Summary: PROGRESS REPORT 8
Charlie anxiously awaits the effects of the operation,
as he is still losing his maze races with Algernon. Charlie eats
lunch with Burt in the college cafeteria and overhears the students
discussing art, politics, and religion. Charlie does not know what
these subjects are, but he longs to understand them. He goes back
to work at the bakery, where his coworkers Joe Carp, Gimpy, and
Frank Reilly taunt him. Charlie does not understand that he is the
butt of their jokes. He writes that his coworkers sometimes refer
to “pull[ing] a Charlie Gordon,” and Gimpy uses the phrase to describe
a new employee’s misplacement of a birthday cake. Ever eager to
improve himself, Charlie asks Mr. Donner if he can learn to be an
apprentice baker, but Donner tells him that he should focus on his cleaning.
Dr. Strauss and Professor Nemur bring Charlie an odd
television-like machine that plays images and speaks to him while
he sleeps to help him “get smart.” Charlie is skeptical; he complains
that the machine keeps him awake and makes him tired at work. However, one
night the machine triggers a memory, a recollection of the first time
Charlie went to Alice’s class, determined to learn to read. Charlie
begins attending therapy sessions with Dr. Strauss, though he is not
sure what purpose they serve. Dr. Strauss explains to Charlie the concept
of the conscious and subconscious mind, and says that the television-like
device is designed to teach Charlie’s subconscious while he sleeps.
Dr. Strauss also gives Charlie a dictionary.
After work one day, Frank and Joe take Charlie to a bar,
where they urge him to dance like a buffoon and then abandon him.
Not comprehending that he is being made fun of, Charlie laughs along. Back
at the lab, Charlie finally beats Algernon in a maze race. He also
begins to remember more about his family. Charlie recalls one time
as a child when his sister, Norma, mocked him for saying he wanted
to be a painter. Alice comes to teach Charlie in the laboratory.
They begin to read Robinson Crusoe, the hardest
book -Charlie has ever encountered, and together they work on his
-spelling skills.
Summary: PROGRESS REPORT 9
Charlie shocks everyone in the bakery by proving that
he is capable of working the dough mixer, and he gets promoted.
He finishes Robinson Crusoe and, wanting to know
what happens to the characters after the novel ends, becomes frustrated
when Alice tells him that the story does not continue beyond the
end of the novel. Charlie recovers another memory from his childhood,
an episode from Norma’s infancy: Charlie had tried to pick Norma
up to stop her from crying, but his mother screamed at him and told
him never to touch the baby.
Alice begins to teach Charlie about grammar and punctuation. He
does not immediately grasp the concepts, but one night something
clicks in his mind. In the entry of April 8 it
is clear that Charlie has mastered punctuation, literally overnight.
Frank and Joe take Charlie out again and make him dance with a girl,
but this time Charlie realizes that they are mocking him, and he
suddenly experiences anger and confusion. He dreams about the girl
who had danced with him and wakes up with the sheets “wet and messy.”
Charlie recovers more memories. He recalls a time when
his Uncle Herman protected him from bullies. Charlie also remembers an
incident in which a childhood companion nastily rewrote a Valentine’s
note Charlie had written to a girl at his school, making the girl’s
brother furious and forcing Charlie to move to a new school.
