A society often reveals its own perversity in the way it treats those who stray too far from its mainstream. In Jean McCord's story, "The Cave," the leader of a small-town gang beats the narrator after he befriends a homeless man. In "The Hammer Man," two disgruntled police officers harass the narrator after she admires the basketball skills of a disturbed boy on her street. In both cases, the violence of the characters who represent dominant society – the gangs and the police – forces us to question our underlying assumptions about what is normal and what is not. While both authors invite us to label certain characters as deviant at the beginning of their stories, they force us to see by the end that there is no way to measure deviance in a society that is itself morally biased. In a mad world, these stories remind us, only sane people are mad. At the beginning of both stories, the authors invite us to judge one of the characters as deviant. In "The Cave" we see George only through Charley's eyes and thus come to the same conclusion as Charley after his first meeting with George, namely that "he [is] a tramp" (McCord 3). While Charley concedes that George's kind eyes make him "harmless"(2) and that his comments on the story make him appear educated, he insists that the old man's disheveled appearance and his strange attachment to the cave prove that he must have some “bats” flying in his belfry” (3). In “The Hammer Man,” the narrator seems to be part of a community of such people. The “crazy” Manny waits on her porch “all day and all night” to take revenge for the insults she directed at his mother (Bambara 52). When the narrator's father discovers Manny's intentions, she breaks...... middle of paper...... "Man" represents those forces in our society that attempt to pull the individual back into the rank when he moves too far away. of what is considered normal. Charley and the narrator resist this pressure for a time and, in doing so, reveal that the path to normalcy is truly random. While Charley and the narrator retreat into conformist behavior at the end, their momentary alliance with someone. outside the mainstream shows us how impossible it is to draw a clear line between those who are deviant and those who are not. In our imperfect world – in which racism, poverty, injustice and even war still exist – those who do not have a place. Perhaps there is something important to teach us. Abraham Lincoln, Saint George the Dragon Slayer and Jesus Chris, all carved on the walls of George's Cave, were all called crazy before being considered prophets of truth..