Comparative Essay - Flowers For Algernon & Awakenings‏

Comparative Essay - Flowers For Algernon & Awakenings‏

For a moment in time

Flowers for Algernon and Awakenings are both good examples of people wanting to live life to the fullest with an amazing opportunity given to them. But when comparing the two it is evident that their childhood, intervention, medical care, peak state are different.

In the novel Flowers for Algernon written by Daniel Keyes, Charlie Gordon had a rough childhood. As a child Charlie, had a father Matt, who loved him and tried to take care of him, although he was abused by his mother who had problems dealing with her emotions. His mother Rose, at first refused to admit that there was anything “wrong” with Charlie and beat him when he did not act like other children. When Charlie’s sister was born with normal intelligence, his mother finally admitted his handicap but, always fear that Charlie would harm his little sister Norma. Charlie’s lack of intelligence has made him very kind towards everyone and lived very independently. The people he was surrounded also thought the same thing especially his co-workers at Donner’s Bakery. But he realizes that people have often taken advantage of him but he was unable to fully understand what was going on. As time went on, he pursues a course of self-education at Beekman School for retarded adults since he had an IQ of 63. “ All my life I wantid to be smart and not dumb and my mom always tolld me to try and lern just like Miss Kinnian tells me and it’s very hard to be smart and even when I lern something in Miss Kinnians class at the school I ferget a lot.” (Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon) To reach his goal, the new outcome of Charlie must out weight with the damage the old Charlie has experienced. As for Awakenings written by Oliver Sacks Leonard Lowe, was a regular boy with really close friends and very good academically. In one of teachers grade book he always got A’s and B’s and had a bright future ahead of him. In his childhood development precedes early encephalitis symptoms which includes...