Flowers for Algernon

by Daniel Keyes

He makes me feel that before the experiment I was not really a human being.

He treated me—even then—as a human being. It may sound like ingratitude, but that is one of the things that I resent here—the attitude that I am a guinea pig. Nemur’s constant references to having made me what I am, or that someday there will be others like me who will become real human beings. How can I make him understand that he did not create me? He makes the same mistake as the others when they look at a feeble-minded person and laugh because they don’t understand there are human feelings involved. He doesn’t realize that I was a person before I came here.

The constant juxtaposition of “Algernon and Charlie,” and “Charlie and Algernon,” made it clear that they thought of both of us as a couple of experimental animals who had no existence outside the laboratory.

I’m a human being, a person—with parents and memories and a history—and I was before you ever wheeled me into that operating room!

I jumped up and shouted: “Shut up! Leave him alone! He can’t understand. He can’t help what he is . . . but for God’s sake, have some respect! He’s a human being!”

Yes, suddenly we discover that I was always a person—even before—and that challenges your belief that someone with an I.Q. of less than 100 doesn’t deserve consideration.