Until that point, Moon Orchid has been happily living in a dream. As long as she does not see her husband, she can pretend that they still have a marriage and that he is the same man he always was. She believes she is loved. When the fantasy shatters, Moon Orchid is left with no sense of self. Whereas before the incident, she was flighty and chatty, afterward she withdraws and becomes overly serious. Eventually, she becomes paranoid about a government conspiracy and has to be placed in a mental asylum. In the asylum, Moon Orchid regains some of her happiness, but never her reason.
Another aunt, “No name” aunt, is certainly very unfortunate, and in some ways she fits the profile of insanity. She commits infanticide and suicide in one stroke when she throws herself and her newborn into the well. The narrator suggests that the villagers make “no name” aunt lose her mind. In every way they can, the villagers make her feel as though she does not deserve to live or to have ever lived. Even her own family members call her a “ghost” and pretend that she does not exist. In one way, drowning herself and her child is a valiant act of defiance. In another, it is the act of a woman driven to irrationality.