Physical Isolation The physical isolation present in the ward enables for the formation of other forms for isolation to appear. social isolation orchestrated by the ‘Big Nurse’, the ‘Black Boys’, and the doctors at the ward. As well as Chief’s internal confinement caused by the ‘fog’ and ‘the machine’ which are inside the walls. Chief Bromden is a very large person, standing at considerably over six feet tall, you would first assume someone like this to be unafraid, open and confident, yet Chief Bromden is the polar opposite. The false expectation of chief is a hint at how complex his character really is. Under the pressure of all these forms of isolation and the institutional oppression of the ward, Chief Bromden is conceptually the smallest …show more content…
person in the room, just a fly on a wall. Chief Bromden was in physical isolation throughout the story, Chief would hide behind closets, brooms, mops and other objects to form a physical barrier between himself and the things that he fears. “before anybody can turn to look for me I duck back in the mop closet, jerk the door shut dark after me, hold my breath” (12). By hiding, Chief Bromden is able to escape the ‘Big Nurse’, the combine, and the machines. Chief Bromden is physically cut off from the outside world. The patients in the ward are separated from society, confined only within the walls of the ward.
This causes a lot of problems for the characters in this story because they have a struggle between freedom and confinement. Chief Bromden himself is struggling with his internal conflict to be free or let himself be trapped in the institution. Through his character developments, Chief Bromden questions himself many times but eventually realizes that he needs to be free from the machine that is the ward. At the end of the story Chief escapes the institution, and finally, he is free from the isolation and oppression that he was being subjugated to. When Chief escapes from the ward, we see the cumulative results of his character development which started from page one of the novel. Through McMurphy’s arrival to the Ward, Chief is able to gain the confidence and will to break through the ‘fog’ and live naturally like he did as a child. Chief had planned to escape with McMurphy and tells him “You're coming with me. Let's …show more content…
go.” Before escaping, Chief Bromden questions his moral beliefs and convictions as he is faced with killing McMurphy, his only friend, and comfort in life.
McMurphy who had been lobotomized by the doctors, frying his mind and killing his influential ambitious spirit which lifted the entire ward out of despair. ” I'm not going without you, Mac. I won't leave you here this way” By killing McMurphy, his spirit can live on within the patients in the ward who remember McMurphy as their unstoppable hero. “Sefelt talking about Chief and McMurphy escape: They were taking him through the tunnel. He beat up two of the attendants and escaped.” The ‘machine’ has lost because although they took McMurphy’s mind, his spirit lives on. By escaping, Chief Bromden not only escapes from the confinement of physical walls, but his internal emotional isolation, and the social isolation being forced on
him. Confinement by social isolation. The aspect of social confinement presented in the story ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ is among the strongest ways in which the patients are isolated. Oppression by the authoritative figures of the ward is a common means of isolation in the story One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Chief Bromden stands in the shadows as he observes the ways that the ward serves to act as an institution of oppression and control against the other characters, as well as himself. Through the story, the patients at the mental ward start to break through this isolation, with the help of McMurphy's arrival. Social confinement and control are implemented in numerous ways to isolate the patients living in the ward. Nurse Ratched (‘Big Nurse’) uses her authority and power to oppress the inmates at the ward. Nurse Ratched uses the group therapy meeting as a means to expose and humiliate the patients, and as a way to make patients at the ward fight against and mistrust fellow residents. This method is used to keep the characters from grouping together for changes at the ward, or fair treatment. The tables are turned on ‘Big Nurse’ and the black boys when McMurphy arrives at the ward. McMurphy has the ability to bring all the patients together, even Chief Bromden. Because of this, Chief starts to become more self-aware, starting to question his convictions. Chief Bromden has described how the ‘fog’ is being used to keep the patients in the ward content with their treatment and to prevent them from joining together to revolt against Nurse Ratched and the ‘black boys’. McMurphy stands up for himself and attempts to get the patients to get out of the control of the ‘Big Nurse’, who to Bromden represents the ‘fog’. Chief says “That's what Mcmurphy can’t understand, us wanting to be safe. He keeps trying to drag us out of the fog, out in the open where we’d be easy to get.” (Kesey 128) At the end of the story, the patients do revolt against the ward, the fog lifts, and Chief is finally ready to be free. Chief Bromden isolated himself by pretending to be deaf and dumb, by doing this he became unapproachable by other patients living in the ward. He didn’t want to be part of the society in the ward, so he rebels by putting on an act to deceive the others into believing that he is deaf and dumb (mute). This way Chief wouldn’t put himself in the danger of the ‘combine’ or the ‘Big Nurse’ by being as inconspicuous as possible. Chief commented on the patients in the ward, “They don’t bother not talking out loud about their hate secrets when I’m nearby because they think I’m deaf and dumb. Everybody thinks so. I’m cagey enough to fool them that much. If my being half Indian ever helped me in any way in this dirty life, it helped me being cagey, helped me all these years.”(Kesey, pg 7) Because nobody had figured out Chief Bromden’s secret that he was pretending the entire time, nobody not even the ward staff ever tried to interact with him, leaving him in complete social isolation. However, this changed soon after McMurphy came to the ward and befriended Chief Bromden. Chief and McMurphy became close enough that he was willing to spill his deepest secret of being able to actually hear and talk, and that he was not, in fact, deaf or dumb. This was able to happen because McMurphy had a natural approach of camaraderie, compassion, and trust, opposed to the cold, rigid, and mechanical system used by the Ward. The unnatural, mechanical ways in which the ward functions prevented Chief Bromden from socializing, and caused him to become isolated and paranoid. What scares Chief the most is our cold mechanized society, all that he needed to happen for Chief to get better was to have someone treat him like a real human being with feelings. Through these changes, Chief was able to dramatically change his personal convictions and (partially) lift the ‘fog’ by socializing with McMurphy, and some other patients in the ward.
The novel that Kesey wrote is focused on how Bromden’s past memories should not let him down, but to gather his strength and let go of the past to start anew. Kesey builds up the encouragement through the help on McMurphy in order for Bromden to face reality with the hallucinations, to Nurse Ratched’s authorities, and the use of symbolism.
Chief Bromden’s development in the story was evident mostly by his narrations throughout the story. Kesey created Chief’s initial character to be anxious and uncomfortable. This is most evident when he speaks about a certain “fog” in his narrations. The “fog” he hallucinates about may have been included as imagery of his inner apprehension and nervousness. "It's still hard for me to have clear mind thinking on it. But it's the truth even if it didn't happen"(13). Bromden had come to the conclusion that the fog was not real, but had trouble trying not to think about it. “When the fog clears to where I can see, I’m sitting in the dayroom” (9). This quote makes the reader feel that Bromden’s angst may cloud his perception and represent his desire to hide from reality. Besides the fog, Bromden als...
After the introduction by the Chief, the story proceeds to a normal morning at the ward. The patients are sitting in the Day Room after their morning pills. Then a new patient, Randall McMurphy, checks in. McMurphy was a big redheaded man who loved to gamble and got transferred to the ward from a work farm. From the beginning, McMurphy had been hard to control. He refused any of the traditional check in routines that any new patient needed to follow including taking his admission shower. The Black Boys, the orderlies of the ward, went to get Nurse Ratched in attempt to put McMurphy in line.
Chief Bromden is a six foot seven tall Native American (half) who feels very small and weak even though by physical description, he is very big and strong. Chief does not have enough self-confidence and he is not independent. That is what makes him so small and weak. When Randle McMurphy, the new inmate in the asylum comes in, Chief is reminded of what his father used to be: strong, independent, confident and big. "He talks a little the way papa used to, voice loud and full of hell " (16) McMurphy helps Chief gains back his self-confidence and teaches him to be independent.
White characters such as Nurse Ratched and McMurphy show surprise that he is able to speak and understand them while the black boys claim that Indians can't read or write. Bromden justifies that he is victim to racial inequality when people look "at me [him] like I'm [he’s] some kind of bug" (26) or when people "see right through me [him] like I [he] wasn't there." Throughout Bromden's childhood, he realized that the white people thought he was deaf and mute and that even if he spoke, no one could hear him. In order to survive through the dangers of the social hierarchy he existed in through the ward, he feigns deafness. Bromden points out that, "it wasn't me that started acting deaf; it was people that first started acting like I was too dumb to hear or see or say anything at all." (178) Bromden, has also been constantly abused by the staff and other patients at the ward who call him Chief Broom, a derogation of his name as Chief and a mockery of his floor mopping “duties” in the ward that the black boys force upon him. Bromden's circumstances is illustrative of his race and of his entire tribe. The social criticism that Kesey portrays, emerges piecemeal through Bromden’s constant flashbacks and hallucinations of his village. Kesey compares Native Indian cohesion with the new estrangement accompanying the loss of Indian cultures and the adjustment of a white lifestyle to show the social unity once created by Indian traditions. By the end of
He values this trait in others too, and when the Chief sees just how deceiving McMurphy can be, he is dumbfounded. Just as quick as he trusted McMurphy in the first place, Bromden lost his trust once he saw the con man for what he really is. This can be applied to everyday life as well, because there are so many scams out in the world that people are afraid to trust others. Once Chief Bromden sees what McMurphy is capable of, the Chief understands why the Big Nurse is so skeptical of him. McMurphy always acts according to his ethics, which consist of maintaining having the upper hand in all situations. The narrator provides indirect characterization for McMurphy. By describing his actions and how the man thinks, the reader can interpret McMurphy’s behavior to discover some of his traits. Since McMurphy plays with the thinking of others, I can infer that he is sly and calculating. Additionally, since McMurphy looked reluctant to bet, I can infer that the man is skilled in acting, because he obviously knew the outcome of the bet but pretended
-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).
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).
[9] The hospital ward is likened to that of a democratic community by those in power. [10] Both terms of castration are used in description of the Nurse's desire to emasculate and thus gain power over the men. [11] He has a stutter as a result of his persecution from society. [12] A metaphorical representation of society as a machine, from the narrative voice Bromden.
Bromden is nothing more than a crazy Indian who doesn't want to talk so. pretends to be deaf and dumb. Much of the understanding and respect is lost in the transition between book and movie. In the book, Bromden has flashbacks to his childhood, lighting on significant points in his childhood. His background is never even brushed upon in the movie. Of course it would have been nearly impossible to tell of Bromdens life in a movie, much less show the world from his point of view as in the book. Bromden is still a very interesting character but the real puzzle to his problems are lost in the process. & nbsp; McMurphy is a very sly, cunning man. He knows how to play his game. and does it well.
However things start to change for both of these men when they start to receive guidance from their counterparts, Randle McMurphy and Clarisse McClellan. Both of these characters become the catalyst for the freedom and liberation that Bromden and Montag come to find. Throughout the Cuckoo’s Nest Chief Bromden is stuck in the “fog” living in his past memories. Bromden
Unable to see McMurphy imprisoned in a body that will go on living (under Nurse Ratched’s control) even though his spirit is gone, Chief smothers him to death that night. Then he escapes the hospital and leaves for Canada and a new life. We begin to see the different situations in which the patients struggle to overcome. Whether insane or not, the hospital is undeniably in control of the fates of its
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. McMurphy’s dereliction of Nurse Ratched’s rules not only provides entertainment for Bromden and the other patients, but also acts as an impetus for their own reb...
The background of Chief Bromden’s life makes him a likely target for mental illness. Conflict that Chief’s father faced also negatively impacted Chief. His father was Chief Tee Ah Millatoona of the Umpqua tribe and his mother was a white woman. Chief’s father took his mother’s last name, “Her name is Bromden. He took her name” (214). This suggests her domination in the relationship, but it is made clear that her extreme belittling had negative psychological effects: “It wasn't just her that made him little. Everybody worked on him because he was big, and wouldn't give in, and did as he pleased... He fought it a long time until my mother made him too little to fight anymore and he gave up" (220). Just like his father, Chief was a big man crushed into a tiny man by the pressures of society. Chief grew up living a normal life, without schizophrenia, on the Columbia Gorge in an Umpqua village led by his father. The first memorable trigger of Chief’s schizophrenia came when government officials were inspecting his vil...
There were no heroes on the psychiatric ward until McMurphy's arrival. McMurphy gave the patients courage to stand against a truncated concept of masculinity, such as Nurse Ratched. For example, Harding states, "No ones ever dared to come out and say it before, but there is not a man among us that does not think it. That doesn't feel just as you do about her, and the whole business feels it somewhere down deep in his sacred little soul." McMurphy did not only understand his friends/patients, but understood the enemy who portrayed evil, spite, and hatred. McMurphy is the only one who can stand against the Big Nurse's oppressive supreme power. Chief explains this by stating, "To beat her you don't have to whip her two out of three or three out of five, but every time you meet. As soon as you let down your guard, as sson as you loose once, she's won for good. And eventually we all got to lose. Nobody can help that." McMuprhy's struggle for hte patient's free will is a disruption to Nurse Ratched's social order. Though she holds down her guard she yet is incapable of controlling what McMurphy is incontrollable of , such as his friends well being, to the order of Nurse Ratched and the Combine.