(Book / film compare and contrast: Flowers for Algernon)
The bromide opinion about clichés is that they owe their popularity to the truth oozing out of their very core. One such saying is that ‘it’s the little things in life that matter’, and when it comes to the book versus film analysis of Flowers for Algernon, not a syllable is untrue about this statement. Daniel Keyes’ novel about a mentally challenged man who finds himself the centre of an intelligence increasing science experiment, thrives on modest details (Keyes, Flowers for Algernon, 1966). To start with the eponymous Algernon, being a mouse, of course, is small in size. Algernon matters in both book and movie, for without the little critter, there would be no experiment. Digging deeper into the core of the plot, the main character Charlie Gordon comes to the realisation that before the operation, when his life was less complicated and he did not comprehend the world he inhabited, he was happier.
