'Flowers for Algernon' is a significant narrative exploring intelligence and relationships. The central theme revolves around the impact of increased intelligence on a person's life, mainly focusing on how Charlie Gordon’s changing intellect affects his perception of himself and his relationships with others.
The central theme revolves around the impact of increased intelligence on a person's life, mainly focusing on how Charlie's changing intellect affects his perception of himself and his relationships with others that evolve as his intelligence changes.
At the beginning of the book, the author quotes from Plato’s Republic’s Allegory of the Cave, where he asks, “whether that soul of a man has come out of a brighter life, and is then unable to see because he is unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness into the day he is dazzled by an excess of light.” Plato adds that “he will count the one coming into the light happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other.”
Charlie probably wouldn’t like Plato’s conclusion since he sums up what he learned by going into the light and back to the darkness, declaring what he learned was that he didn’t want people’s pity.
