The Madness Of Jack Essay, Research Paper

Jack has been declared insane. The exact illness and reason do not matter, only the fact that he is insane is important. Sometimes he is given drugs or therapy to calm him down or get him out of a state of rage. He is kept in a holding jacket that keeps him from hurting himself. He has no known family, and nobody comes to visit him. A sanitarium is a place for people like Jack. It is where he lives and will eventually die.

Jack is very sensitive to what people around him say. Certain topics can bring back memories of his past or deceive him in some way. He may start banging himself off the walls or start screaming. Then matters get worse when everyone rushes to him or, as he would describe, at him. He usually runs from the very people who try to help him, but they always find him and make him even more uptight when they hold him down and press needles into him.

Jack does not like needles. They scare him so much that he sees illusions of them coming after him. When he is curled up in a corner with his hands covering his neck as he whispers to himself, the staff knows they should not bother him. However, they do what they think is best; they try to comfort him and tell him everything will be all right and that what he sees is not real.

Don t hurt me! Don t hurt me! Jack screams in agony when they touch him. How can they help him? He will not listen to them nor let them comfort him. They realize that he has a problem and that their jobs are to help him solve it, but they don t understand how, so they do nothing.

What is Jack living for other than dying? He is living to exist in his nightmare world and to be a reason to pay his caretakers. A sanitarium is a place for people like Jack, but is it totally a place of rehabilitation? For Jack, it is only a jail. Convicts in real jails are allowed to roam around and participate in certain activities, and Jack can do these things too. Convicts are imprisoned in a room sealed with steel bars. Jack is imprisoned in a white room with soft walls. Convicts are usually gloomy or angry because of where they are and what the guards and other inmates may do to them. Jack is usually gloomy or angry because of what his caretakers do to him, what the illusions he sees do to him, and what he does to himself.

Jack is not real, but there are many people who are just like him or similar to him. They roam the sanitariums in which they live until they die. What is a sanitarium really? It is a place where the people who can be helped are given what they need to get better, but it is also a jail for people like Jack. He never did anything wrong. The world was just too hard for him to face alone. Time strips him of his youth and disease cripples his body. Jack passes away and a tombstone is placed in the ground above the place he is buried. Keeping him tied never healed his mind, it only imprisoned him.