In Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the narrator, patient Chief Bromden, interprets reality through a mechanic’s perspective. The fog is on of the key elements of this perspective. At first, it seems the fog is a safe haven, somewhere to hide, but as the book carries on with the arrival of the protagonist Randle McMurphy, it begins to fade. The fog, although it provides safe haven, is unbeneficial to Chief and denies him his humanity. When Chief first introduces us to the fog, he is being taken to Shock Therapy (Pages 7-8). The imagery he uses instills the reader’s weariness of the fog. He describes a bloodhound trying to find his way, enveloped in fear. The bloodhound, known for its keen sense of smell, is lost and cannot retrace its steps. This is directly reflective of how Chief is at said moment. He is stuck in the “Combine” and has lost himself. Chief says, “And the more I think about how nothing can be helped, the faster the fog rolls in” (Page 113). Whenever he refers to his childhood, a source of happiness, he always brings up the outdoors. Chief, being stuck in this prison, has no access to this happiness. Everyday is the same thing therefore nothing has meaning. …show more content…
This time fades together and creates a shade around his trapped mind, which he translates into the fog, which becomes thicker with every year he is trapped. Although the fog shields him from Nurse Ratched and the horrors that take place, it does not allow him to express himself. To maintain this cover, he must pretend to be deaf and dumb. Thus, sacrificing his ability to socialize and interact with others. Chief comments, “You were safe from the enemy but awfully alone” (Page 130). This disability, reflected by the fog, contributes to the de-humanizing Chief must withstand to stay out of Nurse Ratched’s radar. However, Chief’s life in the fog changes with the arrival of McMurphy. Randle McMurphy is a wild, amusing man with uncontrollable instinct. He is the complete opposite of the person Chief has become. McMurphy is natural, while Chief has succumbed to the robotic chain of the “Combine”. This disturbance within the ward interferes with Chief’s automatic daily eternity and therefore is the spark that helps get him out of the fog. Chief says, “One of these days I’ll quit straining and let myself go completely [into the fog]... but for the time being I’m interested in this new man” (Page 42). Here, we see Chief’s subconscious has some control of when the fog comes and goes. His interest in McMurphy’s excitement causes him to stray farther away from his own mechanized control. Although not quite hopeful, as this becomes one of the last times he mentions the fog. The story progresses and the tension between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched is heighted.
McMurphy has given her a run for her money and has just returned from the fishing trip with Chief. The fishing trip is a turning point for Chief, as he has been exposed not only to the outside, but the reality that he could escape. Chief is sent to clean the meeting room, "Out in the hall all by myself, I notice how clear it is—no fog any place" (Page 150). Although he was all alone, he was bare and out there. If the black boys or Nurse Ratched walked in, he would have nowhere to hide. He was out in the open, but at this point he did not care. McMurphy had taught him how to be tall again, how to be a man. The confidence that he has built throughout the book dispels the fog and overall keeps him
sane. Thus, the fog, representative of Chief’s lost persona, keeps the man from being truly human. However safe, the fog was representative of Chief’s fear and absolute authority by the Combine. Overall, the disappearance of the fog lead to Chief taking back control of himself and eventually leading to his escape.
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 the control panel scene, McMurphy bets with the other men that he can lift the control panel even though it is too heavy for him. He is teaching Chief and the other inmates that even if you think you can't do something, you have to try. If you try and you fail that will be okay, but if you never try, you don't know what you can do. The other men and Chief have never tried to rebel against Nurse Ratched and the institution. They have watched others fail so they are afraid to try; but they are different. If they try, they might be able to defeat Nurse Ratched. They do not know about their own abilities. They lack the self-confidence and courage to do it for themselves. So McMurphy shows them how to try. "But I tried, though,' he says. Goddammit, I sure as hell did that much, now, didn't I?"(111)
The purpose for a story, particularly one that deals with graphic material such as murder, is not always crystal clear, an excellent example of a story where the purpose is shrouded in mystery is Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado”. At the end of “The Cask of Amontillado” it is revealed that the character Montresor is narrating this tale. This leads the reader to wonder what motivation could Montresor have for retelling this story fifty years later. The story places heavy emphasis on being a connoisseur or expert at something, in fact Montresor’s whole plan is focused around this one thing. When the tale is viewed with the perspective that Montresor is an unreliable narrator, then it can be seen
Chief Bromden, known as Chief Broom, is a long-term patient that serves in the psychiatric ward due to his schizophrenic condition. Because of his condition, he creates many hallucinations. For example, he believes that he can hear mechanical operations behind the walls of the psychiatric ward. In discussion of Chief Bromden, one controversial issue has been whether or not he is a heroic figure because of his hallucinations, failing to address the real events in the novel. On the other hand, many contend how Chief Bromden is a hero utilizes his surroundings and observations to overcome his psychosis. I believe that Ken Kesey portrays Chief Bromden as a figure who completes the hero’s journey because he overcomes his own psychosis and decides to express himself and live his own life.
Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest explores the dysfunctions and struggles of life for the patients in a matriarch ruled mental hospital. As told by a schizophrenic Native American named Chief Bromden, the novel focuses primarily on Randle McMurphy, a boisterous new patient introduced into the ward, and his constant war with the Big Nurse Ratched, the emasculating authoritarian ruler of the ward. Constricted by the austere ward policy and the callous Big Nurse, the patients are intimidated into passivity. Feeling less like patients and more like inmates of a prison, the men surrender themselves to a life of submissiveness-- until McMurphy arrives. With his defiant, fearless and humorous presence, he instills a certain sense of rebellion within all of the other patients. Before long, McMurphy has the majority of the Acutes on the ward following him and looking to him as though he is a hero. His reputation quickly escalates into something Christ-like as he challenges the nurse repeatedly, showing the other men through his battle and his humor that one must never be afraid to go against an authority that favors conformity and efficiency over individual people and their needs. McMurphy’s ruthless behavior and seemingly unwavering will to protest ward policy and exhaust Nurse Ratched’s placidity not only serves to inspire other characters in the novel, but also brings the Kesey’s central theme into focus: the struggle of the individual against the manipulation of authoritarian conformists. The asylum itself is but a microcosm of society in 1950’s America, therefore the patients represent the individuals within a conformist nation and the Big Nurse is a symbol of the authority and the force of the Combine she represents--all...
Ken Kesey incorporates figurative language into his novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, to illustrate the struggle to overcome the comfort of inaction, that ultimately results in the great benefit of standing up for one’s self. When McMurphy decides to stand up to Nurse Ratched, there is “no fog” (130). Kesey’s metaphor of the fog represents the haze of inaction that hovers over the patients of the ward. With the oppressive Nurse Ratched in charge, the patients are not able to stand up for themselves and are forced to be “sly” to avoid her vicious punishments (166). When the patients avoid confrontation with the Nurse, they are guaranteed safety by hiding in the fog, complaisant with their standing. The fog obscures the patient’s view of the ward and the farther they slip into it, the farther away they drift from reality.
Chief Bromden, a tall American-Indian mute is the central character that symbolizes the change throughout the text and also throughout society. Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest uses this character that is subject to change as the narrator event though his perceptions cannot be fully trusted.
Ken Kesey presents his masterpiece, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, with popular culture symbolism of the 1960s. This strategy helps paint a vivid picture in the reader's mind. Music and cartoons of the times are often referred to in the novel. These help to exaggerate the characters and the state of the mental institution.
Throughout the Cuckoo’s Nest Chief Bromden is stuck in the “fog” living in his past memories. Bromden views Nurse Ratched as the time keeper, able to speed up or slow down the clock in turn making time unbearable at times. The only escape he has is the “fog” where time does not exist (Kesey 75). These hallucinations of the fog have Bromden believe that the other patients are lost in the fog as well. These thoughts are delusional of Bromden; however, metaphorically they hold true. Nurse Ratched maintains a status quo that tends to dilute the patients senses and her routine makes the time seem to go by too fast or too slow. These situations are the reason Bromden uses the fog to escape; it provides him a haven and often times a happy place where he reminisces of the times he spent with his father. Although the fog helps Bromden escape it also sometimes brings back memories of the war and the sounds he heard when he was under attack. There’s a similarity between the enemies of war and Nurse Ratched in which he feels he can’t be harmed when he’s hiding in the fog.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey presents a situation which is a small scale and exaggerated model of modern society and its suppressive qualities. The story deals with the inmates of a psychiatric ward who are all under the control of Nurse Ratched, ‘Big Nurse’, whose name itself signifies the oppressive nature of her authority. She rules with an iron fist so that the ward can function smoothly in order to achieve the rehabilitation of patients with a variety of mental illnesses. Big Nurse is presented to the reader through the eyes of the Chief, the story’s narrator, and much of her control is represented through the Chief’s hallucinations. One of these most recurring elements is the fog, a metaphorical haze keeping the patients befuddled and controlled “The fog: then time doesn’t mean anything. It’s lost in the fog, like everyone else” (Kesey 69). Another element of her control is the wires, though the Chief only brings this u...
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.
Ken Kesey’s novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is a story about a band of patients in a mental ward who struggle to find their identity and get away from the wretched Nurse. As audiences read about the tale, many common events and items seen throughout the story actually represent symbols for the bigger themes of the story. Symbols like the fishing trip, Nurse, and electroshock therapy all emphasize the bigger themes of the story. The biggest theme of the story is oppression. Throughout the course of the story, patients are suppressed and fight to find who they really are.
Sutherland, Janet R. "A Defense of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's NEst." English Journal 61.1 (1972): 28-31. JSTOR. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. .
Kesey, Ken. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. Ed. John Clark Pratt. New York: Viking-Penguin, 1996. Print. Viking Critical Library.