Divide and Conquer Does Not Always Work

page 57/ August 4,2010

Quote #10

Quote:“The flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and they all go to peckin’ at it, see, till they rip the chicken to shreds, blood and bones and feathers. But usually a couple of the flock gets spotted in the fracas, then it’s their turn. And a few more gets spots and gets pecked to death, and more and more. Oh, a peckin’ party can wipe out the whole flock in a matter of a few hours, buddy, I seen it. A mighty awesome sight. The only way to prevent it—with chickens—is to clip blinders on them. So’s they can’t see.”


McMurphy has compared the men and their actions during his first group meeting to a bunch of chickens pecking at each other. He is ashamed that the patients would gang up on each other, when in fact you would think that they would help each other out. They are all in the same position, where they have no choice in what happens to them during their stay at the hospital; other people make decisions for them and they have to go along with whatever they are told. The Big Nurse has used her army tactics to divide and conquer. She knows that she can say one thing and then the guys will start to fight each other, then she can just sit back and watch everything unravel. She has done this before to get secrets out of the patients. What she does is not fair to the patients and they are not smart enough to realize she does this on purpose.

Escaping From Reality

page 131/ August 4,2010

Quote #9

Quote:“When they first used that fog machine in the ward, one they bought from Army Surplus and hid in the vents in the new place before we moved in, I kept looking at anything that appeared out of the fog as long and hard as I could , to keep track of it, just like I used to do when they fogged the airfields in Europe. Nobody’s be blowing a horn to show the way, there was no rope to hold to, so fixing my eyes on something was the only way I kept from getting lost. Sometimes I got lost in it anyway, got in too deep, trying to hide, and every time I did, it seemed like I always turned up at that same place, at that same metal door with the row of rivets like eyes and no number, just like the room behind the door drew me to it, no matter how hard I tried to stay away, just like the current generated by the fiends in that room was conducted in a beam long the fog and pulled me back along it like a robot. I’d wander for days in the fog, scared I’d never see another thing, then there’d be that door, opening to show me the mattress padding on the other side to stop out the sounds, the men standing in a line like zombies among shiny copper wires and tubes pulsing light, and the bright scrape of arcing electricity. I’d take my place in the line and wait my turn at the table. The table shaped like a cross, with shadows of a thousand murdered men printed on it, silhouette wrists and ankles running under leather straps sweated green with use, a silhouette neck and head running up to a silver band goes across the forehead. And a technician at the controls beside the table looking up from his dials and down the line and pointing at me with a rubber glove. ‘Wait, I know that big bastard there- batter rabbit-punch him or call for some more help or something. He’s an awful case for thrashing around’”


Chief Bromden continuously mentions this state of fog that he experiences during his time at the hospital. This quote helps to explain the paranoia that Bromden constantly has through the novel. During the beginning, Bromden goes into this foggy state because he is scared of reality and wants to hide from it as much as he can. He believes that he is weak, though he is much stronger than most men at this ward are, and the fog keeps him from having to confront them. Near the end, he breaks away from this because he has realized that he can stick up for himself and there is nothing left to be scared of. Bromden has figured out how to beat the Combine at their own games and does not have to go into the fog again to escape from reality.

He Did It For The Others

page 319/ August 4,2010

Quote #8

Quote:“He gave a cry. At the last, falling backward, his face appearing to us for a second upside down before he was smothered on the floor by a pile of white uniforms, he let himself cry out: A sound of cornered-animal fear and hate and surrender and defiance, that if you ever trailed coon or cougar or lynx is like the last sound the treed and shot and falling animal makes as the dogs get him, when he finally doesn’t care anymore about anything, but himself and his dying.”

McMurphy knew that for all of this to be over that he would have to sacrifice his life. The other men would then find the strength to leave the hospital and get on with their lives. If he would not have sacrificed his life then the other patients lives would have gone back to the way they were before he arrived at the hospital. McMurphy knew this could not happen and the other patients would be devastated. This quote shows the torture that the men got through while they stay in the hospital. They are subjected to electrotherapy shocks and are restrained to one room with a few games to play. This room is where they stay for 365 day a year and rarely ever get to experience new adventures. Some might think that this causes the patients to become even more insane. McMurphy was brave to sacrifice his life so his friends could continue and find new adventures once they began their lives outside of the ward.

Symbolism

page 318/ August 3,2010

Quote #7

Quote:“First Charles Cheswick and now Billy Bibbit! I hope you’re finally satisfied. Playin with human lives- gambling with human lives- as if you thought of yourself to be God!”

Throughout the novel, Ken Kesey repeatedly associates Randle with the image of Christ. When he lied down on the electrotherapy table, it was shaped as a cross. The table is similar in function to the public crucifixion that occurred after rebellion took place in earlier times. Another example of these images reoccurring, happens when Bromden references to another patient, Ellis, being nailed to the wall. The men view McMurphy as a role model or some kind of god and the Big Nurse can see this and is not pleased. She thinks that if she blames McMurphy for their deaths he will believe that he truly led them to dying. Randle McMurphy repeatedly being associated with the image of Christ is one of the symbols that occur numerous times throughout the novel.

The Battle is Over

page 322/ August 1,2010

Quote #6

Quote:“There was a cold moon at the widow, poring light into the dorm like skim milk. I sat up in bed, and my shadow fell across the body, seeming to cleave it in half between the hips and the shoulders, leaving only a black space. The swelling had gone down enough in the eyes that they were open; they stared into the full light of the moon, open and undreaming, glazed from being open so long without blinking until they smudged fuses in a fuse box. I moved to pick up the pillow, and the eyes fastened on the movement and followed me as I stood up and crossed the few feet between the beds.”

The Big Nurse may have destroyed McMurphy mentally and physically but everyone knows that has truly has won the battle they have been fighting for so long now. Bromden is just helping him finish. The Nurse will no longer be able to keep McMurphy around to use as an example of what will happen if a patient defies her rules. That is what she wanted but she loses this battle and she will not be able to do that. From here on out any new patient that come to the ward will hear about what happened when McMurphy arrived to the what, they will not be afraid of her like the other patients first were. The nurse has lost all of her power she once had. Randle knew that he would have to sacrifice his life in order for the Nurse to give it a rest and realize that the hospital is not like it used to be and will never be like that again.

Strength and Independence

page 306/ August 1,2010

Quote #5

Quote:“‘I, however, have a plan,’ Harding said. He got to his feet. He said McMurphy was obviously too far gone to handle the situation himself and someone else would have to take over. As he talked he stood straighter and became more sober. He spoke in an earnest and urgent voice, and his hands shaped what he said. I was glad he was there to take over.”

This quote is very valuable in the reader understanding that McMurphy is a main reason as to why the patients have become more independent and they have learned how to be themselves, not who someone tells them to be. McMurphy helped the patients become men; they are no longer the “rabbits” that he once described them as. Although after the EST shocks McMurphy is weakened mentally, the guys still look to him as a role model. McMurphy gave the men strength to believe in themselves and they have taken that strength to help McMurphy just as he helped them in the beginning.

Beating Them At Their Own Game

page 287-288/ August 1,2010

Quote #4

Quote:“I stand, stood up slowly, feeling numb between the shoulders. The white pillows on the floor of the Seclusion Room were soaked from me peeing on them while I was out. I couldn’t remember all of it yet but I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and tried to clear my head. I worked at it. I’d never worked out of coming out of it before.”

This was after Bromden got the EST shocks. He is saying that he is beating the Combine. The Combine shocks the patients to numb and dull their mind and body so they end up a vegetable. When they become a vegetable, they cannot talk and are restrained to a bed. After the shocks, they want the patients to stay unconscious for many days. However, Bromden has figured out how to beat them and come out of it faster than what they expect. This is when Bromden realizes that he does not have to let other people tell him to live his life. He knows that he does not have to fear for his life now every time they send him to get the electrotherapy. He can beat them at their own game.

Living In Two Different Worlds

page 240/ August 1,2010

Quote #3

Quote:“In fact, he worked so hard at pointing out the funny side of things that I was wondering a little if maybe he was blind to the other side, if maybe he wasn’t able to see what it was that parched laughter deep inside your stomach. Maybe the guys weren’t able to see it either, just feel the pressures of the different beams and frequencies coming from all the directions, working to push and bend you one way or another, feel the Combine at work-but I was able to see it.”

This is an interesting quote from the book because it talks about the two different worlds that the patients are exposed to. The first is a free and careless world with laughter. They see this world when they leave the ward and go on the fishing trip. They were not told how to act and they could just be themselves. Though they were judged, they showed everyone whom they truly were and stood up to the people who thought badly of them. The second world is where they live on a daily basis with the Big Nurse telling them who to be and how to act. This world is very structured and rigid. From then on, the patients fight with the Big Nurse so they can live in the first world; this way they will have freedom. Bromden sees exactly what the Combine is trying to do to these men, though some may not see this.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

page 285/ August 1,2010

Quote #2

Quote:“Tingle, tingle, tangle toes, she’s a good fisherman, catches hen, puts ’em inna pens…wire blier, limber lock, three geese inna flock... one flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo’s nest… O-U-T spells out… goose swoops down and plucks you out.”

These are the lyrics to the song that Bromden’s grandmother used to sing to him. They help to explain why the book was titled, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The lyric are one large metaphor that compares the geese to live in the ward. The geese represent the “higher” people in life (such as the Big Nurse or the Doctor). All the hens in this pen represent all of the people in the world. The few hens that are plucked out of this pen represent the patients. They were of the few that were chosen to be different from the rest. The goose plucked up the patients. The goose chooses the hens that flew over the cuckoo’s nest and these hens became different.

"You lose yourself in the fog"

page 137/July 11, 2010

Quote #1

Quote:“I’m further off than I’ve ever been. This is what it’s like to be dead. I guess this is what it’s like to be a Vegetable; you lose yourself in the fog. You don’t move. They feed your body till it finally stops eating; then they burn it. It’s not so bad. There’s no pain. I don’t feel much of anything other than a touch of chill I figure will pass in time.”

Chief Bromden had been in this state of fog for most of the day. He barely sees anything that had been going in the ward. He experiences this most of his days while in the hospital but they do not normally last this long. Chief Bromden is hallucinating about this fog but truthfully, it may as well be true with all the rules and regulations that are enforced in the ward. The patients are numb from the loud music, which prevents conversation, and the patients virtually are not allowed to think by themselves they are told what to think most of the time. They are corrected and punished if they refuse to change their minds. The fog they are in seems like it will never end to them. This quote represents the way the characters are feeling at the beginning of the novel before Randle McMurphy comes and helps to pull the patients out of this fog.