64 pages • 2 hours read
Daniel KeyesFlowers For Algernon
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1966A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
progris riport 1-Progress Report 10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
progris riports 1-6 Summary
Charlie Gordon is a 32-year-old man with an intellectual disability. He works as a janitor in a bakery run by his uncle’s friend, Mr. Donner. He also attends classes three times a week at the Beekman College Center for adults with intellectual disabilities (the full name of the establishment refers to “Retarded Adults”), where he studies writing, reading, and other skills with his teacher, Miss (Alice) Kinnian. He lives alone and has not had contact with his mother, father, or sister in many years.
He has been selected for an experimental procedure that will attempt to eliminate his intellectual disability. Early experimentation on a mouse, Algernon, appears to have been successful. Charlie’s determination to raise his intelligence convinces the research team to choose him for their first experiment on a human being. They are honest and tell Charlie that they are not sure if the experiment will work or permanently improve his intelligence. They ask him to write down journal-like progress reports (which he spells “progris riport”) to track his thoughts, feelings, and memories. The research team, composed of Dr. Strauss, Professor Nemur, and a graduate student named Burt, run preliminary tests to gauge Charlie’s intelligence. Charlie is confused by the Rorschach test and the Thematic Apperception Test, which ask him to imagine and think abstractly. He is given the chance to race Algernon in a maze, but the mouse beats him over and over again.
The research team tracks down Charlie’s sister, Norma, who gives them permission to perform the experiment, but he is not given the chance to see her. Strauss and Nemur argue about whether or not to go through with the surgery, but ultimately conclude Charlie’s motivation makes him a good candidate. Nemur tells him to tell his coworkers at the bakery that he’s ill. Alice is aware of the experiment, however, because she will continue to teach him afterward.
Progress Reports 7-8 Summary
Charlie is anxious about the experiment, but the surgery concludes without problems. However, he is disappointed because he believed the operation would instantly make him more intelligent. Instead he is given more tests, asked to run races with Algernon, and continues to study with Alice. She encourages him, saying that change will come slowly. He longs to return to his work in the bakery. Burt helps make Charlie feel comfortable while he is staying at the lab and explains that Professor Nemur is under a great deal of pressure to make the experiment successful.
Charlie is allowed to return to work at the bakery, but most come back to the lab every night for further tests. The Wellberg Foundation pays for his continued participation in the experiment. Back at the bakery, Charlie’s coworkers Joe Carp and Frank Reilly poke fun at him without him realizing it. Mr. Donner tells Charlie that he will always have a job at the bakery, even though he has been replaced by another worker while he was away for the operation.
Charlie neglects to return to the lab. Strauss and Nemur visit him to ask why, and Charlie explains he does not want to run races with Algernon. They bring him a television-like machine and ask him to leave it on at night, explaining that it will play sounds and pictures that will work to improve his intelligence even if he is asleep. He is annoyed by it at first, but later it begins to help him recall his past, something he did not do much of before the operation. He remembers a bakery coworker, Fanny Birden, suggesting that he go to the center at Beekman College to work with Alice.
Nemur begins holding therapy sessions with Charlie, who continues to be frustrated that he does not feel intelligent. Joe and Frank take Charlie to a party, where they get him drunk, make fun of him, and abandon him. A policeman helps him return home. Shortly afterwards, Charlie beats Algernon in the maze for the first time. He also continues to recall bits of his childhood memories, and there are signs that his reading and spelling skills are improving.
Progress Report 9 Summary
Charlie amazes his coworkers at the bakery by proving he can successfully work the complicated dough-mixing machine, better than anyone else at the bakery. He is given a raise and a new job running the machine, but some of his coworkers are resentful. He begins to read books on his own, learns grammar and punctuation, and recalls even more about his past, such as the birth of his sister Norma.
However, he is upset after Joe and Frank take him to another party. They play tricks on him, like convincing him to eat wax fruit, and they pester a woman into dancing with him. Charlie is confused and embarrassed by the physical reaction he has to the woman rubbing up against him, and the dream he has about this later. He misses work as a result and has even more detailed recollections, such as a memory of being abused at the bakery, and a childhood memory of trying to write a Valentine to a crush; the student he asked to write the note for him wrote a dirty note without Charlie realizing it. Strauss explains that Charlie’s intellectual growth will outpace his emotional development. Charlie continues to read voraciously, and also begins to realize when people are making fun of him.
Progress Report 10 Summary
Charlie improves the dough-mixing procedure at work, earning further resentment from his coworkers. They seem to realize that he is changing. Charlie recalls Frank and another coworker, Gimpy, trying to teach him to make rolls by offering him a cheap trinket as a reward for doing it right. Charlie was able to follow directions when Gimpy shows him what to do, step by step, but was unable to make rolls on his own. Gimpy later gives him the trinket anyway, which Charlie realizes was a kind action.
Charlie is permitted to temporarily keep some of his progress reports private before turning them over, so that he will feel freer to write openly. Strauss and Nemur argue about Charlie’s progress and who can take credit for it. Charlie begins to take interest in the ideas and topics he overhears on the Beekman campus, and makes friends with some of the college students. He also spends free time at the library, reading as much as he can.
He begins to recall childhood memories of his parents. They argued frequently: His mother, Rose attempted to deny Charlie’s intellectual disability and his father, Matt, tried to be more realistic and accepting. As a child, Charlie would become fearful and upset by these arguments, which would cause him to lose control of his bodily functions, which then led his mother to spank him.
progris riport 1-Progress Report 10 Analysis
Flowers for Algernon’s form is vital to its message. Each section of the novel is one of the reports Charlie has written for the lab team. Over the course of the novel, the reports change in accordance with his intellectual development. In the beginning, the reports are short, filled with misspellings and grammatical errors; Charlie titles them “progris riport” instead of “progress report.” The messages are simplistic and naïve and correspond with Charlie’s intellectual state at the start of the novel. As Flowers for Algernon continues, the reports become much more intellectually complex.
The reports not only describe the key scenes of the novel but shed light on Charlie’s state of mind, how he sees the world, and how others see him. In the early reports, it is clear that Charlie is naïve, even if he himself is not aware of it. For instance, Charlie is confused when presented with the inkblots that make up the Rorschach test. Instead of understanding that he is supposed to describe what he sees in the inkblots, he only sees them in literal terms, such as spilled ink. He associates the word “test” only with schoolwork and notes: “[W]hen I was a kid I always faled tests in school and I spilld ink to” (2). On the other hand, it is clear that Charlie is capable of drawing insights. When Charlie first meets the lab team, he notes that one doctor “kept telling me to rilax and that gets me skared because it always means its gonna hert,” because he is able to associate it with previous doctor visits (2).
These episodes give a sense of Charlie’s character and how he is motivated to please people and also to improve himself. They also present a picture of the places that make up Charlie’s world, through his eyes: Mr. Donner’s bakery, the Beekman College Center, and the research lab. Furthermore, the first few progress reports also introduce the people Charlie is close to, and shows how he relates to them: Alice Kinnian, Straus, Nemur, the bakery crew (Mr. Donner, Gimpy, Frank, and Joe Carp). Charlie’s parents and sister Norma are referenced but not by name, emphasizing that Charlie’s world is limited and that he is cut off from his past.
Charlie initially sees this limited world as supportive, believing his bakery coworkers to be his friends. There are signs that some, such as Mr. Donner and Fanny Birden, have Charlie’s best interests at heart. However, one can also see that Charlie is made fun of and mistreated, such as when his coworkers get him drunk at a party and abandon him. Charlie fails to see this as mistreatment, believing in the goodness of his supposed friends. For readers, seeing this mistreatment can be painful, but by Progress Report 9, Charlie begins to develop greater self-awareness and realizes how he had been abused.
Because he is naïve in the beginning of the novel, Charlie does not question the ethics of the experiment to increase his intelligence. Rather, readers have to ask themselves how they feel about whether or not Charlie should have gone through with the operation. The nurse who cares for him after his surgery is the first person (and one of the few in the entire novel) to question whether or not the operation was a good idea, telling him she does not think God intended one’s intelligence to be meddled with.
Keyes shows the dark side of the experiment: Charlie’s coworkers resent him, and Charlie feels confused and disturbed about his sexuality. It’s clear that Charlie’s development may not be as smooth as hoped, raising the question of whether the operation was in his best interests. Keyes shows the experiment in its complexity, the good and bad, allowing the reader to draw their own conclusion. Charlie’s attempts to grapple with the ups and downs of his intellectual, emotional, and sexual development become a key aspect of the progress reports that follow.
