Sean Eleuteri

Febuary 9th 2011

Professor Kumar

English 101

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat was written by Oliver Sacks who is a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University. Sacks writes about his studies of a man named Dr. P who has an unusual brain disorder. Sacks tries to figure out what is exactly wrong with Dr. P and prescribe him with something that can help him; but he can’t seem to figure out what will help Dr. P. His only solution is to prescribe him with “a life which consists entirely of music. Music has been the center; now make it the whole, of your life” (Sacks 688). Dr. P’s main problem is that he has lost judgment in his life which Sacks is scared …show more content…

P did not recognize anything. When Sacks showed a picture of a family member names Paul, Dr. P could tell who it was not from the face but the detail of the “big teeth” and “jaw” that he saw. After this finding Sacks states “But was it Paul he recognized, or one or two of his features, on the basis of which he could make a reasonable guess as to the subjects identity? In the absence of obvious “markers” he was utterly lost. Dr. P could not relate to things that he use to be familiar with. Sacks also explains that Dr. P almost has no person outward or within. He feels like Dr. P isn’t even sure that he “abnormal” to society. Dr. P can’t even recognize that he views and is different than most people.

When people such as myself that’s brain is in tack like most people, we can tell what everyone is once we first find out what it is. Dr. P can see and learn what things are hundreds of times and still not know what it is called or what it does. He just recognizes it if it has a significant amount of detail. That is because of his lack of judgment. Through we all overlook judgment in our lives we never realize how important it is to have our judgment in order. Sure there are many things that can affect our judgment on the way we feel about someone or something but no one knows what it feels like to have no judgment it all. Even the ones that lost their judgment they will never know because they can’t remember the times I their life when they ever had