Chief Bromden In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

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Many critics say the novel, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, R.P. McMurphy is the protagonist who created suspense but I believe Chief Bromden, a “deaf” patient, is the hero who gained the ability to step out of his comfort zone and escape the mental institute. After meeting Mac, Chief’s daily routine had changed due to observing Mac and gaining determination. Although Chief faced many obstacles, using what Mac taught him helped him overcome them. Chief Bromden had spent many years in the mental institute but when a new patient was added, the routine of his life changed. In the ward, there were two groups such as; “…Chronics don’t move around much, and the Acutes say they’d just as leave stay over on their side…” (18). Categorized …show more content…

The first group he introduced was the Acutes; “The Acutes look and spooked room when one ornery kid is raising too much hell with the teacher out of the room and they’re all scared the teacher might pop back up…” (19). The Acutes were treated as little kids who had a lot of energy to release. In the novel Of Mice and Men, Lenny is like an Acute because he adores rabbits and thinks like a child. Both Lenny and Acutes obeyed their guardian even if they didn’t want to. When Mac entered the ward he was an outsider that everyone was curious about; “The way he talks, his wink, his loud talk, his swagger all remind me of a car salesman…” (13). Like Thomas from The Maze Runner, he and Mac were both outsiders in the beginning of the novels that gathered attention from others. As the novel continued, their peers accepted their different mechanisms. In addition to Chief being curious, he observed other patients whispering what Big Nurse’s reaction was; “They didn’t hear her come on the ward. They sense she’s glaring down at them now, but it’s too late… She knows what they been saying, and I can see she’s furious clean out of control” (5). When Big Nurse noticed patients talking about her, she scolded them and continued having it her way. Buddha once stated; “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world” (Buddha). In …show more content…

On an adventure to go fishing with everyone, Big Nurse showed terrifying clippings to the patients but Chief trusted Mac that everything would be fine; “McMurphy pooh-poohed her and her clippings…they both guaranteed the trip was safe as pie, safe as pudding, not a thing to worry about” (209). He was now depending on Mac for his life and was working as a team. Chief soon overcome his title, “deaf” patient, and talked to Mac; “He said a man been still long as me probably has a considerable lot to talk about…I thought for a minute for something to say to him…” (218). Mac was proud of Chief that he was becoming confident and showed his true personality. With Big Nurse wanting to gain control, she forced a lobotomy operation on Mac where the frontal lobe of his brain was taken out. When Mac comes out of the operation quiet and motionless, Chief killed Mac to put him out of pain and send him into a better place; “I lifted the pillow, and in the moonlight I saw the expression hadn’t changed from the blank, dead-end look the least bit, even under suffocation” (323). Chief was devastated with what Big Nurse has done but to finish Mac’s goal, Chief escaped the ward and brought Mac’s spirit and knowledge with him. This situation was similar to George, Of Mice and Men, when he killed Lennie so he would not be in pain from killing Curley’s wife. In the Hedonistic Calculus, it stated; “the major factors of

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