The Yellow Pill
In the short story, “The yellow pill” written by Rog Phillips, a science fiction introducing psychological roles in reverse. There are two realities: Jerry’s reality, and Dr. Cedrick Elton’s reality. The audience does not know what to believe -- at first.
The story begins with Dr. Elton, a psychiatrist, being portrayed as the normal person helping a patient from the Psych Ward. This character Gerald Bocek is in a fantasy believing they are in a spaceship, but he was brought in because he shot and killed 6 people. At this point in the story, we believe that Dr. Elton is normal trying to help Jerry Bocek out of his spaceship fantasy. So, is the psychotic one.
The next day, Jerry Bocek is questioning Dr. Elton, telling him to come out of his reality. Made Elton doubt his secretary, Helena, his mind, and his reality/fantasy. Jerry says “"I blasted five Venusian lizard pirates who boarded our ship and melted the door off of one gear locker and seared the paint on two others. You know as well as I do, Gar, how space madness causes you to personify everything. That's why they drill into you that the minute you think there are more people on board the ship than there were at the beginning of the trip, you'd better go to the medicine locker and take a yellow pill. They can't hurt anything but a delusion." After jerry tells Gar that he doesn’t believe him and just jept saying he’s Dr. Elton. Then roles become reversed and now Jerry was playing along with Dr. Elton’s fantasy of him being a “psychiatrist” and “helping Jerry”. He was encouraged to take the yellow pill. "One of the characters in a dream world takes a yellow pill and discovers it doesn't exist at all except as a fantasy." Dr. Elton knew that if an individual takes the yellow pill, the fantasy will vanish.
Then later in the story, there’s a conflict in Dr. Elton’s mind, a conversation between him and his receptionist Helena. When he talks to himself thinking if it is possible that his “reality” is a fantasy. He tells her, "Why do you look so frightened?" Cedric said. "Is it because, if I take this little yellow pill, you'll cease to exist?" In reality Helena is his opposing side, she doesn’t exist. It’s the part of Dr. Elton’s brain telling him to not take the pill, to stay in his fantasy. Then Helena tried to pull on his strings to stay. “this is real! I don't care if you fire me or not. I...
