FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON
p.149
1. Compare the two female characters, Alice and Fay.
2. Comment on the fact that Charlie seems to be in favour of polygamy.
Alice and Fay are two very different characters in the book, both being females but complete opposites. While Fay is very open and unashamed of everything, Alice is shy and reserved. Fay is very easy to understand and spend time with and Alice is a bit more complicated and a harder nut to crack. It’s harder to get into her mind and understand her thoughts, while Fay is very open minded and easier to understand. Although Fay is an artist and some things she says can be harder to understand than the things that Alice says, because of the fact that she’s got an artistic view of things. While Alice works at the center for retarded adults, Fay is unemployed and spends her days painting pictures. Alice is more of a thinker while Fay is more spontaneous, Alice likes to think things through and Fay likes to just do things without thinking much about consequences. It’s not just differences in personalities between the two, there’s also a big difference in appearances. Alice has got brown hair and soft pigeon eyes while Fay is a blonde with blue eyes. Alice seems to be more mature than Fay, and her relationship seems to be on another level with Charlie, it’s also more mature, than the relationship between Fay and Charlie. The relationship between Fay and Charlie seems to be more like friends with benefits, even though they seem to care a lot for each other. They also affect Charlie in different ways; with Alice he seems to be more nervous and shy and with Fay it seems like he doesn’t get those nervous feelings, and he doesn’t care about the fact that the old Charlie is watching. When he was with Alice he started to feel weird and ashamed, the old Charlie affected him more. The fact that Alice was his teacher for such a long time seems to have a great influence on how he feels when he sees the old-Charlie while he’s with Alice.
Charlie is seeing two females at the same time and can’t see anything wrong with what he’s doing. He’s been dating Alice and at the same time he’s been dating Fay. It’s obvious that he doesn’t want them to meet each other or know about the fact that he’s seeing both of them and he seems to understand that they would not like it, but he still wants both of them and that’s why he won’t let them know anything. All facts show that Charlie seems to be in favour of polygamy since he’s dating more than one at the same time.
