The Alienist written by Caleb Carr is a historical fiction read through the narration of John Schuyler Moore a reporter for the New York Times. The story starts on January 9, 1919 the day of Theodore Roosevelt's funeral, after the funeral Moore and a close friend Laszlo Kreizler go to dinner. While at dinner Moore and Kreizler start reminiscing about their time with Roosevelt. Moore and Kreizler flash back to the year of 1896 when they were tracking down a serial killer. Moore who lives with his grandmother after a nasty breakup with his fiancee, is awoken one night by knocking at the front door.
People often associate murder with psychopaths and sociopaths, whom out of malice and corruption, brutally torture their victims to death. While this cliché is over portrayed in fictional thriller stories, it is not the case for all murders. Most criminals have reasons. Occasionally, the criminal defendant is found to have been innocent by reason of insanity. There are multiple branches of morality to consider before deeming one accountable for their own actions.
The aspects that create a personality are built up upon two main guidances: family influence at a young age and inner conflicts. Balancing on a thin thread of neuro-normality and insanity, a personality is subjected to treatment that affects the individual’s view of life and the people around them. In the case of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, there were two main characters that displayed these aspects with much adversity: Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. Both beginning from contrasting backgrounds and family homes, they miraculously ended up in equal situations: being caught committing a heinous murder that has been declared as one of the worst serial killings in Kansas history during the early 1960s. Therefore, Perry and Dick’s similar situations must be due to their innate psychological
Curtis Mortensen Mrs. Biorn 22 October, 2015 3B Concurrent English 11 Insanity Descriptive Rough Draft In the fictional universe of Batman, Batman fights and defeats many of the villains, like the Joker, the Penguin, Scarecrow, and Bane, only to have them declared criminally insane and sentenced to life inside Arkham Asylum. Inside Arkham Asylum these criminals enjoy comfier living conditions and laxer security than if they were inside a real jail. In real life, this should not happen, but whether it does or not depends on the important definition of criminal insanity.
In the novel, “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey, our narrator is a tall, dark Indian man named Chief Bromden. Chief is a very special character. He does not speak throughout the bulk of the novel. Chief lost his voice when he lost his sanity. Although he is narrating everyone’s story in the novel, he also slowly reveals bits about his own story and why he came to be as insane as he is.
Ken Kesey’s Relationship with Mental Institutions and its Effect on His Novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Ken Kesey is known as one of the most exceptional American authors of the twentieth century, producing novels such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion. Throughout his lifetime, he had toiled with many different mental health issues that influenced his writings and views on problems in the world. Specifically in One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey sets the story in an insane asylum with the characters as patients. A connection between Kesey’s mental health, a mental institution background, and his novel is found throughout the story. The novel was released during the height of insane asylums and the controversy over how effective locking up inpatients is.
Irrational madness can be good Being mad and acting out doesn't always come with negative outcomes. As crazy as it sounds not only bad things happen when someones mad. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, Randle Patrick Mcmurphy is seen as eccentric. Mcmurphy is the leader of the other patients in the ward.
Many people often forewarn us to stay away from insane or mentally unstable people because their unpredictable actions might cause us harm but this isn 't necessarily true. People who are in their full senses and are mentally stable to make wise decisions, often do things that even insane people would never imagine of doing. In the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, it is clearly demonstrated how the protagonist in the story executed a well-planned murder in a perfectly stable mental state. In fact, he planned it out a week before and for that whole week, he observed the old man every night while he was asleep. Not only that, he also very cautiously and spotlessly murdered and hid his dead body leaving behind no trace of his crime.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, considers the qualities in which society determines sanity. The label of insanity is given when someone is different from the perceived norm. Conversely, a person is perceived as sane when their behavior is consistent with the beliefs of the majority. Although the characters of this novel are patients of a mental institution, they all show qualities of sanity. The book is narrated by Chief Brodmen, an observant chronic psychiatric patient, who many believe to be deaf and dumb.
Knowledge at the Price of Insanity Throughout William Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying, Darl Bundren is never able to have a complete way of identifying himself and experiences an increasing detachment from his family during their trip to bury their dead mother, Addie. . In an attempt to make everything better Darl sets the barn on fire. An act he believes to be very practical, but others see as insane. The connection is completely severed when he is sent away to an asylum in Jackson because of his attempt to end the nightmare journey he and his family were on.
Solitary Madness History has shown many ways that criminals were punished for committing a crime. Some crimes in the past were punished with torturous techniques that were deemed suitable at certain points in human history. However, as time passed, many of those punishment techniques were viewed, by many, as cruel and demeaning, which sparked change in the way crime was punished. Legislation was created to protect the inmate from being punished too severely.
Today I freaked out in a store where danger was non-existent. Maybe if I stay up all night doing coke there won 't be any nightmares. But I can 't go without sleep.
A Guilty Conscience: How Guilt Drives the Powerful to Insanity Guilt is the cause of the destruction of many, particularly in Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Macbeth. As Macbeth and Lady Macbeth continue to murder for the sake of power, they embark on opposite journeys but their guilt ultimately drives them both to insanity. Macbeth goes from being driven mad with guilt, to his instability causing him to murder recklessly. His wife goes from expressing no compassion or guilt to her guilt overcoming her and driving her to madness.
As Insanity woke up he had smashed his alarm clock twenty-five times since it had rung twenty-five times. “Tick Tock The Clock Stopped!, shouted Insanity “Tick Tock The Clock Stopped!” shouted Insanity “Tick Tock The Clock Stopped!” shouted Insanity Who am I going to hurt today.
Ken Kesey uses his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, to describe the lives of patients in a mental institution, and their struggle to overcome the oppressive authority under which they are living. Told from the point of view of a supposedly mute schizophrenic, the novel also shines a light on the many disorders present in the patients, as well as how their illnesses affect their lives during a time when little known about these disorders, and when patients living with these illnesses were seen as an extreme threat. Chief Bromden, the narrator of the novel, has many mental illnesses, but he learns to accept himself and embrace his differences. Through the heroism introduced through Randle McMurphy, Chief becomes confident in himself, and is ultimately able to escape from the toxic environment Nurse Ratched has created on the ward. Chief has many disorders including schizophrenia, paranoia, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, and, in addition to these illnesses, he pretends to be deaf and dumb.
