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Xhelledrick Santos
Professor Kane
English 115 MW
28 November 2016
Essay 3.1: Not Crazy, Yet
Girls in the ward certainly arent crazier than the average person on the street. People in
the outside world cause crazy acts, commit crimes, and believe in outrageous things yet they are
still allowed to roam the streets. But then again, who are we to say that they are crazy and we
arent? How is our concept of crazy molded or constructed in the first place? Sure maybe our
family, our friends, our town all have a major role in that, but then who made it so for them?
Possibly, the root of it all is with who holds power and enforces the rules and the rules go full
circle by being made by us, a democratic society: America.
Laws call for right and wrong and we must obey them. However, we are still allowed to
vote because what constitute as good and bad can change when the majorities change. At one
point in the book, the main girls questioned why the ones in seclusion belonged there and they
didnt. Its similar to how we could see someone on the street help another person yet go to jail
for breaking the rules, how are they as much of a bad guy as the next person. To raise questions
regarding normality and abnormality is in no way to question the fact that some behaviors are
deviant or odd. Murder is deviant, (Rosenhan.). These concepts may not be wrong in
the right scenarios or perspectives. If a man murders in cold blood, we all
see that as wrong and immoral. But lets say it was revenge to kill the man
who murdered his family, then it would be fair. Then it would raise more
questions about murder during war time. But a situation like who goes in

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seclusion and out is a gray area not involving morals, yet the ones who are
watching in a third person are still the ones who make the choices. It all
came down to the good of the majority, to keep the girls safe from those who
arent safe to have around.
Ideas and beliefs fluctuate as time go by, what may be wrong years ago could be
completely acceptable in todays society. Girls in the ward would be set free years ago if they
were institutionalized in modern times for there to be space for the Crazier people as society
would deem them. A well-known psychological test known as the Rorschach Inkblot test has
been around for decades, however; many studies have shown how various Rorschach scores rise
and fall in relation to the number of responses that are given when completing the task, (Giselle
Pianowsk, et al). As time went on, the results change and were inconsistent. What they may have
believed then as the determining responses for the test as whats crazy and not have completely
flipped in todays time because the responses are based off a recorded majority. Those
institutionalized possibly for this test would be falsely diagnosed by todays standard seeing this
practice almost as a pseudoscience of sorts.
The concept of crazy and not crazy may change slowly, yet there are some smaller
societies in which some medical issues are still acceptable as a part of everyday life while being
completely outrageous in others. North American Indians believe that schizophrenics as voice
hearers have a religious and/or spiritual significance. If a girl in the mental ward were of Native
American decent, her people wouldnt allow her to go to a mental institution. She could even
possibly be praised for her disability as society would call it. This occurs part of their beliefs as
their connection with a higher being. This act could also be seen in movies or stories, where the

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hero believes in hearing spirts or ghosts to guide their way. It would be a problem to have
schizophrenia still in todays world, but when a Native American has it we wouldnt bat an eye.
Susanna Kaysen could be written down in documents as crazy, but she could be crazy on
her own terms. She is more of a philosopher of sorts, rather than a loon. At one point in the book
she gnaws at her hand to find her bones. She does this when a girl leaves the ward not on her
own devices accepting her fate. The girl who left came to terms with who she is and her place in
the world while Kaysen questions hers. She wondered what made her, her. Whether her soul is
who she is, or her role in society is what creates her character. She questioned if she had a soul or
something deeper to begin with when she decided to mutilate herself. Her conclusion was that
her bones are the base of her, her framework of her very existence physically and metaphorically.
Although she took on some extreme measures to come to this conclusion, she was just
questioning and curious either way.
Another part of the story she mentions Platos Allegory of the Cave, a philosophical
mental exercise of sorts questioning the being of things. It raises the thought that what if not only
her and others who think outside the box, but also philosophers could be considered crazy as
well. Philosophers often think about outrages topics and concepts, things outside of what
societys normal spectrum of thinking. Some philosophers ways of thinking could get them
punished for obscuring the peace and ignorant ways of that society, thus leading them to be
punished with death like Plato himself. Then again there is the other side of that coin in which
Plato created a following with others who praised him for his philosophical thoughts and
believed for him to be truly right and not the justices. In those times, people would even go as far
as to wanting to have them as kings and mold society for themselves. Then again, we in modern

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times are stuck to follow those with power and not those who are right. One with power is one
with influence and control to make the changes.
The law doesnt always do the best for us even if we have a say in the matter, their
solutions may not be the ones we had in mind. Edward Snowden released top-secret intelligence
documents that detailed a domestic U.S. spying apparatus. (Lustgarten.). Snowden had the
chance to reveal to the public the truth about government surveillance, and he took it. He
followed his moral belief, the one shaped by the very country he lived in, and did what he
believed best for everyone for the greater good. He opened many peoples eyes to see what the
government would consider a violation of rights, to see that the government was violating
peoples rights. To many, he was a hero and to others he is a crazed man to release such
information. At the end of it all, he was still no match for the powers above him.

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Works Cited
Lustgarten, Samuel D. "Emerging Ethical Threats To Client Privacy In Cloud Communication
And Data Storage." Professional Psychology: Research And Practice 46.3 (2015): 154160. PsycINFO. Web. 28 Nov. 2016.
Giselle Pianowski, Gregory J. Meyer & Anna Elisa de Villemor-Amaral (2016)
The Impact of R-Optimized Administration Modeling Procedures on Brazilian Normative
Reference Values for Rorschach Scores, Journal of Personality Assessment, 98:4, 408418, DOI:10.1080/00223891.2016.1148701.
Davies, Hywel. Schizophrenia: 35 Facts. Hearingvoicescymru. Pembrokeshire Mind. 2016.
http://hearingvoicescymru.org/information/publications/schizophrenia-35-facts