Theme of the Treatment of Others

Topic - Theme of the Treatment of Others

The theme of the treatment of others in the book Flowers for Algernon is condescending and demeaning. People viewed the mentally retarded and handicapped as a different, non-human, group of people. At the “Warren State Home,” the retarded men and women were sent to be hidden from society. The workers claim the patients were taken care of, but the building was simply a place for their families to send the mentally deficient and to forget about them. The people that surrounded Charlie’s life such as the bakery workers and his parents treated him without dignity. His own mother was so ashamed that she tried to hide Charlie from her friends in fear of being embarrassed.

His mother, Rose, always wanted Charlie to be normal and be like the other children she knew. When Charlie was younger his mother punished him for not completing things correctly, such as school or housework. Charlie said, “All my life I wanted to be smart and not dumb and my mom always told me to try and learn.” His mother treated him as a mistake and never enjoyed his presence in her life. Later in Charlie’s life, Rose sent him to The Warren State Home. Here Charlie was hidden from the real world so Rose could forget about him. He was treated as an object by his family and the other people in his life.

Before Charlie’s operation, Charlie never fully comprehended the way the Donner’s Bakery workers treated him. They often objectified him without him knowing by laughing and using the phrase, “pulling a Charlie Gordon” when another worker dropped something or made a mistake. The workers said this to antagonize Charlie about his common mistakes, but because of his low level of comprehension Charlie did not understand they were making fun of him. Because Charlie’s IQ was so low, he understood everything literally. This made it difficult for him to recognize the worker’s disrespect towards