Most of the time, science is handled with extreme caution and responsibility. However, when the limits are crossed, there is usually a great deal of controversy and a lot on the line that may go sour. This usually happens when scientists, or people, want to rush into a project before knowing all the consequences that may be affiliated with what they want to accomplish. This is the case in the story "Flowers for Algernon." Two psychologists or scientists use a mentally handicapped person named Charlie as their first human test study. They did this because they wanted to rush their operations so they could be recognized for their achievements as soon as scientifically possible. This story perfectly illustrates the limits and responsibilities in science, and why they are so important.
Charlie was a thirty-two year old, mentally handicapped adult who lived and worked in New York. He worked at Donner's Bakery for many years, and became a large part of the bakery and thought of everyone there as his friend. However, this was not good enough for Charlie. He doesn't know just how retarded he is, but he knows that he is not as smart as everyone else. Because of this, Charlie decides to join a special school for the mentally challenged at Beckman College. He stays here for a while and is taught under a person by the name of Alice Kinnian. Charlie adores Ms. Kinnian and she cares for him also. Since she cares for him so much and wants to see him achieve his goal of becoming more intelligent, she suggests that Charlie be a possible aspirant for a special operation that two scientists/psychologists, named Dr. Strauss and Dr. Nemur, had been working on with a mouse.
Charlie decides that he wants to try the operation and undergoes weeks of testing. This testing consists of Charlie competing with a mouse named Algernon to see who could complete a maze first. The mouse had already had the surgery performed on him, so the competitions were also evaluations of Algernon's progress of becoming smarter.
