Setting

Published at the end of the 1950s, the short story “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes takes place in a science-fiction setting, in a society in which scientists have found a way to enhance intellectual capacities artificially. However, the physical setting is very realistic, the city of New York.

Physical setting

The physical setting of the short story includes several locations: Charlie’s home and backyard where Algernon is buried,...

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Social setting

Much more important than the physical setting is the social setting which depicts several aspects related to disabled people, intellectuals, and general society.

First of all, the short story shows the way disabled people, and particularly mentally disabled ones, are treated. The colleagues of Charlie, as well as the people in the restaurant mocking the dishwasher boy, show the way some tend to mock the mentally disabled because they assume the disabled persons will never understand their meanness. They take advantage of them without showing any remorse, just because disabled people cannot always see it: “How strange it is that people of honest feelings and sensibility, who would not take advantage of a man born without arms or legs or eyes-how such people think nothing of abusing a man born with low intelligence.”

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