One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Chief Bromden, the narrator and protagonist of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, is a tall, quiet, half Indian man who keeps to himself. At the psychiatric ward, he pretends to be deaf and dumb, which allows him to overhear almost everything. Bromden, as a character, is full of facades and metaphors, and also has ways of describing the psychiatric ward as well as society for what it is, unwelcoming, destructive and harsh, even if he cannot say due to his medication and mental instability. When McMurphy, a loud and confident transfer from a different psychiatric ward, comes to Bromden’s ward, Bromden begins to realize more and more what the ward really is, and is able to articulate how dehumanizing and cruel Nurse …show more content…
However, Bromden does not see it this way. The “fog” is Bromden’s hallucination that represents escapism from the oppression of Nurse Ratched. Although Bromden is a very observant person, making him a good narrator, he is flawed due to repeating hallucinations and delusions, specifically the “fog.” Because of the “fog,” Bromden has a specific take on the hospital, as well as society as a whole. His metaphors are insightful into what is truly happening at the ward, and what society sees of these men. The arrival of McMurphy only opens Bromden’s eyes even more, and leads to his eventual escape of the …show more content…
When he arrives, he is “baptized” in the shower. Later on, he takes some of the patients on a fishing trip, to strengthen their faith in his ways of rehabilitation, much like Jesus did with his twelve disciples. He also lays, by his own accord, on a cross shaped table to receive his electroshock treatment. This is a direct allusion to crucifixion, and he even equates himself to Christ when he asks if he will receive a “crown of thorns.” This imagery suggest a nearing martyrdom, and in the end, when McMurphy attacks Nurse Ratched, revealing that she is not in fact an unbeatable machine, he sacrifices himself for the freedom of the other patients. These actions have a biblical nature to them, and with his sacrifice, McMurphy becomes a savior for the patients, lifting their fog and setting them
It first started out as a hallucination for Bromden to show how he portrays his current situations in a different perspective .In the beginning of the novel, Kesey indicates that “it’s not so thick but what [he] can see if [he] strain real hard” (Kesey 42). The denotation of “strain” points out to the word “force” and in this case Kesey portrays how Bromden is the way he is being quiet because of how the Americans treated him and his father. The word “thick” refers to a bulky or heavy object, in this case the bulky object refers to the Combine. The Combine is an imagination figure of a hospital filled with people like Bromden and he thinks that people like him need to go into the Combine in order to come out fixed. Kesey makes it so Bromden can only “see” and hear, which lets Bromden to hallucinate because through his eyes he sees the fog; the fog shows how he has seen people get lobotomized and it ruins his thinking. While Bromden sees the condition Pete is in he thinks “one good thing--being simple like that put him out of the clutch of the Combine” (Kesey 50). Instead of “one thing” Kesey added in “good” which makes it look like Bromden himself is in a better state than Pete and that it could be worse if Bromden did talk, then Nurse R...
Chief Bromden, who is presumably deaf and dumb, narrates the story in third person. Mr. McMurphy enters the ward all smiles and hearty laughter as his own personal medicine. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a story about patients in a psychiatric hospital, who are under the power of Nurse Ratched. Mrs. Ratched has control over all the patients except for Mr. McMurphy, who uses laughter to fight her power. According to Chief Bromden, McMurphy "...knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy" (212). Laughter is McMurphy's medicine and tool to get him and the rest of the patients through their endless days at the hospital. The author's theme throughout the novel is that laughter is the best medicine, and he shows this through McMurphy's static character. The story is made up of series of conflicts between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched. McMurphy becomes a hero, changing the lives of many of the inmates. In the end, though, he pays for his actions by suffering a lobotomy, which turned him into a vegetable. The story ends when Bromden smothers McMurphy with a pillow and escapes to freedom.
From the moment McMurphy enters the ward it is clear to all that he is different and hard to control. He’s seen as a figure the rest of the patients can look up to and he raises their hopes in taking back power from the big nurse. The other patients identify McMurphy as a leader when he first stands up to the nurse at her group therapy, saying that she has manipulated them all to become “a bunch of chickens at a pecking party”(Kesey 55). He tells the patients that they do not have to listen to Nurse Ratched and he confronts her tactics and motives. The patients see him as a leader at this point, but McMurphy does not see the need for him to be leading alone. McMurphy is a strong willed and opinionated man, so when he arrives at the ward he fails to comprehend why the men live in fear, until Harding explains it to him by
In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the reader has the experience to understand what it was like to live in an insane asylum during the 1960’s. Kesey shows the reader the world within the asylum of Portland Oregon and all the relationships and social standings that happen within it. The three major characters’ groups, Nurse Ratched, the Black Boys, and McMurphy show how their level of power effects how they are treated in the asylum. Nurse Ratched is the head of the ward and controls everything that goes on in it, as she has the highest authority in the ward and sabotages the patients with her daily rules and rituals. These rituals include her servants, the Black Boys, doing anything she tells them to do with the patients.
McMurphy’s resistance against Nurse Ratched begins to awaken Bromden’s own ability to resist the grip of the nurse. Bromden slowly starts to see that he is an individual that possesses his own free will; in turn the fog begins to fade. Through Clarisse’s love of nature she begins to open Montag up to a world outside conformity. She see’s that Montag is not like everyone else and that he has the potential to become a free thinking individual. Clarisse is able to force Montag to confront his deeper issues with reality eventually making him realize his own potential.
The choice that a novelist makes in deciding the point of view for a novel is hardly a minor one. Few authors make the decision to use first person narration by secondary character as Ken Kesey does in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. By choosing Bromden as narrator instead of the central character of Randle Patrick McMurphy, Kesey gives us narration that is objective, that is to say from the outside of the central character, and also narration that is subjective and understandably unreliable. The paranoia and dementia that fill Bromden's narration set a tone for the struggle for liberation that is the theme of the story. It is also this choice of narrator that leads the reader to wonder at the conclusion whether the story was actually that of McMurphy or Bromden. Kesey's choice of narrative technique makes One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest a successful novel.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a compelling tale that brings a warning of the results of an overly conformist and repressive institution. As the narrator of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Chief Bromden, a paranoid half- Native American Indian man, has managed to go unnoticed for ten years by pretending to be deaf and dumb as a patient at an Oregon mental asylum. While he towers at six feet seven inches tall, he has fear and paranoia that stem from what he refers to as The Combine: an assemblage whose goal is to force society into a conformist mold that fits civilization to its benefit. Nurse Ratched, a manipulative and impassive former army nurse, dominates the ward full of men, who are either deemed as Acute (curable), or Chronic (incurable). A new, criminally “insane” patient named Randle McMurphy, who was transferred from the Pendleton Work Farm, eventually despoils the institution’s mechanical and monotonous schedule through his gambling, womanizing, and rollicking behavior.
‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ contains examples of behaviour and attitudes displayed by characters within the clinical environment of the psychiatric ward, which can be compared to behaviour found within contemporary American society. Notions of leadership and hierarchy within a class, sexism, and crime and punishment play a vital role in the telling of the story. Chief Bromden, the book’s narrator, darkly and fearfully portrays the institution. Within the walls of the harsh, bleak institution are several authority figures known as the "Combine" to the Chief. They control, direct, and manipulate every aspect of the lives of the patients.
Everybody wants to be accepted, yet society is not so forgiving. It bends you and changes you until you are like everyone else. Society depends on conformity and it forces it upon people. In Emerson's Self Reliance, he says "Society is a joint stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater." People are willing to sacrifice their own hopes and freedoms just to get the bread to survive. Although the society that we are living in is different than the one the Emerson's essay, the idea of fitting in still exists today. Although society and our minds make us think a certain way, we should always trust our better judgment instead of just conforming to society.
McMurphy, on the other hand, finds this setting to be suitable for no human being, and soon after arriving he sets the tone for change. “ Well what they got that man strapped down for,” says McMurphy, “ I don’t like that, no sir, it just aint dignified.” By coming to the hospital he brings a sense of realism and courage to the lives of these patients. They have been longing for leadership and McMurphy won’t be intimidated. “I’m thinkin’ a takin’ over this whole shebang,” says McMurphy, and he knows in order to do this he must instill courage into the patients of the ward.
Fred Wright, Lauren's instructor for EN 132 (Life, Language, Literature), comments, "English 132 is an introduction to English studies, in which students learn about various areas in the discipline from linguistics to the study of popular culture. For the literature and literary criticism section of the course, students read a canonical work of literature and what scholars have said about the work over the years. This year, students read One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey, a classic of American literature which dates from the 1960s counterculture. Popularized in a film version starring Jack Nicholson, which the class also watched in order to discuss film studies and adaptation, the novel became notable for its sympathetic portrayal of the mentally ill. For an essay about the novel, students were asked to choose a critical approach (such as feminist, formalist, psychological, and so forth) and interpret the novel using that approach, while also considering how their interpretation fit into the ongoing scholarly dialogue about the work. Lauren chose the challenge of applying a Marxist approach to One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. Not only did she learn about critical approaches and how to apply one to a text, she wrote an excellent essay, which will help other readers understand the text better. In fact, if John Clark Pratt or another editor ever want to update the 1996 Viking Critical Library edition of the novel, then he or she might want to include Lauren's essay in the next edition!"
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey begins with a short introduction by the narrator, Chief Bromden. Chief Bromden is a half Indian Chronic at the ward. Chronics are patients that have been in the ward for so long that people assume that they will never check out. During the time that Bromden was there, he acted as a dumb deaf mute without being caught by anyone. Though his condition does not seem as bad as some of the other Chronics—some were vegetables—it was evident that Bromden had problems with hallucinations and delusions from the final line of the first chapter, “But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.”
Even though McMurphy's own sacrifice of life is the price of his victory, he still attempts to push the ward patients to hold thier own personal opinions and fight for what is ethically right. For instinace, McMurphy states, "But I tried though,' he says. 'Goddammit, I sure as hell id that much, now didn't I?" McMurphy strains to bring the 'fellas' courage and determination in a place full of inadequacy and "perfection." McMurphy obtains a lot of courage in maintaining his own sort of personal integrity, and trying to keep the guys' intergrity and optimistic hope up.
B. The effect that the Nurse and the ward have on Bromden 1. could not smell 2. thinks of himself as little 3. hides in the fog 4. fears everything 5. sees himself as comic 6. hallucinates II. Bromden in progress A. Gives up deaf and dumb B. Great turn - around C. Begins to smell things D. Regains his laugh E. Loosens up III. Bromden at the end A. Bromden escapes B. Bromden is a hero C. McMurphy is death; Bromden strength D. Bromden becomes big IV. Conclusion A. Modern world; machines destroy B. Nurse Ratched the machine C. Modern world is the combine Bromden and his Changing Mind In One Flew Over the Cuckoo?s Nest by Ken Kesey, Chief Bromden is a character who has to work his way back to being and acting like a real human after so many years of being ?
Initially the ward is run as if it was a prison ward, but from the moment the brawling, gambling McMurphy sets foot on the ward it is identified that he is going to cause havoc and provide change for the patients. McMurphy becomes a leader, a Christ like figure and the other patients are his disciples. The person who is objective to listen to his teachings at first is Chief Bromden (often called Bromden), but then he realizes that he is there to save them and joins McMurphy and the Acutes (meaning that they have possibility for rehabilitation and release) in the protest against Nurse Ratched, a bureaucratic woman who is the protagonist of the story, and the `Combine' (or society).