Psychosis In Rog Phillips's The Yellow Pill

Psychosis is a strange phenomenon as those who have it don’t realize they do. Often times, psychosis can be cured with therapy, but sometimes, it requires medication. Rog Phillips, in his story The Yellow Pill, addresses both these methods of curing an individual with psychosis, but the reality is that one man needed both therapy and medication as the true setting is in on Earth. Mental illness impacts everyone at some point in one’s life. If severe enough, having a disorder can cloud one’s judgement to the point of committing acts of terror unknowingly. When Dr. Cedric Elton is looking through his patient cards, he comes across Gerald Bocek’s. “The card said the man’s name was Gerald Bocek and that he had shot and killed five people in a

This is illustrated throughout history, and in the story, The Yellow Pill. As Dr. Cedric Elton was looking over Gerald Bocek’s reasoning for the murder of six people, he decides this about him. “Fantasy fiction was all right in its place, but too many people took it seriously. Of course, it was not the fault of the fiction. The same type of person took other types of fantasy seriously in earlier days, burning women as witches, stoning men as devils-” (Phillips) is reminding the audience that this is not the first time people have committed acts of terror onto others. In the story, Gerald is made out to be almost an isolated character, as though he is the only one who has ever committed an act of terror. In reality, many people have done similar or even worse. Throughout history, mental illness has been prevalent in being the underlying reason as to why awful events are done. For instance, the Salem witch trials. “Dr Quintanilla was able to match the symptoms of people condemned as witches with associated neurological and psychiatric disorders, such as epilepsy and hysteria” (Psychiatrictimes). By using references to events in history, the reader is able to realize that the story takes place on