Flowers For Algernon

Algernon is a mouse first experimented on and given intelligence. He gives Flowers for Algernon its title and is of central importance to the text, despite being of minor focus. Charlie and Algernon share something with each other that makes them unlike anyone else; they alone experience the procedure, its initial gains, and its ultimate failure. There is a bond between the two, and Algernon foreshadows Charlie’s fate.

Charlie draws connections between himself and Algernon. His initial relationship to the mouse is one of competition. Charlie struggles to complete mazes and puzzles while Algernon does so with ease. Later, after Charlie begins to develop intellectually, he identifies with the mouse. After his firing from the bakery, Charlie tells Alice: “I’m like an animal who’s been locked out of his nice, safe cage” (11). He begins to recognize that Algernon’s less-than-perfect post-procedure life symbolizes his own emotional and personal struggles that emerge in spite of his intellectual gains. United, the two develop an implicit friendship. Algernon’s connection to Charlie is unconditional, and Charlie responds in kind, as when he escapes from the conference in Chicago with Algernon and builds Algernon a maze in his apartment.

The bond between the two continues even as Charlie sees Algernon decline.