What Are the Three Subplots in the Story "Flowers for Algernon"?
- Charlie's social position within the workplace, at Donnegan's Plastic Box Company, is followed in a subplot of Keyes' story. Initially, Charlie is ridiculed by his peers as being unintelligent and gullible. He fails to realize that he routinely serves as the butt of their jokes. Instead, he considers coworkers such as Joe Carp and Frank Reilly to be his friends. Only as his intelligence quotient increases is he able to perceive these men from a critical perspective. As Charlie begins to demonstrate improved mental faculties, his colleagues grow apprehensive of his presence. A majority of his co-workers signs a petition to have him removed. Ironically, Charlie discovers that a person's intelligence or lack thereof does not determine the quality of his character. He laments that prior to his operation, he had been laughed at and despised by his peers "for my ignorance and dullness; now, they hate me for my knowledge and understanding." Eric S. Rabkin, editor of Science Fiction: A Historical Anthology, maintains that Keyes's short story sets forth the argument that "the essence of humanness is not intelligence at all but some aspect of personality, some child-like and innocent generosity and selflessness."
- At the outset of Keyes' story, Charlie is deferential toward the two scientists who are considering using him as a participant in their groundbreaking experiment. The two men--Dr. Nemur and Dr. Strauss--make him feel uneasy, since they engage in repeated disagreements over the purpose and value of their experiment. However, as Charlie develops his mental faculties, he understands that the two men are themselves victims of insecurity. Eventually, he is cautioned by Strauss that he is giving Nemur an inferiority complex, and he broods within his reflective writing: "how was I to know that a highly respected psychoexperimentalist like Nemur was unacquainted with Hindustani and Chinese?" At the peak of his intelligence, Charlie observes the flaws in the experiments undertaken by these two doctors, and he laments that his own contribution to the field of psychoexperimental science "must rest upon the ashes of the work of two men I regard so highly."
- In Keyes' story, Charlie is not the first subject to receive an artificially enhanced intelligence. Even as the story begins, we learn that a parallel experiment is already being conducted with the aim to improve brain power of a white laboratory mouse named Algernon. Both operations appear to produce successful results. However, a troubling decline in Algernon's capabilities foreshadows Charlie's own downward spiral. In attempting to pinpoint patterns in what he refers to as the "Algernon-Gordon Effect," Charlie theorizes that "artificially increased intelligence deteriorates at a rate of time directly proportional to the quantity of the increase." In the sense that they both serve as participants in experimental research, Charlie considers Algernon to be an extension of his own self.
- All of the action that occurs in "Flowers from Algernon" is poured forth in "progress reports" that Charlie is advised to keep for the sake of the experiment of which he is a part. Accordingly, each of the three subplots mentioned above is processed through Charlie's own reflections. This is significant. Charlie uncovers hidden levels of meaning contained in his own earlier reflections as he arrives at the later stages of the experiment, commenting, "I have often reread my progress reports and seen the illiteracy, the childish naivete, the mind of low intelligence peering from a dark room, through the keyhole, at the dazzling light outside." Ultimately, through the course of documenting his thoughts and feelings, Charlie develops distrust for others. "Aware of what is happening to him," observes Robert Small, Jr. in "Censored Books: Critical Viewpoints," "Charlie fights the negative change in his personality, but fails to overcome his contempt for the ordinary individuals around him."