Flowers for Algernon: Progress Report 13 Summary & Analysis

June 10. Charlie flies in a private jet to Chicago for Nemur’s conference. He’s going to meet hundreds of people, all of whom will be fascinated to talk to him and measure his intellectual progress. As he flies, Charlie thinks about the possibility of crashing (he’s never been on a plane before).

During the flight, Charlie remembers being five years old and going with Rose and Matt to Dr. Guarino—a man who claims to be able to make Charlie smart. Guarino claims that he’s stumbled upon an invention that can cure mental problems of any kind. He straps Charlie into a large machine with flashing lights, and tells Charlie that the machine has made him “a bit smarter.” Charlie is so terrified of the machine that he pees his pants.

After the “procedure,” Dr. Guarino tells Rose and Matt to continue bringing Charlie in and paying him more money. As time goes on, Matt and Rose realize that they’re losing all their money to quack doctors promising to make Charlie smart.

Charlie realizes a strange thing: even though Dr. Guarino was a con-artist who stole money from Charlie’s parents, Charlie doesn’t resent him at all. On the contrary, Dr. Guarino treated Charlie like a normal person—just another patient to be rushed through Guarino’s procedure.

June 11. Charlie and Nemur stay in the Independence Hotel in Chicago, along with most of the young psychologists in town for Nemur’s conference. At the hotel, the night before the conference, a young clinician from Falmouth College asks Nemur to explain his new procedure. Nemur launches into a long lecture on his process. In the middle of the lecture, Charlie interrupts Nemur and cites a report by an Indian scientist, which hasn’t been translated into English yet. Nemur is embarrassed by Charlie’s interruption, especially when Charlie insists that Nemur is neglecting important medical information.

Later on that night, Charlie talks with Strauss, who noticed the way Charlie interrupted Nemur. Strauss explains that Nemur is embarrassed, and doesn’t like to have to admit that he hasn’t heard of a medical article. Charlie criticizes Nemur—and then Strauss—for not understanding Hindi, Japanese, and many other languages. As he talks to Strauss, Charlie realizes that his own knowledge of science, history, languages, and other subjects now vastly exceeds Strauss’s—it isn’t even close.

Later on, Burt Selden, who’s also attending the conference, tells Charlie that Charlie is damaging Nemur’s reputation in front of Nemur’s colleagues. Burt admits that Nemur is arrogant and not particularly brilliant, and yet he respects Nemur for his lofty ambitions. Burt adds that Nemur’s under a lot of pressure from his wife, Bertha Nemur—it was she who pressured him into presenting his findings early.

Charlie realizes that Burt is right: he shouldn’t be so impatient with Nemur. Nemur is a sad, middle-aged man, too old to start over again, and he’s invested everything in his intelligence research. Nevertheless, Charlie is angry with Nemur and Strauss—he thinks they’re frauds, passing themselves off as geniuses to Charlie, when in reality they’re nothing special in the world of academia.

Charlie begins to describe the academic conference itself. He’s impressed by some of the researchers’ findings, but finds some of the other projects rather trivial. This gives Charlie new respect for Strauss and Nemur: they’ve devoted their careers to something important and uncertain, rather than something “insignificant and safe.”

Nemur begins to present his findings to his colleagues, and Charlie feels a strong sense of resentment: he imagines Nemur as a carnival announcer, leading his friends to see Charlie, the “main attraction.” Nemur calls Burt to go over Algernon’s intellectual progress, and Charlie is surprised to see Burt explain that Algernon’s behavior has become increasingly erratic and unpredictable—there are days when Algernon refuses to participate in the mazes and problems he’s been assigned. Charlie is even more upset when Burt shows the other scientists videos of Charlie—back when he was still mentally disabled—trying and failing to solve mental challenges. The scientists laugh at Charlie’s failures.

Furious with the scientists at the meeting, Charlie imagines letting Algernon out of his cage. He listens to Nemur reading embarrassing excerpts from Charlie’s progress reports. At one point, Nemur calls Charlie one of “nature’s mistakes,” and congratulates himself for “correcting” the mistake. As he listens, Charlie realizes how premature Nemur’s presentation really is: there’s no way to know whether the intellectual changes in Algernon and Charlie will last forever, or if they’re only temporary.

Suddenly, Charlie lets Algernon out of his tiny cage. Algernon runs through the conference, and Nemur shrieks for the scientists to catch him. Charlie is amused by the sight of hundreds of middle-aged scientists chasing after an animal. Charlie then finds Algernon hiding in a bathroom, and instead of returning Algernon to his cage, he slips the mouse into his pocket and tells the scientists that Algernon slipped into a ventilator.

Charlie leaves the scientists’ conference. He plans to return to New York and start a new life for himself. He also decides that he should track down his parents.