Point of view-The story is told by the point of view of Chief Bromden, a patient at a mental health hospital. He expresses his own emotions as well as providing background details on the characters and setting which enables the readers to comprehend the story better. -Character Development- All of the characters experience significant development throughout the story. This starts when McMurphy first enters the hospital and teaches the patients to not be afraid of expressing their feelings. For example, he wanted to watch the world series in the television, but the television hours were at a different time than the world series. He got some patients to vote for the time to be changed by questioning why they were afraid to vote for the change. “You afraid if you raise your hand that the old buzzard'll cut it off”(pg 117). with the aid of McMurphy, chief Bromden goes from withdrawn with flashbacks on his time in the war to actually participating in activities instead of hiding away. “I noticed vaguely that I was getting so’s I could see some good in the life around me. McMurphy was teaching me”(pg 223). Lastly, McMurphy's efforts to rebel against the system and Big Nurse's rules do not go to waste. Chief Bromden runs away from The asylum, and is finally free at the end of the novel (pg 310-311). He was free of the asylum and its' rules. Harding also speaks up to Big Nurse when she tells him that McMurphy will be back after his electroshock treatment. At the beginning of the novel, he wouldn't have dared to say anything to her because he would have been too afraid, but he tells he that he thinks she is “so full of bullshit”(pg 307). -Flashback-The story incorporates a fair share of flashback to explain certain details about patien... ... middle of paper ... ... to walk out?...[they're] no crazier than the average asshole out walking around on the streets.” (pg. 26). MacMurphy believes that some of the patients are there like him, voluntarily, but that doesn;t change the fact that they are all confined in the ward unable to escape. The patients are also confined mentally. Bromden is stuck with memories of the war and parallels these to the asylum like comparing the war fog to the fog in the asylum. However, all of the patients are confined mentally since they have mental problems that they have no way of escaping. 3 important quotations from the text: “I been away a long time” (pg. 311) “She's lost a little battle here today, but it's a minor battle in a big war that she's winning and that she'll go on winning” (pg. 109). No, buddy, not that. She ain't peckin' at your eyes. That's not what she's peckin' at.” (pg. 37).
...and they have no choice, but to follow it or else they can be put into the “Combine” as Bromden sees it. Near the end of the novel “she turned and walked into the Nurses’ Station and closed the door behind her”. When the nurse “walked” away, it shows how she no longer cares and Bromden will then start having a sense of feeling that he should do something because she just let Billy kill himself. The moment when Nurse Ratched “close[s] the door” is a sign for Bromden to gather his courage and help everyone to get out of this ward.
While McMurphy is being punished, the rest of the men slowly start to leave the ward. Laughing at Miss Ratched’s shocked face, the men had their wives come pick them up, or they just up and checked out one day. The Big Nurse, using what little power she had left, issued a lobotomy to McMurphy. With McMurphy unable to laugh anymore and eyes that used to be full of life and energy now drained, Bromden does his hero a last favor- he suffocates him and escapes the ward that same night. McMurphy’s own energy depleted as he distributed it to all the patients. He tried his hardest not to show it, and he fought until the very end to keep from showing his exhaustion, but the fact of the matter was that the patients took his energy, unbeknownst to them, and bettered themselves, allowing them to be free of the combine and escape Miss Ratched’s control.
McMurphy learns that he is commited in the hospital and cannot leave until the nurse says he can, he becomes despaired and distances himself from the rest of the patients in an attempt to reduce the time that he will be required to stay in the hospital. He soon realises that no one can leave the hospital because they have become so powerless and dependant, that they do not have the courage to leave. This is another turning point of McMurphy’s determination. He soon discovers that, in order to help out the others, he will have to risk his length of time staying at the hospital. Even with this threat on his shoulders, he does not hesitate to help them realise their true potential. McMurphy’s plan is first to set out to prove that the patients and Nurse Ratched are humans, they can be broken. He also decides to help Chief Bromden realise his own true potential. In everyone else’s eyes, the Chief is viewed as irrelevant and small since he is muted. In Truth, the Chief is not mute and when McMurphy finds this out he is excited since he saw the Chief as a tall and strong man, stronger than almost any man that McMurphy has ever encountered. McMurphy later on promises the Chief that he will help him feel “big” again. McMurphy decides to take the patients out fishing, as an opportunity for them to feel like they are human again. During the trip, McMurphy shows the men how they their mental disabilities against others, like the man at the gas pump. When the men stand up to the man at the gas pump, they feel as if they are not weaklings like they were in the hospital. Nonetheless, the patients seem to be unable to stand up the men at the dock that are hollering at Candy. Out on the sea, McMurphy does not help the men when they yell for his assistance at catching the fish, when the patients caught a large fish out of the sea, they felt like the were humans. When
In the book as McMurphy progresses, he goes through many stages where he is rebellious, then docile, then rebellious again. This is due to the fact that he learns exactly what it means to be committed and what it takes to be released. Then he begins to see that all his ward mates (I don't know what you want to call them) are counting on him. becomes rebellious again. These reactions to his environments encourage McMurphy is not crazy but intelligent and quick. This is exactly the case. way a character such as McMurphy should act. In the movie, McMurphy is not only wild but rude. He tried to never be outright rude in the book. aggravating for the nurse) yet in the movie he was. He never stopped being. wild in the movie, leading you to believe that maybe in fact he is crazy.
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
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 threat of electroshock therapy is one that goes uncontested by the patients who have all seen the results of the therapy and have seen the brave and defiant patients like McMurphy, who are not subdued by marginalization like most of the patients, fall compliant or vegetative to the cruel control of the hospital. The amount of control and fear that is wielded against the patients makes them defenseless to dehumanization, which is experienced to extremes in the hospital. Bromden is even more vulnerable and targeted due to racism against Native Americans and Bromden’s facade of being deaf and dumb. The black boys in the hospital question how Bromden could’ve been signed up for the trip saying “Inniuns ain't able to write... What makes you think Inniuns able to read?” (Kesey 191). The dehumanization he experiences through racism is what roots and grows the idea in his mind that he is very weak and defenseless, so he could not resist or fight the oppression being held over him by the hospital similarly to how he couldn't fight the oppression or racism he faced out in the
We, being members of society do not have the authority to judge whether people are sane or insane. Some may say that others are insane but we are all a little bit crazy. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a novel written by Ken Kesey deals with these topics and is a well-written piece of literature that will be enjoyed by generations to come. It will become a timeless classic simply because of the great combination of the setting and the characters and how they both support the themes found throughout the story. The setting of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a backdrop which makes it easy to see the wickedness of the world and people in general. The hospital, Dr. Spivey says, "is a little world inside that is a made-to-scale prototype of the big world outside." Most of the action in the novel takes place in a world that is indeed limited and specific. It is but one ward of one hospital in Oregon. The world of the Cuckoo's Nest is in many ways a cartoon world that is filled with colorful characters and laughs, in which good and evil are clearly defined. Far from being a place of healing, the hospital is a place of fear where patients do not laugh and fear the consequences of anything they speak of. The setting of this novel allows the characters to develop freely and they are even a little off the wall which is a good attribute that will be admired by future readers. McMurphy teaches the rest of the patients how to be sane. Above all, this sanity consists of the ability to laugh, to laugh both at your self and at the world that is often ludicrous and cruel. Chief Bromden says, " He knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to k...
The end brings forth a great victory for Nurse Ratched but an ultimate triumph for McMurphy. It is because of McMurphy that Bromden gains power and freedom to make his own choices. Chief Bromden begins to make his final steps towards total self realization and by the end he realizes that his actions leading to the escape fulfilled McMurphys wishes; therefore reasserting himself as a member of society.
After he escapes the ward, Bromden returns back to his own home. With McMurphy’s help and friendship, Bromden is able to adapt McMurphy’s words and is able to start a new life as a real individual. Not only is he able to escape and return to home with his family, he also overcomes his own psychosis. Similar to Susanna Kaysen, Bromden becomes an individual who helps out other patients at the ward accomplishing their goal. Bromden surpasses the final stage of Maslow’s hierarchy needs, which is self-actualization. He realizes his personal potential, self-fulfillment, leading him to grow up as a responsible adult through his
The theory of the Therapeutic Community is that the group can “help the guy by showing him where he 's out of place; how society is what decides who 's sane and who isn 't so you got to measure up (p.49).” If a person has a quality that makes them stand out from the rest of the people (if they have a stutter, or have feminine features even though they 're men, or if they like to gamble) then society deems them insane and unfit for society. These are the people who go to the ward for “fixing”. All people in society have to be a certain way, they can 't have any qualities that makes them stand out and it is crucial that by the time they come out, they have no personal liberty because a person who has freedom of mind threatens the control of those in charge (Mcmurphy has personal liberty and that is why he is able to threaten the control of Nurse Ratched.) He makes a bet with the other patients that “I can get the best of that woman-before the week 's up-without her getting the best of me (p.79)” and because he has his own personal freedom, he is able to do just what he said he 'd do. The next morning Mcmurphy woke up early, ruining Nurse Ratched 's beloved schedule an walking around with nothing but a towel around his waist and his underwear
How can you be big and small at the same time? In Ken Kesey's novel, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Chief Bromden is one of the inmates in an insane asylum who escapes the Institution. Many of the other inmates are afraid of the Institution and cannot escape. How does Chief escape? McMurphy helps him break free. He teaches Chief how to be strong and independent again. He listens to Chief and helps him get back his self-confidence. McMurphy influences Chief to do things for himself. Having this help, Chief finds himself and his self-confidence. This leads to Chief escaping the Institution because he can face the world on his own without hiding under a false identity of being deaf.
In Here I am in an Insane Asylum, Robblett describes the time where he acted up with the doctor and didn’t answer any of his questions. He said after the visit with the doctor, one of the patients popped in the door and told him that if he wanted to get out of there then he needed to do whatever the doctor said. This really differs from that of Ten Days in a Mad-House because in that Asylum the patients weren’t looking out for each other because they had no hope that they would ever get out of the asylum. In Ten Days in a Mad-House once they were in the asylum they were stuck there because even if they showed signs of sanity they were viewed as being even
...and realities hidden from the reader. If the reader had been aware of everything from the beginning, there would have been no point at all to the story. Carefully revealing pieces of Miss Brill's character through this point of view illustrated her own passage into a new reality. Keeping the point of view limited to Miss Brill and excluding the thoughts of the other characters kept the reader centered on Miss Brill so that the same realizations could come about simultaneously. The reader, through masterful use of point of view, was able to share a very meaningful experience with the character and go through the same steps that she did to reach the end.
Breaking down point of view in stories can be helpful in determining the central idea, as the two concepts typically support one another. An author such as O’Connor has the ability when writing narrative to use whichever point of view they feel best portrays the story they are telling in the way they would like readers to understand it. By including and excluding certain bits of information, the author can present the story the way they choose, with the option to leave as many or as few subtle or obvious details within the narration as they would like to reveal to