The most obvious contrast between Flowers for Algernon and other short stories, such as “A & P” and “Miss Brill” is the length. But length is not the topic for this short essay. The predominant difference, besides length, is the number of fully realized characters in the story. In “A & P” and “Miss Brill” the only fully developed characters are Sammy in “A & P” and Miss Brill in “Miss Brill.” In the short story “A & P” …showed first 75 words of 467 total…

…showed last 75 words of 467 total…can relate to her feelings and emotions. The difference between stories like “A & P,” “Miss Brill,” and “Flowers for Algernon” is that short stories present an opportunity to focus on the personality of a single character while longer stories can have a more developed supporting characters. Focusing on only one character does not make a story of any less worth than a story with fifty developed characters. It is just a different style of writing.