Charlie Gordon

By ashleyt3

  • Progess Report 1

    Charlie Gordon, an uneducated, 37 year old man, begins a journal after a request: "Dr. Strauss says I shud rite down what I think and evrey thing that happins to me from now on."

  • Progress Report 4

    After taking many tests and meeting Algernon the mouse, Charlie is extremely excited when he finds out that Dr. Nemur and Dr. Strauss are going to use him for the operation. He finds out later though that the two doctors had argued about whether or not to use him: "Dr. Strauss said I had something that was very good. He said I had a good motor-vation. . . I felt proud when he said that not every body with and eye-q of 68 had that thing."

  • Progress Report 7

    After having the operation, Charlie is discouraged by the results as he says, "Nothing is happining. I had lots of test and different kinds of races with Algernon. I hate that mouse, He always beats me."

  • Progress Report 9

    After receiving the television from Dr. Strauss, Charlie is frustrated about not being able to sleep with it on all night. But after learning how to turn it on low, he says he "doesn't hear a thing." But he still doesn't understand the concept of the television: "I told Dr. Strauss what good is it to get smart in my sleep. I want to be smart when Im awake. He says its the same thing and I have two minds." Because of this, Charlie says that ever since he got the TV, he's been having crazy dreams.

  • April 6, 1965

    "I beat Algernon!" says Charlie, "I dint even know I beat him until Burt the tester told me. . . I got so excited I fell off the chair before I finished." Charlie is getting smarter and smarter every day. He beats Algernon eight more times, and even after this, he says ,"I dont feel smarter."

  • April 20, 1965

    Charlie finds out for the first time what it means "to pull a Charlie Gordon." Joe Carp and Frank Reilly invite him to a party where, they claimed to give him a coke, but after while, Charlie realizes they lied. He kept falling while he was dancing, and he was always tripping over his own feet: "Everyone was looking at me and laughing. . . I wanted to hide myself. . . It's a funny thing I never knew that Joe and Frank and the others liked to have me around all the time to make fun of me."

  • April 28, 1965

    Charlie gets up the nerve to ask Miss Kinnian to have dinner with him. While eating, the only topic Miss Kinnian can seem to talk about is how Charlie has been progressing so much: "It's true Charlie. You're already a better reader than I am. You can read a whole page at a glance while I can take in only a few lines at a time. And you remeber every single thing you read."

  • Progress Report 12

    Charlie quits his job with Donnegan's Plastic Box Company after Mr. Donnegan insisted that it would be better for everyone if he left. Charlie first finds out about this when Mr. Donnegan shows him a petition with "eight hundred and forty names" and all but one "demanded that [he] be fired."

  • May 18, 1965

    Charlie is at the peak of his intelligence. He sees Miss. Kinnian for the first time in over a week and says, "I tried to avoid all discussions of intellectual concepts and to keep the conversation on a simple, everyday level. . . but she asked me what I meant about the mathematical variance equivalent in Dorbermann's Fifth Concerto."

  • May 20, 1965

    While at a corner diner, Charlie comes to reality while he watches as the new dishwasher drops a tray of dishes: "I felt sick inside as I looked at his dull, vacuous smile, the wid bright eyes of a child, uncertain but eager to please. They were laughing at him because he was mentally retarded. And I had been laughing at him too."

  • Progress Report 13

    Algernon bites Charlie for the first time and starts to act strangely. Charlie describes what happened by saying, "I visited the lab to see him as I do occasionally, and when I took him out of his cage, he snapped at my hand. . . He was unusually disturbed and vicious."

  • June 5, 1965

    After organizing the Algernon-Gordon Effect, a study of the structure and function of increased intelligence, Charlie figures out that since Algernon has regressed mentally and is showing signs of progressice amnesia, the same thing will happen to himself: "I have already begun to notice signs of emotional instability and forgetfulness, the first symptoms of the burnout."

  • June 10, 1965

    Charlie continues to decrease in mental stability and has become absent-minded. After Algernon dies, his dissections shows that his predictions were right. He notices "his brain had decreased in weight" and that there was "a deepening and broadening of brain fissures." He then realizes that the same thing is or will be happening to him soon.

  • July 27, 1965

    After not paying the rent for over two months, Charlie goes back to Donnegan's Plastic Box company. He receives his job back and discovers that Joe Carp and Frank Reilly are actually his friends after all: "Frank Reilly came over and said Charlie if anybody bothers you or trys to take advantage you call me or Joe and we will set em straight. . . Its good to have friends."

  • July 28, 1965

    Charlie forgets he is not in Miss Kinnian's class anymore, so he sits down in her class and realizes that he is not in the right place after Miss Kinnian runs out of the room crying. Therefore, because he doesn't want another incident like this to ever happen again, he goes to New York. To end the story he says, "If you ever reed this Miss Kinnian dont be sorry for me. . . I dont know why Im dumb agen or what I did wrong maybe its becaus I dint try hard enuff. Im gonna keep trying to get smart."