Charlie Gordon, the main character in Flowers for Algernon, grows and changes in the novel. Charlie is most successful after he undergoes the experimental operation on his brain. He reflects this change in three important ways. First, he becomes more intelligent after the experimental operation. He is proud that he is now intelligent enough to work with more complicated machinery. He says, "Everybody in the bakery came to see me today where I started my …showed first 75 words of 193 total…

…showed last 75 words of 193 total…says, "I had reached a new level, and anger, and suspicions were my first reactions to the world around me." (Page 40) Third, he learns to experience emotions after the operation. He falls in love with Alice Kinnian, his reading teacher at the Beekman College Center for Retarded Adults. He is able to express that feeling when he says, " I told you I liked you. I should have trusted myself to say I love you." (Page. 64)