"Maybe that's why it was so important for me to learn. I thought it would make people like me. I thought I would have friends. That's something to laugh at isn't it?"(Keyes 208-209). The novel, Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keyes, follows a period in Charlie Gordon's life as he surgically becomes more intelligent and eventually loses much more than he initially started with. People often dream of having everything, and believe they can obtain this dream with a single major adjustment. As things change, and you attain this "wish", it only brings about new and more complicated problems. An increase in intelligence alone may solve certain problems, yet brings about many more.
             Charlie's increase in intelligence brings about serious social problems. His purpose in having the operation was to allow himself to communicate with others at a higher level, yet he finds himself at a level above most. Charlie begins to see those that he used to idolize as childish; he mocks college students as well as professors. His conceited attitude causes him to lose his job at the bakery and the love of his life, Alice Kinnian. "I find that I don't communicate much anymore."(Keyes 99). His increase in intelligence forces him to become progressively more lonely and confined then he was before the operation.
             Though Charlie's intelligence has improved, his emotional level is that of a child. He begins to analyze and understand more of what happened to him throughout his life; this brings about new feelings which Charlie has never experienced. He is faced with certain moral dilemmas throughout the novel dealing with the bakery, his love life, and his past that he is unable to solve. Love and other emotions cause him to become delusional and afraid. Once again this causes people to distance themselves from him and he is left with far greater problems.
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