25 Adam and His Wife Were Both Naked, and They Felt No Shame
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Homework due 10/23
Period 1 and 5.
Write one paragraph about Charlie’s transition from a state of innocence to a state of experience in either his view of his friends, the factory, or his state of mind.
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Common Core Standard Reading 9: I can analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works such as the Bible, including describing how the material is rendered new.
Analyze the similarities/parallels between the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and Charlie Gordon and describe how it is rendered new in Daniel Keyes’ short story “Flowers for Algernon”. Find quotes/passages to support your thesis. Include the page number or verse that depicts the parallel.
Adam of Eve: / Paradise / Temptation/tree of knowledge / Ashamed and aware of evil / Banished from the Garden of EdenCharlie Gordon / Factory / Operation / Ashamed, blushing, / Banished from the factory
State of innocence / State of Experience
Like Adam and Eve, Charlie Gordon is in a state of innocence before he gains knowledge of evil in the world / Like Adam and Eve, Charlie Gordon is in a state of experience when he has knowledge of the evil in the world.
Charlie’s state of mind regarding his world or intelligence.
Integrated quote and commentary / Charlie’s state of mind regarding his world or intelligence.
Integrated quote and commentary
Drinking with “friends”
Charlie describes a moment when he is drunk the first time with his friends: “Joe Carp said I should show the girls how I mop the toilet and he got me a mop. I showed them and everyone laffed…”(30).
Add two sentences of commentary… / Drinking with “friends”
Choose one quote
After the second time Charlie gets drunk with his coworkers, he skips work because he realizes that “….others liked to have me around all the time to make fun of me”( 34 )
After the second time Charlie becomes intoxicated with his coworkers, he writes, “I felt naked” ( 33 ). He continues to write,
“ I wanted to hind myself, and I ran out into the street and threw-up”( 33 ).
The “nakedness” is a reference to the Garden of Eden because…
Add two sentence of commentary
Charlie’s view of the factory / Charlie’s view of the factory.
Everyone in the factory except Fanny Girden signs a petition to have Charlie fired from the factory. Charlie writes, “Once again now I have the feeling of shame burning inside of me. This intelligence has driven a wedged between me and all the people I once knew and loved”(39).
Add two sentence of commentary
Miss Kinnian / Miss Kinnian
The operation / The operation
State of Innocence / State of Experience
Charlie describes a moment when he was drunk the first time with his friends: “Joe Carp said I should show the girls how I mop the toilet and he got me a mop. I showed them and everyone laffed..”(30). / After the second time Charlie gets drunk with his coworkers, he realizes that “….others liked to have me around all the time to make fun of me”( )
After the second time Charlie gets drunk with his coworkers, he writes, “Now, I know what it means when they stay ‘to pull a Charlie Gordon’”(34).
After the second time Charlie gets drunk, he stays home from work because he realizes his coworkers “have him around all the time to make fun of me”(34).
After the operation, Charlie returns to work with an apparent scar. His coworker Frank asks, “…what did you do Charlie forget your key and open your door the hard way. That made me laff. Their really my friend / After the second time Charlie becomes intoxicated with his coworkers, he writes, “I felt naked”( ). He continues to write, “ wanted to hind myself, and I ran out into the street and threw-up”( _.
The “nakedness” is a reference to the Garden of Eden because…
Charlie is blushing
One day at the factory, Charlie overhears someone yelling, “…Ernie for godsake what are you trying to be a Charlie Gordon. I don’t know why he said that. I never lost any packages”( ).
Everyone in the factory except Fanny Girden signs a petition to have Charlie fired from the factory. Charlie writes, “Once again now I have the feeling of shame burning inside ofme. This intelligence has driven a wedged between me and all the people I once knew and loved”(39).
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How are Charlie Gordon’s experiences similar to those of Adam and Eve? What are the parallels? On a poster draw/depict similarities/parallels between “Flowers for Algernon” and Adam and Eve’s fall from grace in the Garden of Eden. Analyze the similarities/parallels and describe how the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is rendered new in “Flowers for Algernon”. Find quotes/passages to support your thesis. Include the page number or verse that depicts the parallel. Write one long paragraph or short essay focusing on the similarities. P. 40 #7.
Genesis 2:25-3:24
25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Genesis 3The Fall
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,
3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.
5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring[a] and hers;
he will crush[b] your head,
and you will strike his heel.” 15 16 To the woman he said,“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.” 16 17
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.” 19 20 Adam[c] named his wife Eve,[d] because she would become the mother of all the living. 21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side[e] of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
East of Eden
Block vs. Point by Point
State of innocence / State of ExperienceSimple thoughts / Complex thoughts
Thinks he has friends / Aware of unkind coworkers
Loves working as a janitor in the factory / Driven from the factory because of his intelligence
- Charlie is mentally challenged.
2. Charlie lacks an imagination.
3. Charlie wants to be smart.
4. Charlie is superstitious.
5.Charlie struggles academically.
6.Charlie is motivated. / “I felt proud when he said not everybody with an I.Q. of 68 had that thing” (26).
7. The operation made Charlie frustrated with his progress. / “Nothing is happening. I had lots of tests and different kinds of races with Algernon. I hate that mouse.”
8. Charlie’s friends invite C. just to make fun of C.
9. Charlie’s friends beat him up when he was drunk. / “A nice cop brought me home…” “Joe Carp says it was the cop they beat up drunks some times. I don’t think so”(31).
10. Charlie is getting smarter. / “I beat Algernon!”(31).
11. Charlie is becoming more empathetic towards Algernon. / “I don’t think it’s right to make you pass a test to eat”(31).
Write one paragraph about Charlie’s transition from a state of innocence to a state of experience as it relates to his view of his “friends”.
Like Adam and Eve, Charlie transitions from a state of innocence to a state of experience in his perception of his “friends”. Before the operation, Charlie writes about the first time he gets drunk with his so called friends, stating that “….