The Mental Health Act By Charlie Gordon - 1001 Words

In 1959, the Mental Health Act was passed to stop the difference in mental hospital and other hospitals. Before this act mental illnesses were looked at differently. People with mental disabilities were put in asylums. Now the world sees that differently because we include them in everyday life. In Flowers for Algernon, Charlie Gordon experiences having a mental illness, and learns how to live a normal life after a life changing surgery. Charlie’s surgery changes his life for the rest of his life. Charlie Gordon lived in New York City at the age of 32 with a mental disability. He attend Beekman College Center for Retarded Adults to try to learn to read and write. His teacher, Miss Alice Kinnian, suggested him to take part in an†¦show more content†¦Donner, fire Charlie. He also learns the social skill love. He sees Miss Kinnian as his love, but she tells him that she is the only women in his life that he know well, and to go talk to other women. He eventually does this and finds interest in other women but they don t go very well. The Charlie before the surgery didn’t know much about his childhood, but the smarter Charlie had flashbacks of his childhood like how his mother used to love him but then didn’t and sent him away. One day he ventures to go see his father in his barber shop, but his father doesn’t recognize him and Charlie leaves without revealing who he is. Charlie then realizes that he needs to be put on the committee of this experimen t because he thinks he sees a flaw in the experiment which he later proves to be true. He proves that he will slowly fall back to the stage he was at before the operation. Just about right after he finishes this, Algernon dies and Charlie buries him in his backyard. Before he stops progressing and starts degressing he goes to visit his mother and sister. After regressing back to his old self, he goes to get his job back at the bakery. After seeing Alice again at the school, he thinks people feel sorry for him and goes to live in the Warren State Home. Charlie experiences drastic changes throughout the story. All of them are mentally due to the experimental operation he had. In the