A society often reveals its perversity in how it treats those who stray too far from the 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 cops harass the narrator after she admires the basketball skills of a disturbed boy on her street. In both cases, the violence of the characters representing mainstream society – the gang and the police – forces us to question our underlying assumptions about what is normal and what is not. Although both authors invite us to label particular characters as deviant at the beginning of their stories, they ultimately force us to see that there is no way to measure deviance in a society that is itself morally distorted. In a crazy world, these stories remind us, the only sane people are crazy. 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 that Charley does after his first meeting with George, namely “that [he is] a bum” (McCord 3). While Charley admits that George's kind eyes make him seem "harmless"(2) and that his comments about the story make him seem educated, he insists that the old man's scruffy appearance and strange attachment to the cave prove that he must have some " bat" flying around in his steeple" (3). In "The Hammer Man", the narrator seems to be part of a community of these people. The "crazy" Manny waits on his porch "all day and night". to get revenge for the insults she directed at her mother (Bambara 52).When the narrator's father discovers Manny's intentions, she smashes...half of the paper... "Man" represents those forces in our society that seek to bring the individual back into line when he strays too far from what is considered normal. Charley and the narrator resist this pressure for a while and, in doing so, casually reveal the path of normality that it really is Charley and the narrator retreat into conformist behavior in 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 – where racism, poverty, injustice and even war still exist – those who don't adapt may have something important to teach us Abraham Lincoln, St George the Dragon Slayer and Jesus Christ, all engraved on walls of St. George's cave, were all reviled as madmen before being considered prophets of truth..