Elithea Tan 08S304 progress report 1

My initial impressions of Flowers of Algernon is that it is a touching and thought-provoking novel.the novel depicts Charlie's struggle to be "normal",and the extremes he is willing to go just to fit in.In Charlie's simple mind,he feels that if he is normal,the world would accept him better and he would be more well-liked by those around him.He also wanted to prove to his mother that he could be normal just like how she always wanted him to be.Sadly,when he finally became much more than a normal person,she could not bear witness to it.Charlie's desire to be intelligent was driven by his quest to be accepted and approved of by his mother.Charlie's desire and actions raises the question, that does society accepts those like Charlie whom are labelled as "retarded"? And does intelligence really makes one more socially acceptable or does it just brings along with it the burden of intelligence?So,can a person be judged upon how high one's IQ may be? I think not,as though Charlie may have become more intelligent, it did not make him a better person.In fact he became self-centered, paranoid and even had a superiority complex,as he began to despise those around him.
When he still had a low IQ,he thought everyone was his friend,laughing with them although the joke was on him.He found it easy to make friends and not when he became intelligent that he felt all the friends he had were at some point just superficial friends .His intelligence had somehow managed to isolate himself from everyone.He became a lonely person who had lost the innocence he once had.
The novel is touching as it explored the human relationships in Charlie's life and how he dealt with the relationships before and after he was intelligent.Charlie found a friend in the most unlikest form, a lab mice named Algernon.Charlie probably identified with it and sympathised with it as they were sharing the same fate. Ironic too, as after what Charlie had gone through just to be intelligent, he was back to where he started,if not worse.All he had risked and worked for was all gone within a short period of time.Was all that he have done worth it?