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Charlie Gordon
Charlie Gordon(born February, 7, 1928) is a fictional character and the protagonist of Daniel Keyes's Flowers for Algernon. He is featured in Flowers for Algernon, and the numerous film, Broadway and novel adaptions of this short story. Being the protagonist and author of the progress reports that form the text of Flowers for Algernon, Charlie Gordon is a mentally retarded man of the IQ of 68, who is a menial worker of a factory in New York City, where he lives. He is selected to undergo an experimental surgical technique to increase his intelligence due to the factor of his motivation in Ms. Kinnian's literary class for retarded adults. His obsession with untangling his own emotional/social life and past, and his longing to reach an intellectual maturity and inner peace inform many of the story’s primary concerns and an outlet for the themes and messages of the author.

Flowers for Algernon
In the beginning of the short story, Charlie is selected to participate in an experiment conducted by Dr. Nemur and Dr. Strauss. As part of the experiment's goal is to increase the mental abilities (IQ) of the test subject by surgical means,which is also Charlie's dream. The experiment was also successfully conducted on Algernon,a laboratory mouse who is a symbolic figure of hope in the short story. After operating on him, Charlie tries practically everything he can to reach his life goal, which includes maze-racing with Algernon. Charlie later falls in love with Ms. Kinnian who is his former teacher, but as his intelligence surpasses her, he is unable to relate to her. This sudden intellectual growth also frightens his co-workers who starts a petition to fire him, in which he discovers and he quits. As Charlie's intelligence peaks, Algernon's intelligence declines which leads to Charlie discovering that the intelligence level is only temporary and goes as slowly as it comes.(Algernon-Gordon Effect) After he has made this discovery and conducted this experiment, his intelligence also degenerate to which he is equally as unintelligent as he was before the operation. He is aware and pained with the fact that his memories of reading, writing and all his activities during the times when he was a genius was gone. He returns to his old job as a janitor though he (as an inference of the readers) can't stand the amount of pity by Ms. Kinnian, his co-workers and the landlady, Mrs.Flynn. He plans to "go away" from New York, the setting of the entire story. His last words of the progress words is to put some flowers on Algernon's grave in the backyard.

Physical Appearance
A detailed description of the physical features of Charlie Gordon is never given during the whole story, and therefore allowing readers to easily step into his shoes. However in the beginning of the story and of the process of his first Rorschach test, he explicitly states that he has glasses but only for T.V and movie purposes. Presumably he would have a scar across his forehead from the brain surgery and having been stated that the bandages were over his eyes, the brain surgery was not performed on the back of his head. From having the setting given and the description of his love interest, Ms. Kinnian of brown hair and brown eyes, he probably looks somewhat like her to relate.

Personality
Charlie is described to be very ambitious by agreeing to terms of becoming smarter which would be very hard in his state of intellect. He is gullible because he depends on the peers around him to make daily choices and trusts them completely. In the rising action, he becomes depressed because he sees replica-like personnel of himself, and realizes that his “friends” only were there for him, so that they can take advantage of his unawareness and tease him. During the climax and end of the rising action, he becomes more aware of the things around him and more mature to fit his intellectual authority. In addition he is superstitious because of his belief of a horseshoe, a lucky penny and a rabbit’s foot that would increase his luck of becoming smart.