Simulation of insanity is a device of protective counter-hostility directed against those whom certain neurotics fear, but contains within it also the masochistic and escapist solution of the same fear. It may represent a guilt-free expression of a hostile or sexual wish. Certain related devices of grotesqueness may be added in order to alter the quality of the symptomatic act from what is fierce to what is funny, thereby converting possible censure into applause and approbation.