Flowers for Algernon Monologue

Charlie Gordon was a very kind and caring man. He was an example of how all humans should live their lives. And no not as a retard. As a happy and motivated being. Charlie started out his life having a very low IQ. He always seemed to see himself as a child because he hadn’t matured mentally like someone with no disability. Because of his low IQ, he was always looked down upon by the people he considered his friends. Of course Charlie wouldn’t have known. He saw all of his friends as people that he could never be as good as. But frankly it was the other way around. When Charlie had the opportunity to get picked to be a test subject for the intellegence altering operation he was all over it. He felt like this was his chance to be like everyone else. Charlie was picked and he got the operation and it practically turned him from a retarded human to a near genius. But this brought Charlie a new understanding of himself and the people around him. 

The first thing Charlie started to understand after his operation was that the people he called friends and that he could never be as good as, were just dumb little jerks. He understood that they were making fun of him. He realized that he didn’t want to be like them at all. They weren’t his friends. They were his audience. They were using him as entertainment for themselves. Charlie’s only real friends were Algernon and Miss Kinnian. When Charlie thought about it, he understood that he was being overlooked by the people that don’t have a disability, but that did not change the way he lived his life. He still did everything he wanted, not what they wanted him to do. Charlie’s understanding of how people were treating him had changed. When Charlie had a low IQ, he viewed his actual friends differently than after the operation. Before the operation he viewed Miss Kinnian as a friend and he used her as motivation. 

Over time, Charlie started maturing mentally into an adult like human. But with this brought new emotions that Charlie had never felt before. Charlie fell in love with Alice Kinnian. At first Charlie was overwhelmed by his feelings, but then it started to ease out after he took her out on a few dates. Charlie was starting to understand the complexity of relationships. He knew that for it to work, he had to be himself, because that is what Alice loved about him. With his new IQ and knowledge, he was able to understand what he was feeling and why he was feeling it. Charlie was a good man. He understood better than anyone else how to deal with his surroundings. Whether it was his feelings or how other people were treating him. He understood his place in the world, being a retard or a genius. He used the struggles of gaining new emotions and a low IQ to understand himself as a person, as well as the world and the people around him. This is what made Charlie an amazing human being. He will be missed.

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