Preview

Chief Bromden In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
548 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Chief Bromden In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
The character of Chief Bromden is one of the most unique aspects of Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, in that he is a six foot seven inch mentally-insane indian who pretends to be deaf and dumb, and is also the story’s narrator. Chief Bromden is a severely interesting character in that he has an inferiority complex in regards to his, he is absolutely terrified of the big nurse and “the Combine”, and he has several hallucinations that seem to either contradict or enhance the story. One such hallucination is the fog. According to Bromden, the ward has machines that spew out fog to cover the ward and the patients. The fog acts as a cloaking mechanism that surrounds Bromden so thick that he can no longer see anyone or hear anyone. …show more content…
At first, Bromden refuses to accept this because he values the safety that is guaranteed from the fog, but later on Bromden begins to realize the implications of McMurphy’s actions and intentions. Bromden realizes that McMurphy does not want Bromden and the patients to be hiding in fear and protecting themselves from what they are afraid of, he wants them to fight back, take responsibility of their lives, and be the men that they have the ability to be. McMurphy wants to pull them away from their comfort zone, and at first it scares Bromden, but the fog gradually starts to fade away and Bromden is more focused and aware of the surroundings in a way that he was not before. Eventually, Bromden reaches a point in which the fog no longer appears and he is able to think clearly and face the fears that scared him all those years. He realizes that the Big Nurse and “the Combine” are not as impervious as they once

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    It all begins in an insane asylum with a half-Native American schizophrenic named Chief Bromden pretending to be deaf and dumb to avoid the typical harassment the other patients go through by the Black Boys, three African American patients conditioned to be Nurse Ratched’s bodyguards (more like lapdogs), and Nurse Ratched herself, the big breasted, fine-aged nurse who is known as “Big Nurse” in the asylum for having the reputation of running the asylum. The Black Boys are beginning their ritual shaving, as they do every morning, and they decided to start with Chief Bromden. In fear, Bromden goes to hide in the broom closet and he begins reminiscing about his past, growing up on the Columbia River with his father. This memory is cut abruptly when one of the Black Boys finds him in the closet; they put him in the chair to begin shaving him, then a fog begins to cover the room… As the fog clears up, he is relieved because he thought he was taken to the Shock Shop, the room where patients are given electroshock treatment. Right as he begins to relax on the chair, a brand new patient is admitted to the mental institution. He is known as Randall McMurphy, an Irish Ginger who has had a problem with gambling. When he gets there, Ratched makes it her mission to get the Black Boys to shower him, but he continually avoids getting that shower and introduces himself to all of the other patients. He shares his story about how he came from a work farm called “Pendleton” and that he is at this institute because he is “a psychopath”. After introducing himself to all the Acutes and Chronics, Acutes being the patients with temporary or short-term conditions and Chronics being the patients with more severe mental disorders, he circles the Acutes, asking for the “bull goose loony”, which is his fancy lingo for “whomever is in charge among the patients.” Billy Bibbit, one of the Acutes who has a stuttering problem, tells McMurphy that a…

    • 1822 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    My character for the project was Dale Harding. I want my short story to be a prequel to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The setting will be inside the ward after a meeting. The meeting was focus once again on Harding’s wife and Harding is reflecting back on the meeting. He is laying down in his bed before sleep reflecting on his day. He is completely blind to how Nurse Rachet is playing them and he beginnings to overthink his situation with his wife. At first he denies it and then become more and more irritated with his situation with his wife. Eventually his issues spiral out of control from just his wife to everything going on in his life. He realizes everything in his life is not right, that everything is pointless. By the end of the story…

    • 165 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    This quote is said by Chief Bromden. In the previous sentences, it shows us that Chief Bromden will be telling us a story, like an author would. By saying this quote, Chief Bromden asks us, the readers, to keep and open mind about the story. He asks us to not overlook his hallucinations; he basically wants us to look deeper into what he sees.…

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the story One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, the protagonist Randall Patrick McMurphy faked his insanity so he could go to a mental hospital instead of facing the crimes he committed. He goes in with his mind set on his goal without a care for anyone else, at least, that’s how it was in the beginning.…

    • 483 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    “You’re sentenced in a jail and you got a date ahead of when you know you’re gonna be let loose” ( Kesey, page 190). The lifeguard that is talking to McMurphy say that being in jail is better than being in at the ward because you do not know when you are going to leave. After this McMurphy talks to Harding and says “Yes; chopping away the brain. Frontal-lobe castration. I guess if she can’t cut below the belt she’ll do it above”. “ I didn’t think the nurse had the say-so on this kind of thing”. “She does indeed” ( Kesey, pg 191). So, McMurphy understands that nurse Ratched has a say in when he can leave the ward. After learning this he becomes quite and nice towards nurse Ratched. But before leaning that she had say in when he could get out he used to go against her orders and laws. “He drags his armchair out of the corner to in the front of the tv set then switches on the set and sits down” (Kesey, page 143). “I said Mr. Murphy, that you are suppose to be working during these hours” (page 144). In this scene he pulls a chair in front of the television to watch the baseball game eventho nurse Ratched said that…

    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ken Kesey's experiences in a mental institution urged him to tell the story of such a ward. We are told this story through the eyes of a abnormally large Indian who everyone believes to be deaf and dumb named Chief in his novel "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest". Chief Bromden also referred to as "Chief Buh-room" is a patient in an Oregon psychiatric hospital on the ward of Mrs. Ratched, she is the symbol of authority and female domination throughout the novel. This ward forms the backdrop for the rest of the story.…

    • 2241 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As I recently completed reading your world fame story, “One who flew over the Cuckoo's Nest” which explains the first person perspective of a patient who joins and becomes a friend with a stubborn rebel who rallies himself with the other patients to dethrone a nurse obsessed with power in the Mental Ward. Overall with certain confusing aspects of the story, the book is a well written piece of history.…

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Pain. Power. Control. In Ken Kesey’s classic American novel The One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest these themes of pain, power, and control, are intertwined and juxtaposed with femininity. Linguistic techniques combined with idiosyncratic use of character development lead the reader to simultaneously see womanhood as inadequate and manipulative. Kesey’s…

    • 71 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, the narrator, Bromden, is seen as a weak character who is submissive to the authority in the mental facility. Nurse Ratched or Big Nurse runs the mental facility with fear and is only challenged when Randle McMurphy becomes a patient who rebels against her system. The section in the story where McMurphy and Bromden are about to receive punishment after rebelling relates to the overall story as the readers can see how Bromden is changing to become a stronger person with McMurphy’s influence. He starts off as a powerless and scared patient and ends up growing as a person by seeing that he has the power to control his life and make decisions on his own. Throughout the book, the theme that with someone to lead or set an example, others can stand up for themselves after being oppressed is seen.…

    • 687 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In One flew over the cuckoo’s nest, Ken Kesey uses first person narration by a secondary character using a subjective tone. By using an unstable perspective of a schizophrenic Indian, Bromden, results in ambiguity leading the readers to make decisions on which parts of the plot are real and which are hallucinated. Sentence structure and machine imagery help emphasise the ambiguity of the novel by placing the reader through the mind of Bromden. Through using these techniques Kesey mystifies the plot which makes the reader to ponder over whether the plot is real or hallucinated.…

    • 874 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There have been many struggles in history between authority and those who oppose it. The most obvious and most common example is revolutions against governments. We live in a society where stability and assimilation are not just recommended, but also enforced. We have the right for civil disobedience, so long as it is non-violent and within reason. In the book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, R.P McMurphy, a "brawling, gambling man" enters a mental asylum in Oregon, and begins to wage war "on behalf of his fellow inmates". However he finds himself at odds with Nurse Ratched, a strict, manipulative and methodical woman who runs the ward like a "precision-made machine". The book follows McMurphy's actions that constantly clash with the Nurse, and what she represents: authority. By the end of the book, there are many…

    • 1232 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, written by Ken Kesey in 1962, is a book about a lively con man that turns a mental institution upside down with his rambunctious antics and sporadic bouts with the head nurse. Throughout the book, this man shows the others in the institution how to stand up for themselves, to challenge conformity to society and to be who they want to be. It is basically a book of good versus evil, the good being the con man R.P. McMurphy, and the bad being the head nurse, Nurse Ratched. McMurphy revitalizes the hope of the patients, fights Nurse Ratched's stranglehold on the ward, and, in a way, represents the feelings of the author on society at the time.…

    • 938 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    A person must follow a certain quest to become a hero. The quest that a hero must take consist of seven traditional steps. By becoming selfless like McMurphy did in, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, in order to help the others around him to achieve the goal of becoming a hero. One is also considered to be a hero when he or she stands up against fear and shows courage towards a greater power. These basic concepts of hero are shown in the character Randle Patrick McMurphy. In the novel McMurphry sacrifices himself to go on his hero conquest to help the patients of a mental institution to become from from the struggles of Nurse Ratched.…

    • 2279 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “I always thought I could do anything. That’s the main thing people are controlled by! Thoughts - their perceptions of themselves… I was taught I could do anything. And I’m Kanye West at age 36. ” Kanye West, though not the most respected man in the world, has used his fame and inflated ego to boost his recognition in modern day society. His lifestyle enables him to transmit messages and ideas through his music, clothing, and actions. People know him as a confident, arrogant, self-worshipping celebrity. These same characteristics can be seen within McMurphy in the book One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. McMurphy is seen asa confident, no-care giving patient who defies the orders of nurse Ratched, and acts as a social justice advocate for the…

    • 569 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Daily Journals

    • 1907 Words
    • 8 Pages

    In this quote, Chief Bromden says, “I been silent so long it’s going to roar out of me like floodwaters and you think the guy telling this is ranting and raving my God; you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. It’s still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.”(Act 1 32) Chief Bromden, a long-term patient in Nurse Ratcheds psychiatric ward, narrates the events of the novel. The novel begins as he awakes to a typical day on the ward, feeling paranoid about the nighttime activities of the wards three black aides. We are given this brainteaser from chief Bromden. The reader has already gotten a glimpse of Bromden’s paranoia, from the novels opening lines, as well as a sense that he is not seeing things from an everyday perspective. For example, Bromden describes Nurse Ratched transforming into a huge machine, and he has to be sedated when the aides try to shave him and he starts screaming, “Air Raid”. In this story, he claims himself not only the narrator, but the author. He has an important story to tell, even though it’s going to be hard for him. The last line of this quote is Bromden’s request that the reader have an open mind. His hallucinations imply that the audience shouldn’t believe everything he says in the novel. In my opinion, I believe that Bromden regains sanity, but he still witnesses many events while he is hallucinating.…

    • 1907 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays