Written in 1966 by Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon is a classic story that has been printed from publication to the modern day. As do many things in culture, the idea for this story was based off of curiosity. When Mr. Keyes was younger, he wondered whether anything could be done to manually increase human intelligence. After meeting a mentally slow man, Mr. Keyes decided to make known to the world the possibility of intelligence increase and do something for those in need of the science. Although the story was written shortly after Mr. Keyes' encounter with the slow man, he says, "But Charlie Gordon is not real, nor is he based on a real person: he is imagined or invented, probably a composite of many people I know -- including a little bit of me." (http://academic.depauw.edu/aevans_web).
The original story of Charlie Gordon and Algernon the Mouse went through several rewrites and the final style decided upon was "Progress Reports." These reports serve as chapters, and they very clearly display the progress of Mr. Gordon through his time during the experiment, moving from a rather slow and uneducated fellow, attending a local school for retarded adults, to a more adult figure, experiencing the pain and hurt he was previously oblivious to.
Charlie Gordon is not technically based completely off of Mr. Keyes, however they both have certain issues with parents. For Charlie Gordon, his mother is violent and abusive in her methods of trying to educate her son. Giving up on him, she has another child, desperate to prove that she can produce non-defective children. For Daniel Keyes, his parents wanted too greatly for him to follow an education in a subject not to his own liking, causing them to separate.the parallels are slight, but present.
The original story of Charlie Gordon and Algernon the Mouse went through several rewrites and the final style decided upon was "Progress Reports." These reports serve as chapters, and they very clearly display the progress of Mr. Gordon through his time during the experiment, moving from a rather slow and uneducated fellow, attending a local school for retarded adults, to a more adult figure, experiencing the pain and hurt he was previously oblivious to.
Charlie Gordon is not technically based completely off of Mr. Keyes, however they both have certain issues with parents. For Charlie Gordon, his mother is violent and abusive in her methods of trying to educate her son. Giving up on him, she has another child, desperate to prove that she can produce non-defective children. For Daniel Keyes, his parents wanted too greatly for him to follow an education in a subject not to his own liking, causing them to separate.the parallels are slight, but present.