Society’s opinion on something is never fixed. It is unstable and constantly changing quickly due to new ideas and information. Certain ideas on things such as how to treat people different than you that was believed thousands of years ago is no longer believed today. The way society has treated people with disabilities has drastically changed over the years Daniel Keyes was born in 1927 and as a young adult he entered the U. S Maritime Marines to help pay for schooling.
After that he got his B. A in psychology from Brooklyn College, continued on to get his M. A degree and became an English teacher, a profession that his parents did not want him to go into. He once said that “education was driving a wedge between him and the people he loved. ” (Inspiration) This would be one of the things that would inspire him to write his award winning novel Flowers for Algernon. Some time after Daniel Keyes got his degrees, he began to teach two classes for mentally disabled students.
After class one day one of his students asks him “if there was any way to work really hard and get smarter” this is similar to what Charlie says in the story. Inspiration) “I waited until most everybody went away except for some people going over by a big clock like the one we have at the bakery and I asked the lady if I could learn to read and write because I wanted to read all the things in the newspaper and I showed it to her. ” (Keyes 27). Keyes would now begin developing his award winning novel over the next fourteen years. People having disabilities is not a new thing, but they are almost never talked about in history or in books.
A study found that only eight percent of Newbery Award and Honor books from 1975 to 2009 had few to no disabled characters present. (Israelsen-Hartley). In ancient societies the birth of a child with disabilities was thought to be a punishment of the gods and the baby was usually left for dead to avoid having to waste precious resources on them. (History). Back then people believed the gods controlled everything, today people know that most disabilities come from mutations on the genes or chromosomes.
PKU or Phenylketonuria is a recessive genetic disorder that is caused by the inheritance of two abnormal copies on the PAH gene, and causes an increase in the chemical of phenylalanine in the blood that causes many learning and behavior problems. (Learning about Phenylketonuria). Since this is a recessive genetic disorder you need two copies, one from both parents, meaning both parents need to either have the disorder or they are carriers. A carrier is “An individual who has a recessive, disease-causing allele at a particular locus on one chromosome of a pair and a normal allele at that locus on the other chromosome. (Carrier). The main character of Flowers for Algernon is affected by this disease and both of his parents have to be carriers and there is a high change that is younger sister Norma, is also a carrier. Back in the 1960s, when the book takes place, there was no way to treat people with PKU but now there are many ways to treat it and often the affected person can live a healthy life. There are now ways to tests for it during pregnancy and if PKU is found the mother is put on a low phenylalanine diet which the offspring will have to live on their entire life.
History does not normally discuss or even mentioned people with disabilities because more likely than not if a disabled child was born, they would be left for dead or immediately killed because they thought it was better to just dispose of them than to waste money and resources on an individual who would not grow up to contribute to society. As the years went on disabled people were no longer killed but they were normally kept segregated from the rest of society.
People with disabilities in the 1800s were considered to be “meager, tragic and pitiful individuals unfit and unable to contribute to society, except to be ridiculed objects of entertainment in circuses and exhibitions. (A Brief History of the Disability Rights Movement). One of these people is Joseph Merrick or as he is more commonly know today, the Elephant Man. Merrick was born in the 19th century. He was a healthy baby but in his early childhood he began to develop lumpy, grayish skin, and parts of his body gro disproportionally.
After his mother died and his father remarried he was sent to work to help the family make money, but after some time he ran away because his father was abusive. Eventually he joined a human curiosity exhibit and was put on display. Hundreds of people came to see the “Half-a-Man and Half-an-Elephant. ” When people got bored of freak shows in England he began to tour Europe where he was beaten and robbed. He came back to London a year later where doctors and high society took special interests in him and he spent the rest of his life in the London hospital.
At age 27, Joseph Merrick died in London Hospital, from Asphyxia caused by the weight of his head when he laid down. (Biography). The beginning of the 20th century was not any different than before but the later parts brought about lots of change. Prior to the Equal Rights Movement, the disabled were still mocked and treated badly. In Flowers for Algernon Charlie’s friends at the bakery come up with the phrase “to pull a Charlie Gordon” meaning to do something stupid, and they would often invite him to places just to let him make a fool of himself, while they watch and than ditch him.
We played games with me doing a dance on the top of the bar with a lampshade on my head and everyone laughing. ” (Keyes 29). If kids with learning disabilities were sent to school, they would not be separated in to special classes and would often were class disruptions, not learning anything. The word “learning disability” was not even coined until the 1960s, instead doctors and scientist would refer to the disabled as “stupid” or “retarded. ” (Education). Things started to change after the Civil Rights movement began.
Advocates saw this as a time to get out there and bring about changes. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 brought about funded programs, equal government employment opportunities and prohibited discrimination against the disabled. Two years later in 1975, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed, later renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Act, and now all disabled people not only had the right to education, it was illegal for them not to receive it.
In 1990 the Americans with Disabilities Act was past ensuring, equal treatment and access to public accommodations. Before this people could be denied access to things like public bathrooms or the buses. (A Brief History of the Disability Rights Movement) Today there are still many advancements for the disabled being made. Children with intellectual disabilities are separated into special classes where they get the help that they need, special attention and services. There are also lots of programs to get the disabled involved in the community.
One of these programs is the Special Olympics, which allows both children and adults with learning disabilities to compete all over the world, in sports that they would not normally be able to do. As the times have changed throughout the years so have people’s opinions. The way society has treated the disabled has also changed. It has gone from killing them to save resources and appease the gods, to helping them and creating specialized programs for them. The way society has treated people with disabilities has defiantly over the years.
