SETTING ANALYSIS
The story is set in 1965, likely somewhere in North America. Its storyline is meticulously crafted through each and every progress report that the protagonist, Charlie, writes. These progress reports, with their vivid descriptions, take the reader on an emotional roller coaster, providing massive insight on the atmosphere while showcasing the different settings in which the story takes place. These places include the hospital/laboratory, Charlie Gordon’s house (the landlady being Mrs. Flynn), the adult school (run by Miss Kinnian), the factory (run by Mr. Donnegan); with some additional scenes at a restaurant and at a bar by the name of Muggy’s Saloon. There’s very little direct description of the physical setting throughout the story. Rather, the author used Charlie’s emotions to portray the atmosphere. The story only mentions the objects present in a room from time to time without even disclosing their approximate location relative to other objects. For example, in the hospital, there’s mention of the TV. It describes what the TV does through Charlie’s naive perspective “... Maybe its another langwidge. But most times it sound american…” This excerpt shows how the text does indeed present insight into the objects present in the setting, but in a very isolated manner, thus leaving the majority of the physical details of a setting to one’s imagination.
The author, Keyes, varied the mood and atmosphere throughout the story, especially during the beginning, never allowing it to get too heavy to solemn. Despite the main character being mentally retarded, or perhaps because of it, the mood is kept rather light and humorous during the beginning, reflecting the childlike innocence and perspective of Charlie. His inability to understand the world around him deeply allows for this certain mood. During the beginning, he rarely analyzes situations to understand everyone’s motives. He keeps to the surface level, just describing the events as is. His emotions are simple. Take this excerpt as an example. “The operashun ddnt hurt. He did it while I was sleeping. They took off the bandijis from my head today so I can make a PROGRESS REPORT too. Dr. Nemur who looked at some of my other ones say I spell PROGRESS wrong and told me how to spell it and REPORT too.” His sentence structure is simple. He rarely describes any significant personal emotions/feelings. It’s almost like a first grader trying to write a journal. Everything is so simple, almost as if it were black and white, with no shades of grey. After the operation, this light mood builds up as little hints are dropped, tensing up to the climax, progressively deepening in seriousness. His intelligence, which provides him with the intellectual capacity to analyze people and situations, and a voice in his progress reports to express his emotions, and more importantly, his need for achievement and acceptance; brings in the darker moments as he begins to understand the world around him in a completely different way. While his ability to express his emotions and feelings betters, his skepticism in others and the society increases, to the point where he even loses his original innocence. During the major conflict that was described below, the mood/atmosphere takes a drastic turn, almost the opposite from the beginning. Charlie’s loss of innocence results in the somber and grim mood. It’s almost as if he lost all his original happiness. In his journals during this period, he almost expresses no emotion, except for grief for Algernon’s death which darkens the mood even more.
So when Charlie’s mental deterioration begins, the mood returns to the original mood, however with a tint of darkness. To put it metaphorically, Charlie’s innocence was like a piece of glass in the beginning. Fragile, but intact. His intellectual experience shatters his innocence. And so, when he returned to his “mentally retarded” state, the glass could piece itself together, but the cracks would still be visible. The stain in Charlie’s innocence and his happiness would be permanent. It’s in the last progress report where one truly sees Charlie’s good nature and motivation to be better. This character’s actions are what truly paint the mood, as mentioned above. His journal stills account for his grief, but his words showcase his good humor and optimism. It’s this mixture that allows for a bright and sunny mood to co-exist with the darkness of the past; creating a rather “blue” mood.
The author, Keyes, varied the mood and atmosphere throughout the story, especially during the beginning, never allowing it to get too heavy to solemn. Despite the main character being mentally retarded, or perhaps because of it, the mood is kept rather light and humorous during the beginning, reflecting the childlike innocence and perspective of Charlie. His inability to understand the world around him deeply allows for this certain mood. During the beginning, he rarely analyzes situations to understand everyone’s motives. He keeps to the surface level, just describing the events as is. His emotions are simple. Take this excerpt as an example. “The operashun ddnt hurt. He did it while I was sleeping. They took off the bandijis from my head today so I can make a PROGRESS REPORT too. Dr. Nemur who looked at some of my other ones say I spell PROGRESS wrong and told me how to spell it and REPORT too.” His sentence structure is simple. He rarely describes any significant personal emotions/feelings. It’s almost like a first grader trying to write a journal. Everything is so simple, almost as if it were black and white, with no shades of grey. After the operation, this light mood builds up as little hints are dropped, tensing up to the climax, progressively deepening in seriousness. His intelligence, which provides him with the intellectual capacity to analyze people and situations, and a voice in his progress reports to express his emotions, and more importantly, his need for achievement and acceptance; brings in the darker moments as he begins to understand the world around him in a completely different way. While his ability to express his emotions and feelings betters, his skepticism in others and the society increases, to the point where he even loses his original innocence. During the major conflict that was described below, the mood/atmosphere takes a drastic turn, almost the opposite from the beginning. Charlie’s loss of innocence results in the somber and grim mood. It’s almost as if he lost all his original happiness. In his journals during this period, he almost expresses no emotion, except for grief for Algernon’s death which darkens the mood even more.
So when Charlie’s mental deterioration begins, the mood returns to the original mood, however with a tint of darkness. To put it metaphorically, Charlie’s innocence was like a piece of glass in the beginning. Fragile, but intact. His intellectual experience shatters his innocence. And so, when he returned to his “mentally retarded” state, the glass could piece itself together, but the cracks would still be visible. The stain in Charlie’s innocence and his happiness would be permanent. It’s in the last progress report where one truly sees Charlie’s good nature and motivation to be better. This character’s actions are what truly paint the mood, as mentioned above. His journal stills account for his grief, but his words showcase his good humor and optimism. It’s this mixture that allows for a bright and sunny mood to co-exist with the darkness of the past; creating a rather “blue” mood.
"Even a feeble-minded man wants to be like other men. A child may not know how to feed itself, or what to eat, yet it knows of hunger."
MAJOR CONFLICTS ANALYSIS
One of the conflicts that Charlie, the protagonist experiences is a significant self v.s self conflict (that incorporates Charlie’s external struggle, a self v.s. society conflict) that happens towards the end of the story. This conflict transfers into a self v.s nature conflict when Charlie’s mental deterioration begins. During the “restaurant scene” when a young boy, a worker at the restaurant accidently smashes some china dishes. Witnesses mock and laugh at the boy, just like how Charlie’s co-workers did before to Charlie. The boy, unaware of the joke, only mirrors everyone’s laughter in attempts to conceal his mistake. Charlie catches himself laughing along with everyone, but as he realizes that everyone was only mocking the boy, like how Charlie once was; he loses his temper while experiencing feelings of hypocrisy, shame, and pain.
It’s this scene where Charlie uncovers an internal struggle that he never knew had existed before. As his intelligence grew, he slowly becomes more aware of his surroundings, with new realizations dawning upon him every day; but, it wasn’t until this moment that everything came crashing down. He finally sees that his entire struggle to be literate, to become more intelligent was only a mere sign of how feeble-minded he was. If he wasn’t mentally weak like he was, he would’ve been able to accept who he was and not have struggled so hard to become like everyone else. And this very knowledge pains him so. As directly quoted, Charlie said “only a short time ago, I learned that people laughed at me. Now I can see that unknowingly I joined with them in laughing at myself. That hurts most of all.” He wanted to be smart, but when he become smart, his desires shifted. His hunger to be like others grew. And now, he sees how pathetic that is because the people he wanted to be like were the same people that formed the society that mocked and disowned those who are exactly like who Charlie was. Mentally Disabled. Retarded.
Through this, he realizes how from the very beginning, his reason for wanting to become smart was fuelled by an unknown, internal desire to fit in. After the operation, he slowly came to understand what this desire was, while he came to see what the “others” he wanted to be like were. He struggles deeply from day one to understand the intentions of “others” and how social interactions work. He begins to understand the intricate social rules, those unspoken; but at the same time, he struggles to see the practicality and reasonability behind them. And unknowingly, he begins to follow those rules. It’s the hypocrisy behind this that induces his personal struggle. He doesn’t see why he follows these social rules, the same ones that justify the humiliation of those mentally “retarded” individuals like Charlie. It was originally a self v.s. societal struggle when Charlie needed to understand these how the intricate systems of social interaction worked, of why the world runs itself in the way that it does. Yet, in some ways, before the operation, this was a struggle even unknown to Charlie himself. In his naive regard, these complex systems never had their existence. So, when he came to realize that they existed, he came to realize this unseen self v.s. societal struggle. Having seen that this struggle existed at all resulted in a self v.s. self struggle where he questions his own ethics and moral, asking why he had even attempted to struggle against such a hypocritical society. Charlie says in this scene “I see that even in my dullness I knew that I was inferior, and that other people had something I lacked-something denied me…” He realizes that from the very beginning he knew that he was considered an outcast, yet he still struggled so hard to become an “insider”, someone who fit in. As Charlie puts it “A child may not know how to feed itself, or what to eat, yet it knows of hunger.” He was a child, emotionally and even intellectually prior to the operation. He was like this child, not knowing how to feed himself in such a cruel society, or what would be food; yet he knew of that gnawing hunger, that hunger to fit in, to be like everyone else. Then he goes onto to say “This then is what I was like, I never knew. Even with my gift of intellectual awareness, I never really knew.” Charlie has finally seen the entire picture. Even though it pains him, this allowed him to see beyond the restraints of his personal struggles. He decides to use his “gift of intellectual awareness to work in the field of increasing human intelligence levels”, which ultimately acts as the resolution to this complex conflict. This may not be a direct solution, one that rids of his pain, but he sees that his hunger was to achieve something of no value, so he may as well as use what drove his hunger forward to achieve something for the human race, or more specifically, those who are mentally handicapped like him and could benefit from increased intelligence. “Who is better for this work? Who else has lived in both worlds? These are my people… Let me use my gift to do something for them.” Charlie has found inner peace, taking his driving hunger and putting it to use elsewhere.
It’s this scene where Charlie uncovers an internal struggle that he never knew had existed before. As his intelligence grew, he slowly becomes more aware of his surroundings, with new realizations dawning upon him every day; but, it wasn’t until this moment that everything came crashing down. He finally sees that his entire struggle to be literate, to become more intelligent was only a mere sign of how feeble-minded he was. If he wasn’t mentally weak like he was, he would’ve been able to accept who he was and not have struggled so hard to become like everyone else. And this very knowledge pains him so. As directly quoted, Charlie said “only a short time ago, I learned that people laughed at me. Now I can see that unknowingly I joined with them in laughing at myself. That hurts most of all.” He wanted to be smart, but when he become smart, his desires shifted. His hunger to be like others grew. And now, he sees how pathetic that is because the people he wanted to be like were the same people that formed the society that mocked and disowned those who are exactly like who Charlie was. Mentally Disabled. Retarded.
Through this, he realizes how from the very beginning, his reason for wanting to become smart was fuelled by an unknown, internal desire to fit in. After the operation, he slowly came to understand what this desire was, while he came to see what the “others” he wanted to be like were. He struggles deeply from day one to understand the intentions of “others” and how social interactions work. He begins to understand the intricate social rules, those unspoken; but at the same time, he struggles to see the practicality and reasonability behind them. And unknowingly, he begins to follow those rules. It’s the hypocrisy behind this that induces his personal struggle. He doesn’t see why he follows these social rules, the same ones that justify the humiliation of those mentally “retarded” individuals like Charlie. It was originally a self v.s. societal struggle when Charlie needed to understand these how the intricate systems of social interaction worked, of why the world runs itself in the way that it does. Yet, in some ways, before the operation, this was a struggle even unknown to Charlie himself. In his naive regard, these complex systems never had their existence. So, when he came to realize that they existed, he came to realize this unseen self v.s. societal struggle. Having seen that this struggle existed at all resulted in a self v.s. self struggle where he questions his own ethics and moral, asking why he had even attempted to struggle against such a hypocritical society. Charlie says in this scene “I see that even in my dullness I knew that I was inferior, and that other people had something I lacked-something denied me…” He realizes that from the very beginning he knew that he was considered an outcast, yet he still struggled so hard to become an “insider”, someone who fit in. As Charlie puts it “A child may not know how to feed itself, or what to eat, yet it knows of hunger.” He was a child, emotionally and even intellectually prior to the operation. He was like this child, not knowing how to feed himself in such a cruel society, or what would be food; yet he knew of that gnawing hunger, that hunger to fit in, to be like everyone else. Then he goes onto to say “This then is what I was like, I never knew. Even with my gift of intellectual awareness, I never really knew.” Charlie has finally seen the entire picture. Even though it pains him, this allowed him to see beyond the restraints of his personal struggles. He decides to use his “gift of intellectual awareness to work in the field of increasing human intelligence levels”, which ultimately acts as the resolution to this complex conflict. This may not be a direct solution, one that rids of his pain, but he sees that his hunger was to achieve something of no value, so he may as well as use what drove his hunger forward to achieve something for the human race, or more specifically, those who are mentally handicapped like him and could benefit from increased intelligence. “Who is better for this work? Who else has lived in both worlds? These are my people… Let me use my gift to do something for them.” Charlie has found inner peace, taking his driving hunger and putting it to use elsewhere.