Psychosis In The Yellow Pill By Rog Phillips

Psychosis is a strange phenomenon as most who have it don’t realize they do. Often times, psychosis can be cured with therapy, but otherwise, it requires medication. Rog Phillips, in his story “The Yellow Pill”, addresses both these methods of curing delusions in an individual with psychosis, but the reality is, only one man needs therapy as the true setting is on Earth. At the beginning of the story, Jerry Bochek, a man who shot and killed six people and wounded two others, was brought into Dr.Elton’s office by four police officers and was wearing a straight jacket. Jerry was waiting in the reception room and the narrator states that Jerry, “was smiling, relaxed, and idly watching Helena''(Phillips). This is the narrator confirming with the reader that Helena is not on Mars Port, like Jerry states later in the story. She was in fact at her reception desk.

After Dr. Elton starts consulting him and Jerry states, “Helena Fitzroy is the expeditter at Mars port.”(Phillips) Jerry is lying because he acknowledges Helena being there and this proves that Dr. Elton’s reality that they are on Earth is correct. Continuing on, when Jerry sat down with Dr.Elton, he was convinced that Dr.Elton’s real name was actually “Gar Castle”, he was not in an office, the police officers were “gear lockers”, and he did not kill six people and wound two others. Due to Jerry’s consistent belief that the police officers are “gear lockers”, the narrator expressed, “Cedric nodded to one of the officers, and the man came around in front of Gerald Bocek and, quite carefully, hit him hard enough to rock his head but not hurt him.” Even after one of the police officers walked in front of Jerry and hit him, Jerry remained confident that nothing happened to