A vital aspect that is significant in the short story and movie Flowers for Algernon is Charlie’s mental illness. It’s noted that Charlie is at his original state in the start of the book and movie, and later reverts in the end. Charlie’s Aspergers is his incentive to undergo his operation. His mother always wanted Charlie to be “normal,” even going to extremes to do so. Thus Charlie made it his goal to become smart. When he had the chance to take the surgery he agreed without hesitation. Similar to the movie the book also had side effects after the surgery, this included Charlie’s gradual return to his low intelligence and possibly even lower. Its important that this detail is left untouched, because if not the thorough meaning to the whole film would be lost. Daniel Keyes the author of the book wrote it off of events that happened to him in his own life, his inspiration for Charlie came from one boy in his English class for lower I.Q. Students. “If I try hard and I get smart by the end of the term, will you put me in a regular class? I want to be smart.” To Daniel, Charlie is someone he knew, not entirely fictionally made up. This made the whole premise of the book based on David’s perception on a cure for the disadvantaged. This is a key principle to the story, and it is important to be not be tampered with. Charlie’s illness sets up the entire plot, and without it the film and book are nothing more than a ships sail pointing the wrong way.

Despite this important similarity, the film is a newer, more refined version and some things are changed and made different. Charlie had reoccurring flashbacks about Harriet, a girl who didn’t mock him or bully him for entertainment, but laughed with him. And Charlie decided that she meant a lot to him. Soon after he asked his cousin to write a note for her, he placed the note and a locket at her doorstep waited for the next day. Things went awry and Charlie hadn’t felt that way since. Charlie soon lost the ability to love someone as a partner and could only muster basic emotions. After his operation and going on some dates with Ms. Kinnian, he began to understand how much he truly appreciated her. Then the sequence in which he falls in love with Ms. Kinnian commences. What differs from the shirt story and film is that it is not clear if Ms. Kinnian loved him back, whereas in the film they were together. Charlie returned to his old self different in the sense that he didn’t feel at peace with himself in the book.

These two paragraphs were taken from my compare and contrast essay between the film and short story for Flowers for Algernon, I wrote this on October 2nd, I did this because it was an assignment. I hoped to have a piece of work done to the best of my ability.

I was proud of the vocabulary I used in my essay.

Somethings had made more sense in my head than what I had written out, making the grammar and flow a challenge to write out.

I wish I could fix my formatting, because my title page was not done correctly.