Flowers For Algernon Theme Analysis

A theme that is present in Flowers For Algernon is friendship. Throughout the novel, the theme of friendship is presented in multiple ways, but one example is the judgment of friendship. Before his operation, Charlie states, “If your smart you can have lots of frends to talk to and you never get loneley by yourself all the time.” (Keyes 14) which Charlie believed at the time. An example of judgment is his friends from Donners bakery (Gimpy, Joe, and Frank). Before Charlie took the surgery, he couldn’t wait to see his best friends Gimpy, Joe and Frank at the bakery. Charlie loves their company and always looks forward to them every day he goes to the bakery as he states, "Im glad Im going back to werk because I miss my job at the bakery and
As he starts to realize that his friends are not really who he thinks they are, his friendship ends with them. This is because he got fired. Gimpy, Frank, and Joe agreed on a statement about Charlie, “I’ll tell you what you did Mister Gordon. You come pushing in here with your ideas and suggestions and make the rest of us look like a bunch of dopes.” (Keyes 106) Yet when Charlie returns to low intelligence and gets his job back at Donners Bakery, Gimpy, Joe, and Frank stick up for Charlie when the new worker (Meyer Klaus) bullies Charlie. Gimpy then comes over to Charlie limping and says, “Charlie if anyone bothers you or trys to take advantage you call me or Joe or Frank and we will set him strait.” (Keyes 309) His friends that got him fired welcome him back caringly and Gimpy also tells Charlie, “We all want you to remember that you got frends here and dont you ever forget it.” (Keyes 309) In conclusion, one of the key themes in Flowers For Algernon is friendship and its judgment. This is described through Charlie’s relationship with Gimpy, Joe, and Frank from Donners bakery from before when he mentally challenged to after he got the operation to become