The Sound of Hollyhocks

Insanity in society is generally described as a person's inability to reason logically. In an acclaimed story, "The Sound of Hollyhocks" by a Canadian writer, Hugh Garners, the protagonist William Cornish Ranson (nicknamed Rock) displays qualities of a psychotic person in a desperate attempt to avoid reversing his chronological lifestyle patterns of returning to the dominance of his mother. This is effectively conveyed through Rock's speech and actions.The life of Rock, a young banker is drastically churned when his new wife, Sandra, perishes in an automobile accident. The devastated, desolated young man is immediately surrounded with comforting family. This is quite normal on first glance, but the extent of Rock's mothers pacifism is truly intrusive for a grown man to be molly-coddled to feel junior, "She would treat me as her little boy. She never mentioned Sandra's name again. I moped around the house and garden all summer, and it was then when" he allows the declensional world of auditory hallucinations take over his every thought in a despondent attempt to differ his frustrations from the shackles of maternal control to a serine world of flora. Mrs. Ranson's overbearing enforcement induces her son's mutineer accord. Rock is instituted in a psychiatric ward, as time passes his (suggested) condition appears to be improving, his social libido has arisen once again, as Rock begin to start conversing with other patients and taking part recreational activities. In hindsight the decisive moment begins on Sunday morning when visitors are allowed in the clinic. The reader quickly learns that the visitors are Rock's parents. Not before anything else is said, Mother assumes her overbearing role. When the visitors leave the reader learns the extent of irritation the reunion has on Rock, he appears to undergo a complete mental health relapse, or perhaps a dramatic performance to inform all that he is far to ill to go home. The first-person narrator