Flowers for Algernon

Charlie is a man with an IQ of 68 who works a menial job as a janitor and delivery person at Donnegan's Plastic Box Company. He is selected to undergo an experimental surgical technique to increase his intelligence. The technique had already been tested on a number of animals; the great success was with Algernon, a laboratory mouse. The surgery on Charlie is also a success, and his IQ more than doubles.

He realizes his co-workers at the factory, who he thought were his friends, only liked having him around so they could tease him. His new intelligence scares his co-workers, and they start a petition to have him fired, but when Charlie learns about the petition, he quits. As Charlie's intelligence peaks, Algernon's suddenly declines—he loses his increased intelligence and mental age, and dies afterward, buried in the back yard of Charlie's home. Charlie realizes his intelligence increase is also temporary. He begins researching to find the flaw in the experiment, which he calls the "Algernon–Gordon Effect". When he finishes his work, his intelligence regresses to its original state. Charlie is aware of, and pained by, what is happening to him as he loses his knowledge and his ability to read and write. He tries to earn back his old job as a janitor, and tries to revert to normal, but he cannot stand the pity from his co-workers, landlady, and Ms. Kinnian. Charlie states he plans to "go away" from New York and move to a psychiatric institution called Warren. His last wish is for someone to put flowers on Algernon's grave.

The novel opens with an epigraph taken from Book VII of Plato's The Republic:

Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eye are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye.

Charlie Gordon, 32 years old, demonstrates an IQ of 68 due to untreated phenylketonuria. His uncle has arranged for him to hold a menial job at a bakery so that he will not have to live in a state institution. Desiring to improve himself, Charlie attends reading and writing classes at the Beekman College Center for Retarded Adults; his teacher is Miss Alice Kinnian. Two researchers at Beekman, Professor Nemur and Dr. Strauss, are looking for a human test subject on whom to try a new surgical technique intended to increase intelligence. They have already performed the surgery on a mouse named Algernon, resulting in a dramatic improvement in his mental performance. Based on Alice's recommendation and his motivation to improve, Nemur and Strauss choose Charlie over smarter pupils to undergo the procedure.

The operation is a success, and within the next three months Charlie's IQ reaches 185. However, as his intelligence, education, and understanding of the world increase, his relationships with people deteriorate. His co-workers at the bakery, who used to amuse themselves at his expense, now fear and resent his increased intelligence and persuade his boss to fire him. Later, Charlie confronts his scientific mentors about their condescending attitude toward him, particularly Nemur, because Charlie believed Nemur considered him a mere laboratory subject and not human before the operation.

When not drinking at night, Charlie spends weeks continuing his mentors' research and writing reports which include observations of Algernon, whom he keeps at his apartment. Charlie's research discovers a flaw in the theory behind Nemur and Strauss's intelligence-enhancing procedure that could cause him to revert to his original mental state. His conclusions prove true when Algernon starts behaving erratically, loses his own enhanced intelligence, and dies.

Charlie tries to mend the long-broken relationships with his parents, even as his own intelligence enhancements begin to slip away. He remembers that during his childhood, his mother had first believed that he could be made normal and spent money on quack treatments for him; later, though, she began to insist on his institutionalization, overruling his father's wish to keep him at home. His mother, who still lives in the family's old home in Brooklyn, has developed dementia and recognizes him only briefly; his father, who broke off contact with the family years earlier, does not recognize him at all. He is only able to reconnect with his now-friendly younger sister, Norma, who had hated him for his mental disability when they were growing up, and is now caring for their mother in their newly depressed neighborhood. When Norma asks Charlie to stay with his family, he refuses but promises to send her money.

Despite regressing to his former self, Charlie remembers that he was once a genius. Unable to bear the thought of being pitied by his friends and co-workers, he decides to live at a state-sponsored home and school for the mentally handicapped, where no one knows about the operation. In a final postscript to his writings, he requests that someone put flowers on Algernon's grave in the backyard of Charlie's former residence.

The original short story won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1960.[2] The expanded novel was joint winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1966, tied with Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany,[3] and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1967, losing out to The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein.[28]

In the late 1960s, the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) decided to give Nebula Awards retroactively and voted for their favourite science fiction stories of the era ending December 31, 1964 (before the Nebula Award was conceived). The short story version of Flowers for Algernon was voted third out of 132 nominees and was published in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964 in 1970.[29] Keyes was elected the SFWA Author Emeritus in 2000 for making a significant contribution to science fiction and fantasy, primarily as a result of Flowers for Algernon.[30]

Flowers for Algernon is on the American Library Association's list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–1999 at number 43.[6] The reasons for the challenges vary, but usually center on those parts of the novel in which Charlie struggles to understand and express his sexual desires.[8] Many of the challenges have proved unsuccessful, but the book has occasionally been removed from school libraries, including some in Pennsylvania and Texas.[8][31]

In January 1970, the school board of Cranbrook, British Columbia, as well as Calgary, Alberta, removed the Flowers for Algernon novel from the local age 14–15 curriculum and the school library, after a parent complained that it was "filthy and immoral". The president of the British Columbia Teachers' Federation criticized the action. Flowers for Algernon was part of the British Columbia Department of Education list of approved books for grade nine and was recommended by the British Columbia Secondary Association of Teachers of English. A month later, the board reconsidered and returned the book to the library; they did not, however, lift its ban from the curriculum.[32][33]

Flowers for Algernon has been the inspiration for works that include the album A Curious Feeling by Genesis keyboardist Tony Banks.[34] It also inspired the 2006 modern dance work Holeulone by Karine Pontiès, which won the Prix de la Critique de la Communauté française de Belgique for best dance piece.[35] A 2001 episode of the TV series The Simpsons titled "HOMR" has a plot similar to the novel.[36] A 2013 episode the TV series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia titled "Flowers for Charlie" is heavily based on the novel.[37] The name Algernon inspired the author Iain Cameron Williams to create his poetic work The Empirical Observations of Algernon [38] after Williams's father had nicknamed him Algernon as a teenager (taken from Flowers for Algernon) due to his son's highly inquisitive nature.[39]