Both basic and complicated medical operations are carried out everyday, but for some, an operation can change not only a person's life, but their very essence and personality as well. One such operation was done on a mentally retarded man to try to raise his intelligence. The operation did work after all, but, sadly, after a few months had passed, the patient relapsed suddenly and dramatically, losing all of his gained intelligence, only to have it replaced by seething anger and hate directed towards others. In the book, Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes, this particular operation was performed on a patient named Charlie Gordon. .
After the operation, Charlie was very bright, but experienced psychological traumas, loneliness, disillusionment, and felt socially and physically inadequate. Charlie's psychological traumas or emotional upset were caused by flashbacks from his reasonably upsetting childhood. After his operation, he remembered every aspect of his childhood, whether it was good or bad. Charlie had dreams of how his mother was ashamed of him. .
In the bakery where he worked, Charlie used to have friends. Friends that would talk to him, care about him and even take him to the bar for a beer once in a while, but it was these same "friends" who showed their true colours once he had braved the operating table. Charlie then realized that he had no friends, but he merely knew people that made fun of him and his awkward way of doing things at the bakery. The bakery employees just liked Charlie because they could blame their mistakes on him. Since he was smarter after having gone under the knife, they could not do this anymore, and they all turned against him, thereby revealing their true feelings towards Charlie and his newfound intelligence and self-worth. .
You can now see that, after the operation, Charlie became a smart man, but he also had to pay the price for it, and a very large one it was.