[[quoteright:300:[[Film/TheGoonies http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SlothTheGoonies.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300: I swear on my life, they've got... an "It", a giant "It". They got it chained to the wall.]]
->'''Dr. Hibbert''': But what to do with poor Hugo? Too crazy for Boys Town, too much of a boy for Crazy Town. The child was an outcast. So, we did the only humane thing.
->'''Homer''': We chained Hugo up in the attic like an animal and fed him a bucket of fish heads once a week.
%%Marge: It saved our marriage!
-->--'''''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'''''

%% One quote is sufficient. Please place additional entries on the quotes tab.

This is when a character with mental problems, and often some physical deformity, is locked away because s/he will never fit into society, usually either in the attic or in the basement, and often by a CorruptHick. The more of a BigFancyHouse, the better; in fact, the smarter ones will sometimes have a secret system of peepholes and secret passages so they can move around as they please. They also tend to be inbred.

There are two basic plotlines for this type of character:
# The protagonist is an outsider, wondering what kind of bizarre secret the Corrupt Hicks are keeping. The Bertha will then either tend to be [[TheDragon Dragon]]-type enemies with little personality of their own, or they're TheGrotesque, sympathetic victims. When done well, this can be an effective scare because it so aptly encapsulates the frightening insularity of the TownWithADarkSecret.
# The main characters have just [[HauntedHeadquarters moved into a new house]], and unbeknownst to them, are being watched by one of these whose caretakers have died some time ago. These are scary because of how they personify the fears of buying a new house: that your house has some hideous aspect that you haven't seen, but can see you.

This trope is named for the landmark work of feminist literary criticism by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, referring to [[spoiler:Mr. Rochester's wife]] in Charlotte Brontë's ''Literature/JaneEyre''. The analysis indicates that this trope first popularly appeared, in all places, in Victorian women's literature, where depicting some women as crazy people was an easy way to make female villains with whom readers would be unlikely to sympathize. Obviously, this plan was not a complete success.

Subversions occasionally arise when it turns out that there was a very good reason this person was locked away in the first place. Maybe they're AxeCrazy, maybe they suffer from an extremely contagious form of illness, or perhaps the person is being hidden for their own safety to keep them from being kidnapped or murdered.

Usually either AxCrazy or TheGrotesque. Compare ManInTheIronMask.
----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* [[spoiler: Sakurako]] from ''SakuraGari'', who has been locked in an old house for nine years. We later find out more about her. [[spoiler:She had always been TheUnfavorite even before Souma arrived to the family, but was allowed to live in the more modern BigFancyHouse. Even after Lady Saiki's death, she was staying there - it was only after her CreepyChild behavior went UpToEleven ''in public'' that she was confined to the old house as punishment, with the butler Katou as her personal caretaker. The rest of the family and servants tell the outsiders that Sakurako died of illness a year after her mom died.]] Also, unlike other cases [[spoiler: Sakurako ''is'' allowed to leave the "attic" and come back to the main home, mostly because of a fire; when speaking to Souma, she also offhandedly mentions that she still has difficulty to walk due to being locked in a relatively small space for so long.]]
* Hisoka Kurosaki from ''YamiNoMatsuei'' is locked away by his parents because of his [[TheEmpath empathic powers]]. [[spoiler: In the manga, it's also to keep him from being the prey to a demon who raped ''both'' of his parents and forcibly impregnated his mom.]]
* At least two cases from ''Manga/DetectiveConan'' have people trapped in attics and becoming unstable.
** One featured a gifted writer, hiding in the attic after committing a murder over a decade ago. He was very sane indeed, just rather confused/fascinated over a cellphone.
** One case had a subversion. Ran's father is called in by two men, to find treasure allegedly hidden in their new house. Throughout the story, Conan catches glimpses of a shadowy, scary figure sneaking around, leading readers to suspect this trope. [[spoiler:It turns out that the figure is not dangerous or insane, but was the actual owner of the house, locked in the attic when the two men broke in to steal the treasure. She's fine when she's released.]]
* [[spoiler: Towa]] from MermaidSaga.
* As a result of her insanity caused by the events of the Eclipse, Casca from ''{{Berserk}}'' is locked in an elf mine for two years for her own safety, since the elf mine is protected from the evil spirits that are [[AllergicToEvil attracted to Casca's brand.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* One of [[Comicbook/{{X-Men}} Sabretooth's]] [[MultipleChoicePast possible backstories]] shows him as a child chained up in the basement with a dog dish, his father periodically coming down to yank out his claws and teeth.
* The mini-series ''Freaks Of The Heartland'' is told from the perspective of the normal brother of one of the several [[TheGrotesque Grotesques]] who've been locked away since the small town's BizarreBabyBoom years ago.
* At one point, ''Dv8'', ''Gen13'''s EvilCounterpart, meets an even eviller team called Twist. One of Twist's KickTheDog moments is when one of them shows Dv8's Evo a cellar under their base crammed full of BodyHorror[=s=] mutated by the same Phlebotinum that gave the others powers, and tries to get him to have sex with her in front of them.
* Horridus from ''TheSavageDragon'' and ''Freak Force'' is a reptilian-looking HalfHumanHybrid whose parents kept her chained up in the basement. But ''TSD'' being a comic book where the main hero is a green guy with a fin on his head, Horridus didn't have that much trouble integrating with society.
* The Jersey Devil in ''Hoax Hunters'' was born a hideous monster, and grew up in a chicken-wire cage at a New Jersey orphanage. It was built into the building just for him, with two sides facing outdoors so he could see the sun and get fresh air.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* In ''Film/HaroldAndKumarEscapeFromGuantanamoBay''. The titular duo wind up in Alabama, and are befriended by an UglyGuyHotWife, who happen to be siblings. Their cycloptic, freaky, inbred son is kept in the basement when company comes over. They weren't {{Corrupt Hick}}s though, they were nice people, they just happened to follow BrotherSisterIncest and have TheGrotesque as a child.
* DarioArgento's ''Film/{{Phenomena}}'' has one of these. He's a SerialKiller CreepyChild living in [[spoiler: the basement of the protagonist's teacher, who is his mother]].
* Karl Childers in ''SlingBlade'' spends his childhood as one of these. The long-term hospitalization following his murder of his mother may also qualify.
* Sloth from ''Film/TheGoonies''. A sympathetic example of Type 1.
* The title creatures of ''ThePeopleUnderTheStairs''. Tweaked, however, in that the imprisoned things weren't born that way, but were kidnapped as young children and imprisoned under horrid conditions that caused their degeneration.
* In ''TheUnearthly'' (which famously includes Tor Johnson saying "[[{{Narm}} Time for go to bed]]") the MadScientist [[HamAndCheese played by]] JohnCarradine has a bunch of degenerate caveman things in the basement. [[MST3K Crow]] thinks they look like Ian Anderson on the cover of Aqualung.
* The Merrye relatives in the basement in ''{{Spiderbaby}}''.
* The titular character of ''Film/{{Powder}}''.
* The titular freak in ''Castle Freak'' has been locked in a dungeon by his mother since his early childhood, fed scraps and beaten regularly, among other things. When she dies he is forced to break out or starve. As you'd expect he's not all there. Definitely qualifies as a [[TheGrotesque Grotesque]].
* The first ''BasketCase'' film although Belial's titular "attic" is portable and he doesn't seem to complain about staying hidden. Furthermore he's even said to prefer to keep to himself in the sequels.
** If mobile "attics" count, then Blaster from ''MadMaxBeyondThunderdome'' might be a borderline case. He lives behind an armored mask and never associates with anyone except as Master's transport, and when the mask comes off, it's revealed that he [[spoiler: has Down's Syndrome and is incapable of surviving in Bartertown's cutthroat society without the protective Master's supervision]].
* Nick Frost apparently plays one of these in ''[[Film/{{Grindhouse}} Don't]]'', but really, it's hard to tell.
* ''Film/TheOrphanage'' does this with the disfigured (but not disabled) Tomas by putting him in a mask and keeping him in a secret room.
** But in something of a subversion he's still allowed out, and to play with other children. The whole matter of keeping him in that room seemed to be a quirk of his overprotective mother, more than anything else.
* There's a movie called ''The Gay Bed and Breakfast of Terror''. The crazy Jesus freak mother is keeping her mutant son Manfred (who [[spoiler:was conceived during a gang bang at the Republican National Convention]]) locked up in the attic until she wants him to kill someone.
* This is what happens to the two novices in ''The Hideout'' after one of them [[LoveMakesYouEvil killed her Mother Superior and other two old women to prove her boyfriend she loved him]], and one of the women was the guy's mother, letting him free to inherit. They didn't see anything wrong with any of that, though. [[spoiler: and the surviving one still doesn't.]]
* The Creator/ValLewton classic ''IWalkedWithAZombie'' (based on ''Literature/JaneEyre'') may feature one of these. Like many of the films Lewton produced, the reality is open to interpretation.
* Invoked in ''Paranoiac'', where Simon ''thinks'' [[spoiler: he's keeping his brother locked up inside the garage. What he hasn't realized is that Tony is [[MummiesAtTheDinnerTable long dead.]]]]
* In the HammerHorror ''Film/TheBridesOfDracula'', Baron Meinster is introduced this way: his mother keeps his locked up in a wing of the castle. Her stated reason is that he is unwell. He claims that it's because she's trying to cheat him out of his inheritance. It turns out that he's a vampire (the clue is in the movie title) and she's trying to keep him [[SealedEvilInACan locked up]], but doesn't have the heart to kill him.
* Saul Femm from ''Film/TheOldDarkHouse'' (1932), though not incredibly deformed, is a raging madman with a taste for arson and is thus kept locked in his room by the rest of the family with the help of a mute and deformed butler.
* In the ''Film/BlackChristmas2006'' remake, after murdering his father, Billy's mother and her lover keep Billy locked in the attic, where he goes steadily more insane before finally snapping one Christmas and murdering them (as well as mutilating his sister/daughter Agnes).
* The Penguin in ''Film/BatmanReturns'' spends his early years as this, before his parents get rid of him by throwing him to the river.
* The opening narration for ''KissTheGirls'' describes a self-inflicted version of this: Casanova moves into the attic of the house where his "first love" lives.
* Larry Blamire's ''Film/DarkAndStormyNight'' has Thessaly, [[spoiler: Sinas Cavendar's insane ViolentGlaswegian daughter.]] She's actually treated pretty sympathetically.
* The mother in ''TheCurse'', loosely based on ''[[Creator/HPLovecraft The Color out of Space]]'' becomes one of these late in the film.
* Zelda of ''Film/PetSematary''.
* ''The Beast in the Cellar''.
* The titular character in ''BadRonald''.
* In ''HouseAtTheEndOfTheStreet'', Carrie Anne fits the trope [[spoiler: [[SubvertedTrope except not.]]]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* [[http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Admirer-ebook/dp/B007SRR8S0/ref=sr_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1341445195&sr=1-6&keywords=secret+admirer Secret Admirer]]on Amazon's Kindle Network.
* Arthur "Boo" Radley from ''Literature/ToKillAMockingbird''.
* In the short story, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by UrsulaKLeGuin, a filthy, malnourished little child of indeterminate gender is locked in a windowless room and treated as an animal for the vague good of the community.
* Mr. Edward Rochester keeps his violently insane wife Bertha locked in the attic of Thornfield in ''Literature/JaneEyre''.
** Jean Rhys' ''Wide Sargasso Sea'' examines this example (yes, this one -- same woman) more deeply, giving a possible BackStory of (the literal) Mad Woman in the Attic.
** She also appears in ''[[Literature/ThursdayNext The Eyre Affair]]'', in which she inadvertently shows the heroine how to defeat the BigBad.
* ''Literature/TheYellowWallpaper'': the main character is bedridden with some illness, and locked up in a room with ugly, confusing wallpaper. She goes crazy as a result. It's primarily a critique on the medicine of the time and the then-disturbingly common practice of keeping "ill" women stuck in a small room with nothing to stimulate them (this was actually done to the author and she nearly went insane as a result). It's also a very creepy little psychological horror story.
* Creator/HPLovecraft was fond of this one: he contributed multiple examples.
** ''The Outsider'', who is also in an OntologicalMystery.
** ''Literature/TheDunwichHorror'', a HalfHumanHybrid kept in the attic by a CorruptHick.
*** This particular example eventually grew so large that the man had to tear down the inside walls, nail the windows shut, and move into one a shed. Also, it's implied that the attic dweller called all the shots.
** ''The Shadow Over Innsmouth'': The narrator makes reference to a relative (who has been slowly transforming into a fish man) locked away in an asylum. It's also noted that a few of the Innsmouth people have gotten so deformed that they don't go outside anymore.
** The De Le Poer family from ''The Rats in the Walls'' kept degenerate people [[PeopleFarms as livestock]] in the basement.
** The Gardner family in ''Literature/TheColourOutOfSpace'' have Nabby Gardner, Nahum Gardner's wife, who goes crazy as a result of exposure to the titular Colour, and is locked in the attic, where she becomes even more strange... Same thing also happened with Thaddeus, one of the sons.
** A debatable example, the [[CannibalClan degenerate inbred Martense Family]] in ''The Lurking Fear''. They live in a series of tunnels underneath their ancestral manner, linking to the graveyard.
** Rhoby Harris in ''The Shunned House''. After the presence haunting the titular house attacks her, her protests are dismissed as just another symptom of her insanity.
* ''ThePhantomOfTheOpera'' is an early example, and also interesting because he exiled himself.
* ''Literature/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'' is a sympathetic example.
* In RichardMatheson's short story "Born of Man and Woman", a deformed child is kept chained in the basement by its parents. [[spoiler:From the fragmentary descriptions we get, "deformed" is a severe understatement.]]
* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures novel ''Vanishing Point'', this trope is reconstructed with a woman keeping a number of deformed and disabled people away from society. But in a bit of a twist, she's quite nice to them, treating them almost like family, and refers to them affectionately as "mooncalves". The story takes place in a Dystopia where they wouldn't be safe anywhere else.
* In ''The Shuttered Room'', a woman returns to her childhood home where her insane sister has been imprisoned by an elderly aunt.
* Used in ''Wolf in the Fold'' from the ''HawkAndFisher'' series.
* Carly from F. Paul Wilson's ''Faces'': The existence of others like her is implied in this and other Adversary Cycle stories.
* In DavidEddings' ''TheElenium'' series, the tower of a GothicHorror castle becomes the holding place for a noblewoman driven mad by DemonicPossession. Her last remaining loyal servant, unable to listen to her scream any more, finally slips poison into her food to ShootTheDog, and then becomes TheAtoner and joins an order of monks.
* The novel ''[[VCAndrews Flowers In The Attic]]'' is written from the point of view of children locked away in this manner, to hide their existence from their grandfather, who would disinherit their mother (his daughter) for having married and had children by [[spoiler:his son by his stepmother, a marriage that resulted in four healthy if somewhat inbred children]]. The grandmother is very much in on this (delivers meals, etc.), is rather abusive, and as Mom decides she has better things to do with her time than spend it with the kids, becomes the primary outside contact the kids have.
* There is a book, ''Woman in the Wall'', where an exceptionally shy girl with a phobia of wide-open spaces did this to herself, choosing to live inside the walls of her house instead of starting school. Then her family stopped seeing her or hearing her talk, though she would eat at night and fix things and sew.
* In Francis Hodgson Bernett's ''TheSecretGarden'', Mary's uncle keeps his son and Mary's cousin, a bedridden hunchback and sickly child named Colin, hidden away in the house for fear that he will not be able to survive in normal society, and shuns him because of the boy's resemblance to his dead mother.
* In ''[[{{Narnia}} The Magician's Nephew]]'', Digory and Polly, [[GenreSavvy being familiar with this trope]], consider that Uncle Andrew might have a mad wife hidden in his attic. He's actually experimenting with the rings that are among the {{Mac Guffin}}s of the series.
* The creature in ''Literature/StillLifeWithCrows'' is one of these kept in a cave who found his way out. Also Subverted in that he started out as a normal child (and apparently a very intelligent one) who was twisted by being forced to live in the cave (his mother gave birth out of wedlock, and her father forced this whole thing on her).
* Happens twice in ''HarryPotter''- to Harry himself in the first book, and [[spoiler: Dumbledore's little sister Ariana]]. Subverted with Harry, though, as he was locked in a cupboard under a stairway, but was allowed outside unless he showed signs of magic. He was then freed when all the letters came from Hogwarts, but only because his aunt and uncle thought the letters would stop coming if he slept in a different part of the house. And then he got locked in there anyway, and food was passed to him through a cat flap.
** As for [[spoiler: Ariana]] this was played semi-straight. She [[TheOphelia went mad]] [[spoiler: after an attack by a gang of Muggle boys, which could be construed as rape]] and was locked up after [[spoiler: her father was sent to prison for attacking the Muggle boys, and refusing to say why he did it]]. Everybody outside the family (the ones who knew about her existence, anyway) figured her mother had locked her up for being a Squib (a wizard with no magical ability), which was a bad thing to be during [[spoiler: Ariana's lifetime]]. Which, in the present in the novels, is still a bad thing.
* Chance the Gardener in ''BeingThere'' was isolated to the Old Man's house all of his life due to his mental retardation and no one but the maids who worked in the house knew he existed. And it's possible he's the Old Man's illegitimate son to boot. The story gets underway once the Old Man dies and he is turned out of the house by the lawyers who came to close the estate. He's a nice, well-spoken person, however (partially due to his being allowed to watch television, giving him some idea of proper behavior and speech), and winds up becoming a ParodySue when he encounters people who have no idea what he really is.
* The novel ''The Cellar'' is about a woman who keeps horrific rat-men in her old house.
* Paul Auster's ''[[Literature/TheNewYorkTrilogy City of Glass]]'' features a character that was brought up at home in complete isolation as part of a crackpot linguistic experiment by his father. At the time of the story, he has been recovered and mostly rehabilitated - he has learned to speak - but is still quite disconcerting.
* Subverted by ''The Adventure of the Paradol Chamber'', a SherlockHolmes pastiche written by June Thomson. A woman who has befriended a young nobleman hires Holmes to investigate because she's afraid that his servants have imprisoned him in his own house. As it turns out, not only do the servants have a very good reason for locking him up, the nobleman actually ''wanted'' to be imprisoned in the first place, since [[spoiler:it's revealed that he suffers from a form of hereditary madness that makes him AxeCrazy whenever it strikes. In one of his moments of sanity, the nobleman decided to have himself locked up to keep from being a danger to anyone.]]
** Another subversion comes from ''The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier'', written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself, that is much along these same lines. A soldier who made friends with another younger soldier in the Boer War hires Holmes when he thinks the younger soldier's parents are keeping him imprisoned on their family estate. It turns out [[spoiler:that the younger soldier actually contracted what he thinks is leprosy during his time in South Africa, and the family was actually keeping him at home in secret to treat him without his being locked up in a hospital. The younger soldier, who's actually only suffering from treatable icthyosis, voluntarily went along with this.]]
** Then there's "The Yellow Face," in which the ''suspected'' Madwoman in the Attic in fact turns out to be [[spoiler:simply the main character's mixed-race daughter from a previous marriage, whom she'd kept hidden from her new husband. The story has a happy ending - the little girl is somehow quite healthy and happy, and her new stepfather accepts her immediately, but leaves you kind of unsure if this has lots of UnfortunateImplications or is simply a plea for tolerance at a time when having a mixed-race child was that severe a social liability. Or both.]]
* The protagonist in NeilGaiman's short story "Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House of the Night of Dread Desire" has an Aunt Agatha chained in his attic. This has no bearing on the plot, it's just one of the things that establish that he lives in a world of Gothic/adventure/fantasy/horror fiction clichés. A character in the story he's writing is also mentioned to have (had) a "hopelessly insane" wife whom he claimed to be dead. Well, he ''is'' writing a realistic, slice of life story based on the world he's living in.
* The horror novel ''Others'' has a whole wing of a nursing home filled with Freaks in the Attic. Some of them are nice people who just have a physical deformity of varying severity. The titular Others, though, either because of their imprisonment, or what the director of the home has been doing to them, or just madness, are true monsters.
* Both Charlie Angelfield and his father, George, in ''Literature/TheThirteenthTale'' go mad after the death of their loved ones, and enter into a sort of self inflicted imprisonment where they lock themselves in their rooms for extended periods of time.
* Hortensia from IsabelAllende's "Cuentos de Eva Luna" (Takes of Eva Luna).
* In ''[[AuntDimnity Aunt Dimity: Vampire Hunter]]'', Lori's working hypothesis explaining the creepy looking vampire the twins saw in the woods turns on this idea; she thinks the neighbouring [=DuCaral=] family had a crazy son they kept in the house rather than an asylum, and the man escaped (possibly more than once) and stood in the woods watching the boys.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* Parodied on ''TheLeagueOfGentlemen'' with David, [[BrotherSisterIncest inbred]] son of corrupt hicks Edward and Tubbs Tattsyrup. They keep him in the attic.
* George Cranleigh in the ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial "Black Orchid".
** Control and Redvers Fenn-Cooper from another ''Series/DoctorWho'' story, "Ghost Light".
** Also showed up in the [=NewWho=] episode "The Idiot's Lantern," in which a family keeps Grandma locked in her bedroom [[spoiler: to hide the fact that her mind and face (yes, her ''[[TheBlank face]]'') have been stolen by an alien menace.]] Note that this episode was written by the same man who played the above David Tattsyrup.
** [[spoiler:The Doctor]] in the episode "The Crimson Horror"
* Played with in ''TheTwilightZone'' episode "The Howling Man". The title character is locked in a monastery cell and spends a lot of time howling mournfully. The protagonist of the story thinks he's crazy, but after the protagonist releases him [[spoiler: he turns out to be [[LouisCypher Satan in disguise]]. [[SealedEvilInACan Oops]].]]
* ''TheXFiles'' had an episode called "Home" that dealt with several backwoods-horror tropes, including this one.
** And of course also "Post Modern Promehtheus", which was a deliberate deconstruction and AffectionateParody of Frankenstein/deformed monster.
* The ''Series/BabylonFive'' episode "Grey 17 is Missing" featured a bizarre cult that had taken over one of the decks of the titular space station, hidden it on the blueprints and computer schematics, isolated it so no one else could enter...and then locked up themselves on that level with a ravenous alien monster which would periodically eat one of the cult members and thus make them one with the universe via a perfect death.
* ''DesperateHousewives'' did it with Caleb.
* The ''Series/MacGyver'' episode "The Secret of Parker House" had one of these. [[spoiler:He turned out to be a nice guy.]]
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' has this as the twist in [[spoiler: "Family Remains", when they discover the last owner of the house kept the twins he conceived with his daughter. The daughter committed suicide and the father was killed by the children, then a new family moved in...]]
** Which, par for the course, was played quite disturbingly. Once again, Supernatural takes the trope, and fills it to the brim with NightmareFuel.
* In one of the 1990s ''[[Series/TheOuterLimits Outer Limits]]'' various ScienceIsBad episodes, a couple considering [[DesignerBabies genetic enhancement]] for their unborn child learn that their neighbors' supposedly dead son is actually an AxCrazy basement-dwelling monster as a result of genetic engineering GoneHorriblyWrong.
* [[spoiler: Jane Rochelle]] in the ''MidsomerMurders'' episode "Judgement Day".
* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' has some parents lock their boy in the basement and never let him see the sun, because [[spoiler:sunlight turns him into a super-strong, violent, rampaging monster]].
* Done with the half-breed [[MagnificentBastard Scorpius]] in ''Series/{{Farscape}}.'' The episode "Incubator" reveals that was raised on a Scarran ship in a single room and his only visitor was his "nanny," Tauza- until Scorpius escaped. Quite worryingly, it's implied that Scorpius' [[TheWoobie mother]] was imprisoned in the same cell in a pretty similar fashion; according to Tauza, her [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil impregnation]] at the hands of one of the guards [[BreakTheCutie drove her insane]]- making her a quite literal case of Madwoman In The Attic.
* [[spoiler: Subverted]] in one episode of ''Series/{{Sanctuary}}'', the one with the young autistic boy who draws monsters, a missing twin brother, their dead father, and the room under the floor, which has shackles welded to one wall. [[spoiler: The team originally assume the twin brother was kept down there by an abusive father. By the end of the episode, it turns out that the father was an Abnormal who developed laser eyes during fits, and he was locking himself down there to protect his family.]]
* ''Series/{{CSI}}'' had a rather sweet young woman who happened to have a serious case of hypertrichosis and lived in a secret room in her brother's (also a sufferer, but to a lesser extent) house. She wasn't locked up, but she'd been kept in the house in daylight hours for many years and always retreated to her room when visitors came, so no one knew she was there until after her brother's murder.
* In the MadeForTVMovie ''BadRonald'', young Ronald's mother locks him up and hides him so the police can't arrest him for a murder he committed. When she dies, he remains in the house, and a new family moves in.
* On ''Series/AmericanHorrorStory'', Constance kept her disfigured son, Beauregard, in the attic. CPS was going to take him away but she had Larry kill him first, claiming he died on natural causes.
* A storyline on ''AllMyChildren'' revealed that mysterious millionaire Dimitri Marick (who at the time was a new character) had hidden his wife away, although she wasn't "mad", just severely physically and mentally injured due to a catastrophic riding accident. Making the ''JaneEyre'' ripoff complete, this is all revealed during a ball being held to celebrate Dimitri's engagement to another woman when the wheelchair-bound wife is brought into the ballroom by her Aside from being stunned to learn that her intended is already married, she's further creeped out upon seeing that she bears a strong resemblance to the woman.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* The Music/AliceCooper song "Former Lee Warmer" is sung from the perspective of a man who keeps his mute and apparently insane brother locked up in his attic.
* AphexTwin's ''Rubber Johnny'' video features a deformed wheelchair-bound kid in a dark basement.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Myth and Legend]]
* If not the UrExample, then certainly the [[AncientGreece Knossos Example]] would be the Minotaur. When Minos decided to keep a bull he had been sent by Poseidon to sacrifice to him, Poseidon made Minos's queen fall in love with the bull and conceive a child with it. To hide the resulting hybrid monster, the king commissioned Daedalus [Icarus' papa, and the man who helped the queen consumate her unnatural love] to build an elaborate labyrinth under the city from which no one could escape.
* The Monster of Glamis, a deformed child supposedly born to the Bowes-Lyon family and bricked up in Glamis Castle.
* Some versions of the JerseyDevil's BackStory would qualify, depending on how soon after its birth the creature escapes into the woods.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* In the third edition ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' products from Arthaus, the role of half-orcs is instead given to 'calibans': a PC race of Berthas in the Attic, usually born to human mothers who'd been exposed to black magic or curses while pregnant.
* Saul [[Creator/HPLovecraft Whateley]], resident of [[MeaningfulName Gomorra]] in ''{{Deadlands}}: The Weird West'', was locked in the attic by his BigScrewedUpFamily. His insane rantings are still loud enough to keep others in town awake at night. He's useless in a fight, though he might be seen as a sympathetic villain. [[spoiler: He actually sees the future, [[MadOracle and it's driven him quite mad]]. The family keeps him alive for scrying... and for unnerving the townsfolk.]]
* [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong Genestealer]] [[HalfHumanHybrids Hybrids]] in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' tend to possess obvious physical deformities such as greyish skin or multiple limbs until the third or fourth generation, and as such have to be hidden from the rest of society, either by their [[{{Brainwashed}} doting]] parents or the other members of the [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Genestealer]] [[TheInfiltration Cult]]. A favored haunt is a [[WretchedHive hive city's]] Underhive, the derelict, lawless lower levels of the Imperium's arcologies.
* Ogre Gorgers from ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' are cast out of a society of {{Big Eater}}s for the crime of being born too ''scrawny''. Thrown into the labyrinthine, [[GreenRocks Warpstone]]-laced tunnels beneath an ogre settlement, if the Gorger survives the isolation and Warpstone will quickly mutate it into an insane, pallid, degenerate, and above all else ''ravenous'' monster.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* The InteractiveFiction game ''Videogame/{{Anchorhead}}'' features William, an inbred boy that has been [[TouchedByVorlons touched by]] {{Eldritch Abomination}}s.
** As does Adam Cadre's ''Shrapnel''.
* In ''[[Videogame/ChzoMythos Five Days a Stranger]]'', the deformed, mentally challenged son of Sir Roderick Defoe is kept in a secret room of the house.
* In ''VideoGame/CallOfCthulhuDarkCornersOfTheEarth'', a woman in the [[spoiler: Waite's home]] is kept in the attic as she falls to TheCorruption. The husband is just trying to keep his family safe, though.
** If you know about Lovecraft's story the game is based on, it's clear that the "woman" [[spoiler:had never been a human being. The Third Oath of Dagon demands a follower to marry a pureblooded Deep One, and conceive a child with it. It's less than clear why she would murder her own child though, alien monster or not.]]
** [[spoiler: She might have been crazy even by Deep One standards.]]
** [[spoiler: It's explained in the tabletop campaign that Dark Corners is based off of: Since the Deep Ones are immortal, the females try to kill all the young, while the males want them to expand the civilization.]]
* ''{{Scratches}}'', in a combination of both Type 1 & 2.
* Appears in the original ''VideoGame/ClockTower''.
** In the form of[[spoiler: a giant, deformed child who is the brother of the killer that's been chasing you around. And he's not happy about being woken up.]]
* The [[LighterAndSofter Lighter, Softer]], [[BonnieScotland Pedantically Scottish]] and less successful remake of ''VideoGame/TheSeventhGuest'', ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clandestiny Clandestiny]]'', features the ''Monster Child [=MacPhiles=]'', who not only is a fright to behold but would haunt her familial captors with beautiful singing, just to remind them [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman what scoundrels they are for locking her away]].
* The ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'''s [[SuperpowerLottery uberpowered]] [[EnfantTerrible little]] [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampire]], Flandre Scarlet, has lived in the basement of the Scarlet Devil Mansion for the past 495 years at her (slightly) older sister Remilia's behest. Since Flandre has a child's naivety, emotional instability that borders on insanity, and happens to have [[PersonOfMassDestruction the power to almost effortlessly destroy anything]] ("I went 'kyu' and it went boom"), this is probably more of a safety measure than anything else, and official sources suggest that Flandre is okay with the arrangement. Fan portrayals play the situation for horror or drama as needed, and can vary from a sympathetic Flandre being locked away by her domineering older sister to a secretly-heartbroken Remilia forced to cage a psychotically destructive Flan for her (and/or the world's) own good.
* Kinzo Ushiromiya in ''VisualNovel/UminekoNoNakuKoroNi'' locked ''himself'' in his little mini-apartment at the top of the Kuwadorian mansion in Rokkenjima and refuses to come out. He's certainly crazy enough to qualify.
** [[spoiler: In a subversion, it's not that he's crazy. He's actually, well, ''dead''. Krauss and Natsuhi found his corpse, burned it, and then told the others he was cooping himself there so they wouldn't find out.]]
* Somewhat reversed in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}: Point Lookout'' with [[http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Kenny_%28Point_Lookout%29 Kenny]], who ran away after his deformed parents hid him in their basement for lacking the right "marks."
* ''VideoGame/DoubleSwitch'': It is revealed in the game that [[spoiler:Eddie was locked in the apartment building basement by his own father, Lyle. Lyle did this because Eddie is AxCrazy, and he was just trying to protect people from Eddie]].
* In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilCodeVeronica'', a monster codenamed Nosferatu, who is actually the mutated Alexander Ashford, is imprisoned in the Antarctic Base, and [[SealedEvilInACan escapes]] shortly after Claire and Steve arrive. In the remake of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil'', the grotesquely deformed and chained Lisa Trevor wanders the basement and backwoods of the Spencer estate.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* Parodied in a HalloweenEpisode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', with Bart's EvilTwin, Hugo, locked up in the attic. The TwistEnding was that ''Bart'' was the Evil Twin, so Hugo was allowed to go free (even though he was clearly insane - then again, you'd be insane too, if in his shoes) and Bart is locked up in his place.
* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' are a parody example that got loose. The town tries to lock them in the old watertower repeatedly, but they just keep escaping using Carton Physics. And where would we be now without them, hmm? United States, Canada, Mexico Panama....
* Implied that the Morgendorffers in ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}'' had moved into a house that had one of these. Daria actually picked the room with the padded walls. Course, we don't get to see that.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "Marjorine", Butters is selected to [[FakingTheDead fake his death]]. When he returns home, his parents chain him up in the basement believing he is a DamagedSoul and kill a woman so he can feed. Due to NegativeContinuity, he is out in the next episode.
* ''TheOblongs'' do this to Granny. Sort of. Their son isn't even aware Granny is still alive.
* Toph of ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' is (or was, before she became TheRunaway) a comparatively mild case. She was perfectly sane, but her parents kept her away from the world because she was blind--not out of shame, but out of a misguided desire to "protect" her. And she wasn't kept in the typical "chained in the attic/basement" way--it was more of a GildedCage setting, as she lived in luxury and had the run of her whole estate.
* [[JerkassWoobie The Earl of Lemongrab]] of ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' is a rather interesting variation of this. He, being [[GoneHorriblyWrong a failed science experiment]], is [[NoSocialSkills socially inept]], a complete spazz, a [[{{Jerkass}} jerky]], mean douchebag, [[NoIndoorVoice a screaming wackjob]], and [[TooDumbToLive painfully stupid]]. His creator, Princess Bubblegum, stuck him in [[GildedCage the admittedly esthetically pleasing Castle Lemongrab]], where he lived in [[LonersAreFreaks isolation]] for quite a while, (because he [[HatesEveryoneEqually "doesn't get along with others"]] and [[NotEvilJustMisunderstood "no one understands him"]]) until he came to the Candy Kingdom; once to [[InadequateInheritor inherit the throne]] from the underage princess, and once on his own accord to [[IJustWantToHaveFriends seek out companionship]].
* In an episode of ''TheCritic'', a grizzled sailor tells Geraldo that the Shermans keep a hideous child locked in their basement (read: Jay) and points to a lumpy shadow to prove it. Geraldo, not buying it, immediately recognizes the shape as a sack of potatoes.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Actually happened (''hopefully'' not anymore); A program on old houses featured a new homeowner doing research into a recently-purchased 19th century house, trying to determine the purpose of a second-story room with iron bars on the windows, a metal floor with welded metal loops for attaching chains, and a door that locks from the outside. While researching at the library, an old woman overheard him describing the room, tapped him on the shoulder, and gently explained to him, "You have a ''[[UnusualEuphemism Disappointments Room]],''" where children with developmental disorders were kept by families that didn't know what else to do, and didn't want their secret known. Further research turned up the former owner's family gravestone at the local cemetery; there was one name, a girl's, and a set of dates indicating death at a young age, that did not correspond to any of the family members listed in the town's archives.
** [[http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32888&view=next The veracity of this is questionable.]] There are apparently no other accounts of "disappointments rooms", and many problems with the story. A disabled toddler needed chains to be controlled? Loud clanking chains weren't counterproductive to the goal of keeping her a secret? The massive construction project required to build it in the first place didn't raise neighbors' eyebrows? They were determined to keep her very existence secret, but had no problem revealing it posthumously by giving her a public burial? Unless there are better corroborating sources than the one highly speculative account, I think it's safe to classify this as an urban legend.
*** Someone familiar with the actions and behaviors of children with learning disorders/other psychological and mental problems points out that strong restraints or physical force are often necessary to maintain such children's behavior. As for the clanking chains etc., neighbors might have [[TheNotSecret noticed without acknowledging noticing]].
* A few supposed 'feral children' were locked up and isolated from human contact at a very young age, possibly because they were already a bit odd. The abuse doesn't exactly help.
* Then there is the tale of "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_%28feral_child%29 Genie]]" Genie spent her entire childhood locked-up and tied to a potty after her father (who wasn't the pillar of sanity himself) learned she was "mildly retarded" and blew it out of proportion. When she was rescued, it was discovered that she could not speak and she had a distinct "bunny" walk.
* Feral child [[http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article1186860.ece Dani Lierow]], rescued at age seven after having been confined in her house and severely neglected, has been adopted and is growing up with her new family.
* [[FeralChild Kaspar Hauser]] claimed to have been one of these.
* The legend of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_of_Glamis Monster of Glamis]], which seems to have at least some factual basis.
* John Langdon Down (of Down Syndrome fame) advised against this in his writings, arguing that [[FairForItsDay institutionalization was more humane]], and that isolation and lack of education tended to make mental defects worse.
* Supposedly the Lemp Family--founders of the now-defunct Lemp brewery--had a a son who was born deformed. He was known as the Monkey Boy, and kept locked in a cage suspended ten feet off the ground, deep in the caverns under the brewery. The cage is still there.
* At points in the history of treating mental illnesses and syndromes, this has been the ''humane'' option--for reasons varying from the then-current State of the Art ideas of mental illness to modern, enlightened laws that make it impossible to permanently institutionalize many of those who are only functional ''in'' an institution. It mostly takes being disabled to the point of not being legally responsible for yourself, or having killed a few people the ''last'' time you [[AxCrazy stopped being functional]].
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Henry#Sarah.27s_illness Patrick Henry]] kept his wife in their Viriginia basement for the last four years of her life, feeling it was more humane than the public hospital. Given that she would have had a windowless cell with chains and a chamber pot a the aforementioned hospital, he was probably correct.
* King George V of England's youngest son Prince John (1905-1919) - who was epileptic and 'mentally feeble' (probably autistic) was rumoured to have had this done to him. The truth was that from about seven (when the expectation would have normally been for him to go to boarding school) he lived with his nanny in a cottage in Sandringham Park, socialised with estate workers' children, and probably had a happier childhood than his healthy brothers. But because of the embarrassment of having a son with mental disabilities, his royal parents seem to have preferred to remain silent about his life rather than publicly address the rumours.
* ''Theatre/TheDiaryOfAnneFrank'' is just one of the most famous examples of perhaps the ultimate subversion of this trope, people who were locked and hidden away for their own safety. At various times in history, people have been hidden in secret rooms to protect them from whoever wanted to kill them. In Anne's case, her family was hidden in a secret room in an office building to keep them from being murdered by ThoseWackyNazis. Tragically, they were found out and sent to the death camps, and almost all of them perished in TheHolocaust, except for Anne's father.
* Also subverted by the "Priest Holes" that are found in some English buildings that have survived from the time of the Tudor and Stuart monarchs, when Catholicism was punishable by fines, imprisonment, or even death - "Recusants", who refused to swear allegiance to the Monarch as the head of the Church, were considered guilty of high treason. Priests were sometimes sheltered by Catholic families, some of whom went so far as to build secret rooms into their properties where the Priest could hide in the event of the house being searched. These searches could last up to a week, and the search-party could bring carpenters and stonemasons along with them in an effort to find the hidden spaces.
[[/folder]]

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