i found the themes!

"But with the freedom came a sadness. I wanted to be in love with her. I wanted to overcome my emotional and sexual fears, to marry, have children, settle down.

Now it's impossible. I am just as far away from Alice with an I.Q. of 185 as I was when I had an I.Q. of 70. And this time we both knew it." -p. 126

"'If you'd read your Bible, Charlie, you'd know that it's not meant for man to know more than was given to him to know by the Lord in the first place. The fruit of that tree was forbidden to man. Charlie, if you done anything you wasn't supposed to--you know, like with the devil or something--maybe it ain't too late to get out of it. Maybe you could go back to being the good simple man you were before.'" -p. 107

the big main theme that the author tried to convey in this story was that with ignorance comes bliss, and with freedom also comes sadness. throughout this whole story you can see the happiness in charlie fade away in direct proportion to his IQ buildup. the other theme that i found was that humans are in a constant fight with their own intentions versus god's intentions. in most, if not all, cases, the fight is because god wishes for us to be imperfect, while we expect ourselves to be perfect. in the scientific present-day world, we're getting very close to achieving sort of the universal idea of perfection. the only problem is that with that perfection always comes some sort of counterbalance, which brings us back to the theme of freedom and sadness, and how freedom can never be entirely free.

past vs. present

"...As soon as exceptional begins to mean anything to anyone they'll change it. The idea seems to be: use an expression only as long as it doesn't mean anything to anybody. Exceptional refers to both ends of the spectrum, so all my life I've been exceptional.

Strange about learning; the farther I go the more I see that I never knew even existed. A short while ago I foolishly thought I could learn everything--all the knowledge in the world. Now I hope only to be able to know of its existence, and to understand one grain of it.

Is there time?

Burt is annoyed with me. He finds me impatient and the others must feel the same. But they hold me back and try to keep me in my place. What is my place? Who and what am I now? Am I the sum of my life or only of the past few months?"

this passage felt important to me because it was the big point where charlie starts trying to figure out who he really is. by this point he's gotten to a scary genius level and it's beginning to slowly deteriorate again. with this he's more frustrated than ever with trying to learn everything, and the realization of his whole self-picture is sort of a turning point in the story.

the questions he's asking are good ones. i think he really is just the sum of the past few months, where he's started getting smarter. this can be supported because he starts talking about a charlie outside of himself. the charlie that's watching everything he does, scared and waiting. this other charlie is his past; his dim-witted, oblivious alter ego, and the closer and closer charlie grew to be a super-genius, the more and more set apart the other charlie became.

what is love

"I caught her hand and held it. 'No, it's you. You touch my eyes and make me see.'

She blushed and pulled her hand back.

'The last time we were here,' I said, 'I told you I liked you. I should have trusted myself to say I love you.'

'Don't Charlie. Not yet.'

'Not yet?' I shouted. "That's what you said last time. Why not yet?'

'Shhhh...Wait a while, Charlie. Finish your studies. See where they lead you. You're changing too fast.'

'What does that have to do with it? My feeling for you won't change because I'm becoming intelligent. I'll only love you more.'

'But you're changing emotionally too. In a peculiar sense I'm the first woman you've ever been really aware of--in this way. Up to now I've been your teacher--someone you turn to for help and advice. You're bound to think you're in love with me. See other women. Give yourself more time.'"

it shouldn't be that hard to get that charlie's fallen for miss kinnian, and it's to the point where he can't go a moment without thinking about her. i can't really say for sure whether or not he's actually in love because i've never really experienced that myself, but there's definitely an indecision between a first crush and true love.

in my opinion, love doesn't have its rules. you don't have to live close together or have been together for a year. basically it doesn't matter what situation you're in; you can be in love anywhere and at any time. love isn't just black and white, and you can't truly define what defines it. it's just a feeling that you have to figure out for yourself. who knows, maybe charlie really could be in love.

on the other hand, though, alice is the first woman that charlie's really ever been able to get close to. he couldn't even get close to his mother or sister. alice was the first person that accepted him for everything he was and supported him with his decisions. as charlie started to get smarter, he began to notice their bond more and more and could have read it as something bigger than he thought.

the underlying question here is: does intellectual maturation come with an emotional maturation, or do emotions have to mature naturally over time?

in my opinion, emotions just have to mature naturally. charlie hasn't been able to experience much of the world yet, so he just relates only to what he sees so far instead. he could percieve a normal human intimacy as a greater feeling than it actually is. but then again, who knows; love is one thing you just have to define yourself.

flowers for algernon

charlie, the main character in the story, is a man with a psychological disorder. he is undergoing experiments that will hopefully modify his inabilities for the better, and the doctors working with him have him write a progress report every day, just to explain what's going on.

"March 21-- We had a lot of fun at the bakery today. Joe Carp said hey look where Charlie got his operashun what did they do Charlie put some brains in. I was going to tell him about me getting smart but I remembered Prof Nemur said no. Then Frank Reilly said what did you do Charlie open a door the hard way. That made me laff. Their my friends and they really like me." 

i read this passage and the first thing that came to mind was the 'ignorance is bliss' vs. 'knowledge is power' debate. charlie's complete unawareness of his co-workers making fun of him makes the reader feel pretty bad for him. it's gotta be embarrassing to be picked on and not even know it until probably later. but at the same time you've got to almost envy him, because he does prove the idea that ignorance is bliss. he lives a satisfactory lifestyle and is always diligently working to make himself smarter so that he can impress himself and everyone around him. he has no idea how hard it has to be for him, and he can totally live with that.

it's almost a curse in human nature that we are so aware of others around us and what others must think of us, and it's become a really important thing for us. i think it definitely hinders a lot of our potential as people.

so far, my questions are:

1) what kind of disorder is it that charlie has?

2) is it better to lack spatial awareness than to know what everyone thinks of you? (parallel to the debate over whether or not oedipus should know the truth about his wife/mother)