divorced, drinks and dances at all times of day or night. "She’s been around" as Charlie discovers, and this both fascinates him and does away with his sexual inhibitions. Her own approach to sex is casual but enthusiastic, and Charlie feels she is just what he needs. Here too, his needs are paramount and Fay is more and less, just the means to fulfill them. Yet, he can’t help liking her as a human being, especially her fearless friendliness and lack of curiosity about him. Yet Fay is independent and makes her own set of values - "I don’t see that because I let a guy bring me home I’ve got to go to bed with him." When she invites a down-and-out woman home, she is robbed of her month’s allowance. But with quick generosity, she forgives and forgets, believing that the other woman must have needed the money more than she did