Sunday book pick: The perils of artificial intelligence in the 1966 novel ‘Flowers for Algernon’

Charlie Gordon, 32 years old, IQ 68 is the star of Daniel Keyes’s iconic science fiction novel, Flowers for Algernon.

With unusually low intelligence for an adult, Charlie is inept at reading social cues, cannot understand or control some bodily functions, and struggles to read and write. He works as a cleaner at Mr Donner’s bakery who hired Charlie 17 years ago as a favour to his close friend, Charlie’s uncle. While Mr Donner is kind to him and pays him fairly, he is often the butt of other’s employee’s jokes and he interprets their laughter and taunts as offers of friendship. Long estranged from his family, Charlie has been picked up by scientists who want to make him “smart”. He’s happy to play the guinea pig as long as he can be like “other pepul” so he can have “lots of frends who like me.”

The doctors have encouraged him to keep a “progress report” to record his journey, feelings, and possible intellectual development. Charlie’s reports, though full of spelling and grammatical errors and no punctuation, are a charming insight into an atypical brain. Keyes forces the reader to slow down and one is compelled to think about the rules of language. Charlie spells words as he hears them – the phonetic logic is hard to discredit. What he writes is easy to comprehend. Naturally, one wonders if language also plays a role in shutting out Charlie and others like him who do not understand its rules and conditions.

Becoming human

Charlie is not alone in this experiment. Algernon, a white mouse, is his companion. He is rewarded with cheese for his intelligence while Charlie gets to be more “human”. The irony is not lost on him – before he just existed but the success of the operation has made him human. Besides acquiring literacy, he is applauded for developing feelings of anger and suspicion, the “first reaction” to the world around him. He remembers his parents’s names – Rose and Matt – and in a vivid third-person voice, recalls the memories of his childhood.

While Matt was more favourably disposed towards him, Rose had little patience for his “slowness”. He writes that even in his “dullness” he knew he was “inferior". The mother’s cruelty is exhibited through flogging, shaming, and threatening the child. Her belief that the child is “normal” does not stem from optimism but the deep distress she experiences from the looks and rebukes of those around her. Young Charlie’s unhappiness is compounded by the arrival of his sister (of normal brain capacity) who also punishes him by refusing to play with him or acknowledging him as her older brother. The family is torn apart by Charlie’s disability. Keyes’s observation appears to be in line with the general attitude towards the disabled in the 1950s, the decade during which the book was written. Quality care was out of reach for most middle-class families and the inability to cope was often perceived as personal failure.

In the span of a few weeks, Charlie’s intelligence soars and he gathers knowledge that takes a human being a lifetime to acquire. He devours books on various subjects, develops a scholarly understanding of most complex topics – the result of which is an inflated ego and disdain for those who are not as intelligent as him. Those who used to be his “friends” are confused – they do not understand what has changed. But the brain alone does not make us human, it is our heart that does so. “I have to love someone,” Charlie writes in his progress report, to become fully human.

His encounters with women are awkward, childish even. He finds it difficult to look them in the eye or touch them. Heavily shamed for his sexuality as a child, he finds it difficult to start afresh in his new life. He believes he is in love but sex and its various manoeuvers remain annoyingly incomprehensible. Young Charlie seems to watch him while he attempts to be intimate with women. The novel does not hush up child sexuality and conveys the importance of treating it with dignity and care if we are to help children grow into adults who can have healthy relationships with themselves and others. Keyes’s progressive views on child sexuality might also be influenced by his occupation as a high school teacher where he taught mentally challenged students and observed growing children closely.

Becoming humane

All the bookish knowledge in the world proves useless when he finds himself left out of friendships and at a loss to make amends with those he has hurt for his egoistical nature. The doctors had warned him of a possible reversal to his original state and as Algernon’s behaviour becomes erratic, Charlie accepts this is to be his fate too. No good thing lasts forever.

The story of a “retard’s” transformation into a man with super artificial intelligence taps into the modern man’s primary concern – can intelligence be a substitute for emotions? Almost every sentient being is capable of kindness, curiosity, and love but humans feel it most intensely and even the dullest of them possess the capability to intellectualise their feelings. During a time when artificial intelligence threatens to take over jobs and replace real human connections, we must ask ourselves if such “intelligence” is worth risking our humane selves for.

A deeply felt story that can move the most unsentimental of us to tears, Flowers for Algernon reminds us of the eternal values of hopefulness, compassion, and empathy over valuing progress that measures human life in arbitrary scales and numbers.

Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes, W&N Modern Classics.