Flowers for Algernon: Why scientists should not meddle with human brains

I wrote this in 8th grade when we had been reading Daniel Keyes´s novel Flowers for Algernon about this topic: should scientists meddle with the human brain, of which which we still know so little.

If you could change your brains, would you? Should scientists meddle with human brainpower? My opinion is no, scientists should not fool around with human brainpower when there are more qualms than answers and clearly, religion and ethics seem to speak out against scientists "playing God". As Lord Byron, the grand Romantic poet once commented "Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life" and indeed knowledge can hurt and ignorance is often bliss. Robert Anton Wilson, a celebrated American author and playwright, concluded that "Belief is the death of intelligence" which underscores the idea that sometimes faith and religion is not scientific. The world nowadays is not dominated by religion as it once was and knowledge has come to spiritual people even though religion´s greatest builder is faith. Think, whatever religion you follow, you have to worship an all-powerful god, or other deities, and with these beliefs come an acceptance of a number of impossibilities. An operation in itself is a pretty big deal and risks are always present, and even total failure remains a fresh possibility. Most people might regard intellect as man´s greates feat, yet intellect should not be altered by doctors. A Swiss philosopher, Henri Frederic Amiel cleverly asserts that "Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart". Intelligence without the ability to love can prove disastrous. In Daniel Keyes´s  Freudian novel, Flowers for Algernon, Charlie Gordon is a mentally challenged but motivated man, who undergoes a controversial, IQ-raising surgery, which emotionally traumatizes him and, Keyes proves to readers that doctors or scientists definitely not perform controversial surgeries on the brain.

Ironically, in Flowers for Algernon, dull, retarded Charlie was friendly and sociable, then, after the operation, he turned into an anti-social genius who feels increasingly isolated as he finds himself rocketing above other people´s heads;  this plot-turn openly highlights the message Keyes conveys that this type of surgery is dangerous . In the novel, even narcissistic Nemur notes that Charlie has gone to such an extreme that he has let his faith in mankind stray, "Your[Charlie´s] genius has destroyed your faith in the world and in your fellow men (249)". Alice Kinnian, who had requested Charlie as the subject of the experiment argues with Charlie that IQ is not all there is and even Strauss remarks sometime during Charlie´s intellect downfall that both he and Nemur had never expected a personality change in Charlie, thus signifying that there had not been much solid research done before the use of a human subject [Charlie] in such a dangerous experiment. The message conveyed by Daniel Keyes to the reader is as clear as a glass of water: Charlie Gordon underwent radical flaws in his persona and it scarred him for life.

People are always, one way or another, horrorstruck by differences. This is mainly what pushes scientists to try to fix abnormal problems like retardation and even more petty  problems like a too stubby nose or a flat chest. In Flowers for Algernon, our protagonist, Charlie Gordon is retarded and is therefore bullied by his peers daily because of his handicap. Charlie´s retardation is an ill-omened disadvantage in the constant thrill of life. Unfortunately for Charlie and others, we Homo sapiens have developed a mind picture of what we consider as normal. Ask yourself, what would you do if a Martian unexpectedly walked into your living room? Most people would totally freak out. Take for instance when Orson Welles duped the whole nation of the United States of America into thinking Martians were attacking Earth, and they were all probably considering calling in the army! Whole catastrophes have happened over differences. In Germany, just before World War II, the Germans were looking for an able leader to lead them away form the economic chaos post World War I caused and into prosperity. However, such an illusion did not exactly happen. Adolf Hitler was the man for the job but in order to gain a better reputation with the German people, he and his propaganda master,Joseph Goebbels, set to work on giving the Germans an effective scapegoat: the Jews. Considering he was a charismatic, able leader who swore to rid the Germans of any misfortune, why not believe him? Most Germans were either Christian of Catholics and the idea of the Jews bringing bad fortune into the country and the world seemed possible, also bearing in mind that Hitler himself was extremely passionate about this new idea. A mass genocide of Jews and others was the grim result. It is hard to believe that in a world as diverse as ours we still have not gotten used to our bizarre planet! Diogenes, a Greek philosopher once proclaimed that " Man is the most intelligent of animals- and the most silly". Think about this, we go into as state of frenzy if for some remote reason we suspect we see an UFO, our movie stars and even literary heroes are mirrors of our own stuck-up version of what is safe, and worst of all, we cannot even bear a cross. Even today, some parents still abandon their handicapped children in the street to fend for themselves instead of taking the trouble to make a respectable person out of them! If my parents had thought me a freak when they were informed I had Asperger´s Syndrome, I would not be the person writing this essay.

Author's Note

Note that this was an essay and I was required to cite.