Flowers for Algernon?

I writing a five paragraph essay on Flowers for Algernon and my thesis statement is Charlie would have been better off without the surgey because he would have had Alice, he would have been happy, and his emotions wouldn't have been messed up. Only problem I don't know how to start off my paper.

Flowers for Algernon?
you start with a thesis statement state your topic and the main points you are going to address the body will include your opinion on the points previously mentioned
Reply:This story of Algernon has started many philosophical debates over the years and that may be how you want to start your paper. This biggest issue here is the value of self-awareness. Would you rather be ignorant and happy or educated and unhappy? It's harder to be unhappy when one has no self-awareness. I've often joked that I wish I was dumb enough not to care about painful things. There is an element of truth in that jest which is that if you aren't smart enough to be aware that you're so dumb then it doesn't cause you as much pain as if you were smart and then had it taken away from you. When choices and decisions are taken away from someone who doesn't know any better then the ability to make those choices isn’t missed


The problem with that is how many of us would choose to live in ignorance? In novels portraying what are supposed to be Utopias, it is ultimately the human need for self-awareness that makes such a society a dystopia. The first time I read Brave New World I thought "how wonderful to live in a place where you never have a worry. Where all of your needs and desires and cared for by the state.” Most of the residents of the Brave New World are very content because they have been both genetically engineered as well as being drugged into that condition. The book is important because of the few characters who can't be content in that environment despite the genetic engineering and the Soma (the drug distributed by the gov't to keep people "happy"). These people NEED something more. They NEED knowledge of things and emotions that are outside the constraints of that society. Which character would Alegernon have been? For the sake of your argument, one could simply quote the old saying that "ignorance is bliss".
Reply:i think that the surgey should have happened becasue he got a learning experience .....he relized tha his so called friends werent relly his friends ...when he had that surgery he became overly smart ! which was bad because the one big reson he did the surgey is becasue he wanted to feel like all the other people he wanted to b equal to them u k ....however it made him too smart which made him different from the rest ,............................/............. u from sms ? i read this too a couple days ago if so ...(its vanessa b ) .........im me bac or somehtin if u have more questions ..i k this story quite well
Reply:Prolly because IMHO, Charlie was better with the surgery. He may have 'lost' Alice in the end, but he had during a span of his life lived 'normally' by society's standards, and had someone love him. And after he reverted back to his low IQ stage, his emotions were back to the way they were too - unconditionally loving, and seeing good in everyone.