As Charlie gets smarter, he gets increasingly ignorant to what people think of him, and his lack of self-awareness results in him growing more and more despondent as he’s not sure why he has no friends. Charlie’s incessant arrogance drives many of his colleagues and mentors into despising him. I was interested in myself, and myself only”. I was incapable of making friends or thinking about other people and their problems.
Soon after the argument, Charlie has a realization: “I was an arrogant, self-centered bastard. Nemur and the others encourage him to focus only on gaining as much knowledge as possible after his transformation, and while he advanced rapidly intellectually, he stays emotionally underdeveloped, partly leading to his loneliness, and then depression and anger. Charlie is unable to have a serious lasting relationship with anyone, as a friend or romantically, after his transformation. Charlie gets into a drunken argument with the men responsible for his change in intelligence, and tells them how he really feels about it: “Intelligence that hasn’t been tempered by human affection isn’t worth a damn.…When I was retarded I had lots of friends. Intelligence alone is not enough to bring joy. Wisdom is having knowledge, and having the judgment to know what to do with that knowledge, but even the smartest people could be imprudent. Charlie relies too heavily on his knowledge, and when it’s time to make an important moral decision, his lack of judgment is made evident. Charlie just recently started gaining knowledge at an incredible pace, and despite being a genius, he’s emotionally immature. When pressed for advice on a moral decision, Alice, Charlie’s teacher, tells Charlie, “In some ways you’re so advanced, and yet when it comes to making a decision, you’re still a child. Despite being a brilliant scientist, he lacks the judgment to understand that his jealousy and resent is immature. Nemur is portrayed as egotistical, and feels irrationally threatened by anyone that might be smarter than him, leading his colleagues to loathe him. Charlie writes as a postscript in his final progress report: “please tel prof Nemur not to be such a grouch when pepul laff at him and he woud have more frends”. Intellect does not necessarily have a correlation with judgment.
0 kommentar(er)
