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Dr. Cedric Elton's The Yellow Pill

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Sanity is in the mind of the beholder; one man’s reality may not be the reality of everyone. This becomes a sticking point when two men meet in either a psychiatrist’s office or in the depth of space in the short story “The Yellow Pill.” Since both men cannot be in reality, the story takes place in an uncomfortable spaceship based on evidence from the story.
For example, one piece of evidence that supports that “The Yellow Pill” takes place in space is that “Dr. Cedric Elton”, who is really a space pilot named Gar Castle that had gone temporarily insane, acknowledges that Helena, his assistant, is just a figment of his imagination. Shortly after taking the yellow pill, Gar looks up to Helena and exclaims, “Tell me, Helena, did you know all the time that you were only a creature of my imagination? The reason I want to know is—”. The yellow pills are supposed to reveal the truth, and Gar speaks the truth that Helena is just a part of his imagination shortly after taking the pill. The story takes place in space because Gar admits that Helena, and therefore the rest of the psychiatric office, is just his hallucination. In addition, …show more content…

One piece of evidence that is brought up to support the Earth side is that Jerry’s head moved when the supposed “cops” punched him. However, the story describes that, “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. Jerry's eyes blinked with surprise.” Very few people would only blink when they are punched. Also, Jerry’s head could've moved for any reason, and Gar’s hallucination of the officer punching Jerry might as well be one of the gear lockers just randomly moving. Jerry’s reaction to the punch and the movement of the gear lockers show discredits the piece of evidence stated earlier in the paragraph and support that “The Yellow Pill” takes place in

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