Charlie Gordon Monologue

People say that life is an adventure, filled with strangers and new experiences. But life is an adventure unlike any other because you get to guide it in the direction you wish to go. Along the way, problems are faced, solutions are put into action, and memories are made. Each of these events cause lessons to be learned, perspectives to be changed, and personalities to be altered. These sorts of life events—major or minor—cause the human identity to change. But the question is not whether or not they do in fact cause change, it is how this change is brought about. The processes of decision making, interacting with others, struggling and learning all come together in an event to change the human identity.
It is the decision that launches you …show more content…
In Charlie Gordon’s case, the struggle begins when he was born with a mental disability. A scientific outbreak allows Charlie to undergo an operation to enhance his brain capacity. Suddenly he is able to understand and learn so many things about himself and life and he changes into almost a completely different person. But the old Charlie still exists inside of him and this is a constant battle inside his head. He learns that “you can’t put up a new building on a site until you destroy the old one.” (Keyes 200) This metaphor represents his own understanding of himself. He was supposed to become smart and therefore become happy, but instead he is in a constant state of confusion and anger while his brain is at war. The only thing that the two versions of himself have in common is a name, and a name means nothing when two people are so completely different. While he does indeed try to break down the old Charlie, he realizes that form will never truly go …show more content…
In between you may surround yourself with new people or you may struggle to see yourself for a while, but at the end you will take a step back and realize that you learned valuable lessons about life and yourself. Identity is about many things, but the places that you have seen, the adventures that you have completed, and the journeys that will never truly end define you. You get to choose your adventure and your identity, there will be challenges and obstacles and things might not always go as planned, but you will always be you even if that you is slightly