It’s been about a year or two now since I’ve felt as though I have had little to no control over my personality. It’s hard to describe because it’s hard to notice it myself until I sit down and think about it and realize I’m nothing like I was the other day. But every week or so, or sometimes randomly halfway throughout the day it feels like I’m given a random “amount” of introversion/extroversion. There were days when it first started at Beeber where I wanted to talk to everyone in my class and then other days where I didn’t want to talk to anybody. And other than that, basically all of my personality traits are never consistent with every now and then they have a drastic change. We don’t really see a character (at least yet) in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest that has a sort of “multiple personality disorder” (even if I wouldn’t really define myself to have it) but the closest I could think of is every characters shift in extroversion/introversion when affected by Mcmurphy.

Mcmurphy over a couple of weeks, made almost the entirety of the ward more extroverted and made the community more involved with each other from day 1. And then later one when he hears that he might not be able to leave when promised, his entire personality shifts to being quiet and collected, not wanting to break any rules. Cheswick was being rowdy and asked McMurphy for backup; instead of jumping in (or leading the charge) like he would usually do, Bromden described that “all he got was silence.” (Kesey 133). Even though McMurphy’s came from a direct cause, the sudden shift of personality is something that connected with me. His personality shift from loud to quiet felt uncontrolled and sudden. But when this did happen, it made me wonder more about if my different “personalities” come from some cause. Because prior to reading this (and seeing other similar examples) I was fairly certain that it was random on how I was feeling. When looking into it I found a lot of extreme answers like Alzheimer’s or brain tumors that I’m fairly certain I don’t have but what stuck out to me was anxiety. I’ve had anxiety problems ever since I was little and it’s been a while since I’ve really been affected by it. But connecting it to the book, Bromden is very fitting of the description (plus more) of having anxiety. Even though we’re not supposed to be diagnosing the characters, I think Bromden is more fit for paranoid schizophrenia, but they’re similar as they both are almost a form of panic attack. We “concluded” in our group discussion that the fog in the ward could be Bromden’s schizophrenia taking over whenever he is worried. We assumed this because as soon as Nurse Ratched lost control of the patients, it’s said that “There’s no more fog any place” and it was removed when “we let McMurphy lure us out of the fog.” (Kesey 115). And although it may be a weird connection, if I put myself in Bromden’s shoes, basing it off of my life, McMurphy would be like my mother. When I was younger I had 2 main sources of my anxiety: being left alone and getting on airplanes. My experiences and Bromden’s were both put at bay by what is called exposure therapy; which is basically a technique to get rid of a fear by being exposed to it. For me, my mother would take me on planes more often and purposefully make stops at stores so that I could beat my anxiety over time. With Bromden, Mcmurphy would “pull him out of the fog” to stand up against Nurse Ratched. Granted anxiety always comes back, as we see the fog returning when McMurphy stops standing against Big Nurse, but there’s no preventing that.

Reading about Bromden’s mental illness really made me grateful for my mother and how she would be willing to help me, no matter how difficult it would be. Bromden didn’t really have an outlet and when he finally got one, it only lasted a few days. It also gave me a realistic comparison for a representation of my anxiety, that being the fog. Of course it would be different for me because I wasn’t in a mental institution but the way the book looks at it is very accurate. I think if my anxiety ever does come back in a major way, Bromdens’ situation reminded me of a proper way to look at it and a proper solution.

The staff at the ward depicted in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, especially Nurse Ratched, have a great deal of power over the patients, controlling everything they do. The narrator, Bromden, constantly mentions the extreme power that Nurse Ratched, AKA the Big Nurse, wields over the entire ward. “The Big Nurse tends to get real put out if something keeps her outfit from running like a smooth, accurate, precision-made machine.” (25) Although I’ve never experienced anything like the Combine, I definitely have felt overly restricted at times in my life, particularly in school environments (having to ask someone if you’re allowed to go to the bathroom feels really wrong if you think about it, especially if they say no). In many situations that are restrictive over some people, there are always others who don’t even notice. This idea is represented well in the book.

Although “they’ve made life look very pleasant with paint and decorations and chrome bathroom fixtures,” the Combine is not as pleasant for patients as it seems to outsiders. (111) I thought it was ironic that the public relations man followed this up by saying, “A man that would want to run away from a place as nice as this, why, there’d be something wrong with him,” because it’s a mental institution, and each one of the men there has “something wrong with him.” Naturally, when an able-bodied and strong-willed patient arrived at the ward named McMurphy, he made it his mission to rebel against the staff and rally the other patients to join him. The way McMurphy acts in the face of a controlled environment is how I’d like to think I’d act, but I’m more of a non-confrontational person and I wouldn’t stand up to the authority figures in the ward anywhere near as much as he does.

The first instance of McMurphy’s plans to rebel took the form of a bet with the other Acutes. “‘Any of you sharpies here willing to take my five bucks that says that I can get the best of that woman- before the week’s up- without her getting the best of me? One week, and if I don’t have her to where she don’t know whether to shit or go blind, the bet is yours.’” (66) I’ve certainly tried to get under someone’s skin before, but never someone who had that level of power over me. I thought his bet was a little crazy at first, but after all, McMurphy is a gambler, and he didn’t have anything better to do with his time. As it turned out, he succeeded in ruffling the nurse’s feathers so much that some of the other patients joined him once they saw how much fun he was having upsetting her. When they tried to watch the World Series game on TV and the nurse shut it off, they all watched a blank TV screen just to push her buttons. “‘You men- Stop this. Stop!’” (125) This reminds me of something my sister and I would have done when we were little to make our mom mad if she’d done something we deemed unfair.

The men never would’ve been trying to watch that World Series game in the first place if it wasn’t for McMurphy’s passion and his demand for not one but two votes to move TV hours to the time the games would be on. It hadn’t been easy, but he’d “inspired” enough people to vote his way that he finally got a majority vote. “‘One of you guys, for cryin’ out loud! This is where you get the edge, don’t you see that? We have to do this- or we’re whipped!’” (123) The edge McMurphy spoke of means the upper hand on the staff, especially the big nurse. He’d already caused a scene bringing the matter to a vote once, nevermind twice, and his failure to get a majority vote either time wouldn’t bode well for his future in the ward. Luckily for him, Bromden’s vote made 21 votes and he got his adjusted TV time. Unfortunately, the nurse was angry at him and turned the TV off, so it was all for nothing. This voting scene, especially the first one, reminded me of all the times I’ve been in the minority vote for something I wanted. I usually just go along with it and don’t make a big deal out of not getting my way, but this makes me think that I should push harder for something if I feel really passionate about it.

Finally, one area where I do see a similarity between me and McMurphy is our stubbornness. When asked by Frederickson, a fellow patient, how he’d bust out of the ward, McMurphy replied “Well, I guess I could knock the mesh outa one of these windows with a chair when and if I took a notion…” (107) and when told a chair wouldn’t do the job, he attempted to pick up an impossibly heavy control panel. He tried so hard to lift it that “There’s blood on the levers where he tore his hands.” (110) I’m guilty of committing way too hard to stay true to my word or make myself look good. I don’t think I’ve physically injured myself because of it, but I’ll go pretty far out of my way in hopes of proving a point.

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey wrestles with authority and how humans choose to respond to it. The reader is introduced to Randle McMurphy, a diagnosed “psychopath” who changes the dynamic in the psych ward of the hospital. The ward is led by Big Nurse Ratched, a controlling authority figure for the patients. She asserts her dominance by manipulating the patients with fear, and controlling everything in the ward to her liking. The narrator, Bromden, feels that she “is able to set the wall clock at whatever speed she wants…” (68). Another patient says that Big Nurse is one of those “people who try to make you weak so they can get you to toe the line, to follow their rules, to live like they want you to. And the best way to do this … is to weaken you by gettin’ you where it hurts the worst” (54). Big Nurse clearly has a hold on her patients. Until McMurphy comes into the picture.

McMurphy knows her game, or at least he thinks he does. He is determined to defeat her at her own manipulation game. He first tries this by trying to just voice his annoyance, specifically about how loud the radio plays when they are in the day room. He complains multiple times throughout the evening, but eventually gets to bed.

The next morning, he is up and about before 6:45, which is strictly against ward rules, and he is singing, loud enough to wake up Bromden at least. He surprises Big Nurse with his partial nudity, and she is completely caught off-guard by his singing. He has her so worked up that she starts yelling at her employees, a rare occurrence. McMurphy has taken his anger with the constant radio noise, and flipped it on its head to use as leverage. He is taking what Big Nurse has told him and using it against her to get ahead.

I chose this moment from the text because I have used a very similar tactic to get what I wanted. In 4th grade at Greene Street Friends School, gym class was the best class. Unlike middle school P.E, gym class was another word for fun games and challenges with your class. We played kickball, jumped off of springboards, did relay races, and much more. In 4th grade, one of our units was yoga. In comparison, yoga sucked. Many of my classmates agreed.

Greene Street, being a quaker school, taught us about peaceful protesting, and encouraged us to do so if we felt something was unjust. Memorably, we learned about the many sit-ins that happened during the civil rights movement in the 1960s. My classmates and I decided to apply this knowledge to our yoga unit.

We organized a protest and originally got almost half the class behind it. When it came time, we, instead of following our instructor’s directions and movements, sat silently on our mats, criss-cross applesauce. Granted, this protest was completely unsuccessful, and we actually got in pretty big trouble for doing it. And, of course, protesting against yoga is never something I would do now, in fact I quite enjoy a relaxing yoga session. But I stand by our actions, and I would 100% do it again if we were protesting something else. We were exercising our constitutional rights as Americans to peacefully protest, and we were using what the school had taught us to our advantage.

I relate to McMurphy in many ways, and I don’t think that makes me crazy. Although our circumstances were different, we both used disobedience as a way to try to get what we wanted. He truly gave them a taste of their own medicine (no pun intended). And maybe this tactic doesn’t always work in all circumstances. Maybe it ultimately won’t work for McMurphy just as it didn’t work for my classmates and me. But whoever is the target of the “protest” cannot deny that it’s at least a very clever strategy.

Aside from the clever-ness of our 4th grade scheme, there was also a certain innocence that McMurphy lacks. McMurphy’s final goal is to get under Big Nurse’s skin, he doesn’t necessarily care about the bonuses that might come with that. My classmates and I just hated doing yoga when we could be playing games. We weren’t consciously using our newfound knowledge of peaceful protest against the gym teacher, we simply wanted a little more say in what we were learning. And that’s what McMurphy and I have in common, when put in a controlled environment, all we really want is a bit of that control.

My artwork focuses on multiple quotes from the same scene of when all of the ward patients rise up against Big Nurse by watching TV instead of doing their chores. This scene was such an obviously pivotal moment for the entire group so it made sense to emphasize this moment. I also chose to focus on the perspective of my artwork because of the importance of Bromden’s perspective throughout the book. I drew the scene from the point of view of Bromden’s thoughts, “If somebody’d of come in and took a look…they’d of thought the whole bunch was crazy as loons.” (126) Therefore, the artwork is looking at the scene from behind, looking on as a spectator would. To achieve the proper representation of this quote I drew every person in the ward, including Big Nurse, wearing their “greens” (89), which were given only to the patients at the hospital. This represents the onlooker seeing everyone in the room as crazy, not just the patients.

The next element of my drawing focuses on the fog and how it reacts to Bromden’s and the ward mates’ new-found defiance of the system. I did this by taking some artistic liberties, I drew a pair of brooms sweeping up, sweeping the fog away from the ward patients. As you can see the brooms are being operated by two pairs of red hands, which are a reference to Bromden and his fellow patients awakening, which was brought about by McMurphy’s “red hand” (121). Along with the theme of the defiance of the system, I drew all of the characters in the book with their backs facing Big Nurse, representing the bottom of page 125, “we’re all sitting there lined up in front of that blanked out TV set…and she’s ranting and screaming behind us.” I represented the insurgence by also making the TV the focal point of the drawing, not the huge screaming Big Nurse. I think it perfectly describes their rejection of leadership and Big Nurse.

The third and final theme of my artwork is power in numbers. As you look at the artwork, Big Nurse seems to be the biggest scariest subject. However, I drew her so that even as she is so much bigger than an average person, she takes up the same amount, if not less, of space as the ward patients. This highlights moments in the book like the failure to achieve a majority for vote for the TV, “ ‘Forty patients, and only twenty voted. You must have a majority to change the ward policy. I’m afraid the vote is closed.’ ”(123) and the subsequent achievement of the majority “ ‘The Chief’s vote makes it twenty-one! And by God if that ain’t a majority I’ll eat my hat!’ ”(124). This emphasizes that Big Nurse can be defeated by the power of the people in the ward. Also pertaining to this quote I drew all of the people who are watching Tv raising their hands to represent the final vote that spurred their defiance.

In One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey creates a rule-abiding and caged atmosphere in the psych ward. The narrator, Chief Bromden, tells the story through visions and hallucinations that help the reader understand characters at a deeper level. One major delusion that is relevant to understanding the power dynamics in the ward is the fog machine. Bromden claims that there is a fog machine that is controlled by Big Nurse and the staff. “Before noontime they’re at the fog machine again but they haven’t got it turned up full; it’s not so thick but what I can see if I strain real hard. One of these days I’ll quit straining and let myself go completely, lose myself in the fog the way some of the other Chronics have […]” (37) I think the fog symbolizes Big Nurse’s authoritative manipulation and getting lost in the fog means losing sight of reality and individuality. We can see that Bromden is a Chronic but he still fights through the fog and doesn’t want to lose himself in it. But even though he doesn’t want to give in to the fog, he also doesn’t want to escape the fog. Bromden considers the fog a safe place where he can hide from reality. “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 at.” (112) The patients are aware that they are being manipulated by Big Nurse, but they stay in the fog because it’s safer than trying to make sense of everything on their own and rebelling against Big Nurse.

I find myself relating to Bromden and the patients. Growing up, I always obeyed my parents and I never questioned their authority. To me, everything they said went and they knew what was best for me. I think that in a way, this contributed to my people-pleasing tendencies because I was always rewarded for following their rules. As I grow older, my view points don’t align with theirs as much and I start to want different things in life. But because I grew up constraining myself to follow their rules, speaking my mind and rebelling against my parents was something I avoided. I decided to stay in the fog of obedience of my parents and in result, never had to deal with the consequences of rebellion.

I would like to think that my compliance is something I choose for myself, but the hard truth is I’m scared of facing the disappointments of the real world. The actions I make will always have consequences but if I make them on my own, I won’t have the safety net of my parents to fall back on. This is something the patients in the ward also experience. They rely on Big Nurse and view her as a mother figure. They remain loyal to her during the first half of the book when they are in the fog because they see her as someone who is selfless and gave up her life to care of their “insane” selves. “Our dear Miss Ratched? Our sweet, smiling, tender angel of mercy, Mother Ratched, a ball-cutter? Why, friend, that’s most unlikely.” (54) In this quote, Harding defends Big Nurse as McMurphy tries to pull the patients out of the fog. McMurphy shows them the many signs of her manipulation, but the patients refuse to agree with them or take action against her power because of the safety they feel under her fog of authority. It’s Big Nurse’s job to make them feel less crazy, even if that means being caged and controlled. It is only when they see McMurphy succeed to rebel without getting sent to the Disturbed ward that they feel propelled to speak out and step out of the fog.

McMurphy inspires the patients to act on their initial desires to rebel against Big Nurse. Even though he is also a manipulative person, it’s justified because he strives to unite the patients to fight against mistreatment that he also personally experiences. Big Nurse is manipulative in a way that divides the patients so she can have more control over them. From McMurphy I learned that rebellion is extremely important for stopping unhealthy patterns of authoritarians. “The residents, the black boys, all the little nurses, they’re watching her too, waiting for her to go down the hall where it’s time for the meeting she herself called, and waiting to see how she’ll act now that it’s known she can be made to lose control […] There’s no more fog any place.” (129) Big Nurse’s perfect facade that she has been putting up has finally cracked. The fog, and fear that lingers with it, disappears once the patients realize that Miss Ratched can lose control, just like them. We tend to view authority figures as superior and fail to notice they are human as well. Once we take them off a pedestal, we will find the courage to express our individuality and the strength to face the consequences of doing so.

In Part 1, page 7, Bromden reveals a flashback to the readers about a memory when his father (“Papa”) and he went hunting for birds. He then describes the movement of the prey they’re hunting for, “The bird [is] safe as long as he keeps still… Then the bird breaks, feathers springing, jumps out of the cedar into the birdshot from my Papa’s gun.)” In the end, the bird dies. In my drawing, I drew exactly what happened to that bird. But the only difference is that this bird is still alive; Bromden is the bird, and the one who shot him is the Big Nurse. I relate Bromden to the bird, because he said it himself, “The least black boy and one of the bigger ones catch me before I get ten steps out of the mop closet, and drag me back to the shaving room. I don’t fight or make any noise.” He did what a prey could’ve done in that situation. I relate to the individual who shot the bird, originally Papa, as the Big Nurse. In Part 1, page 25, Bromden states what he calls the “huge organization that aims to adjust the Outside,” as the “Combine”. So when it came to the “Inside” of the hospital and who was in charge, Bromden brought up how he thinks she’s “Working alongside others like her who I call the “Combine,”… to adjust the Outside as well as she has the Inside.” She is the only one who has the power to shoot Bromden and the others in the hospital.

I specifically drew the bird in a glass case display, because there is a moment where Bromden grows as a character, finally opening his eyes to his surroundings and others. He says, “For the first time in years I was seeing people with none of that black outline they used to have, and one night I was even able to see out the windows.” The bird is drawn to be looking in the distance like how Bromden did that one night. Not only did I draw to try and convey the way Bromden realized this eye-opening experience she has never felt, but to show how small the space he’s been in for the past years of his life. This man has been living in a confined space for most of his life, trapped in a building he can wander in for only so long. For the stylistic part of my drawing, I tried to give it a look of realism, yet smudgy. A combination of the drawing of Cheswick on page 12, the streakyness yet realism of it. And on page 46 of Pete, the charcoal look of that utilizes the smudgeness of it. The reasoning behind the lack of color within my drawing is not only to mimic the little color in materials Bromden had to create these drawings of the people in the hospital. But also to show the pain that Bromden had to go through, specifically for therapy (ECT), “I’ve heard that the Chief, years ago, received more than two hundred shock treatments when they were really the vogue.” (page 62).

I have never liked being in highly controlled environments. When I was younger I went to this Christian school and I was constantly getting into trouble, I hated the uniforms, restrictive rules, and the physical abuse. While reading about the ward I was always thinking about the connection with that school. Although I was there for a short two years it was something that I remember vividly. The principal reminds me a lot of Nurse Ratched, she would have favorites and she would use physical forms of discipline when someone did something she didn’t like.

I have always been able to push back against systems I think are restrictive towards me. Not only at school but in the real world as well and as McMurphy helped me realize that the ward is an oppressive system I have made the similarities with what I’ve recently done. It has been a long time since I’ve spoken about systemically oppressive systems but I have found a voice speaking for the people of Palestine. In 2020 when the Black Lives Matter movement was in full effect my mother told me I wasn’t allowed to speak up because it was too dangerous. Recently, I went to a sit-in at UPenn to advocate for the people of Palestine although my activism may have been interpreted differently in the same way as how Bromden first saw McMurphy. As we, as a class looked deeper into McMurphy as a character I realized that I also have the same views and reactions when it comes to being dictated to. Like McMurphy, I also have a tendency to try and get people on board to do what’s right. The system that is happening in the book is oppressive and I think that’s why McMurphy is determined to make the other patients see that because as we discussed in class, people can be comfortable and complicit in their own oppression.

At first, I found McMurphy’s fallback suspicious because he was adamant about taking down Nure Ratched but I realize he’s trying to play the game of the ward. In class, we talked about the difference between influence and manipulation and now I think that McMurphy is trying to influence the other patients to break free from the oppressive systems Nurse Ratched has implemented on the ward. When McMurphy and Harding talk about Nurse Ratched, we can clearly see that in the beginning there’s a disagreement about her character McMurphy calls her a bitch and Harding refers to her as an angel. The way that Bromden describes the ward and Nure Ratched he talks about how the fate of the patients is solely up to her and the other doctors no matter how good or bad the outcome might be for the patients. When McMurphy stops trying to get a rise out of Ratched he establishes that he has to manipulate the system to his advantage in order to escape. McMurphy is strong about his feelings toward Nurse Ratched he doesn’t feel like he’s insane like the ward claims he is.

In the cuckoo’s nest, the mentioning of war and the implications it had on certain men intrigued my interest. For a man to come out of a war and be deemed “ok” as moments prompt us of the time period the book is set in. So the representation of fog makes for an abundance of visual material to work with as there is so much to be said about the fog. It could be the state of his mind being full from the pills & drugs. But I see so much that could be created from this scene as there is a calming bliss to it in my opinion. So the research I did on fog told me that fog is a visible aerosol consisting of tiny water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air. ”Which I decided to go with a faded or not so drawn representation of the background because in his “fogged state of mind” everything he knows is suspended. But the things he sees in the fog as he tries getting past the pill’s effects makes for him to only end up in more fog which is why I put the machinery and control panels Bromden has seen through his times in the war and the ward which produce the combination in the art piece. We see as he doesn’t feel strong as he drifts in the fog that the ward has placed in the vents as the staff makes for reality to be shifted. Even as he wants to be above everything, he’s not there yet. That’s why I added his mind falling in the fog because of the ward’s readiness for him. “The numbers Murphy, THE NUMBERS ” this was something I acknowledged very early in the book as his involvement in the military was major. His mind is still there like it’s a switch, you can go there and be in the fog or be in reality as if you’re still lost in the world. So I added the split of activity in his brain, one side being in World war 2 still and then there is the careless nothingness of the ward. Two different worlds but they seem so far apart as there is no stopping his mind from wandering. More precisely as he’s stuck in the tradition of receiving the medicine and being gone he’s still the key to change. I included change in the visual piece because Mcmurphy is the one thing throwing the course of normalcy off as everything changed when he did. But Bromden picks this observation up as he doesn’t know what the staff may do with him and that’s why I included a blurry aspect that differs from the fog because you can see through fog, but you can’t see if your vision is just blurry.

The sounds of hysteria come full fledged that open up to an unknown kind of tension as everything isn’t meant to be ok. As the quote mentions this moment reading, “ The trouble was I’d been finding myself because I got scared of being lost for so long and went hollering so they could track me.” The combine has made him morph even as must get out. He looks at the option of fooling around, he looks to welcome the trouble bound to him. But things you try to figure out you can’t because you’re back to where you originated which is the fog. All that Bromden wants is to wake up fine but even as he doesn’t know how he survives he still doesn’t get to rock bottom even as he takes over his mind.

Josie Barsky
Lit Log #1 McMurphy’s Strength

The Chronics won’t let me get my way. I know I have my power over all these Acutes, they’ll follow me in a second, but the Chronics? They must have something against me, listening to Miss Rat-Shed way too long they don’t know any other way. That nurse has gotten us locked down like we are in a real prison and these idiots won’t do anything about it. If I want to survive here I need to change something, starting with this TV rule. I bring it up during the group meeting. We need to switch the time so I can watch the World Series, I haven’t missed one in years. Scanlon blabbering about how switching the TV time will mess with his schedule and that the doctor is agreeing with him. He won’t change a thing unless Rat-Shed gives him her approval. Doesn’t anyone see my point? Why do we only have to listen to her? Why don’t they want to watch the games? All of them disgust me. A little change doesn’t hurt and these idiots haven’t been sticking up for themselves the whole time they’ve been here. Why does it take me to come in for some real fun to happen around here? I don’t know how these guys survived without me. Now they are all lying around the day room pointlessly, I need them to start listening to me. Maybe if I show them my strength they’ll be so scared they’re gonna have to. I’m an intimidating guy, I know Miss Rat-Shed is scared of me and the rest of them should be too. I bring it up and Harding won’t keep his mouth shut talking about “A baseball game isn’t worth the risk”(107) and the only one I can get to listen to me is Cheswick. That dummy, he will listen to anything I say. Then Fredrickson opens his big mouth saying, “…are you going to kick down that door and show us how tough you are?”(107) And I think that is exactly what I will do. Maybe not the door, seems too hard and I can’t embarrass myself in front of these weak old Chronics and Acutes. I could probably lift the table or maybe a bed. Not too heavy. Harding then brings up the control panel and I tell him, “Hell are you birds telling me I can’t lift that dinky little gizmo?”(109) Everyone looks over, including Old Chief Bromden who doesn’t have a clue what’s about to happen. I examine the dials and levers, it’s a big old cement block, but it’s nothing I’m not used to. I used to lift hay bales for a living, this thing doesn’t have a shot against me. I jump off the table, take off my shirt, and start hyping myself up. I can do this, I can lift it no problem. These guys don’t know my strength. I tell them, “…who’s willing to lay five bucks? Nobody’s going to convince me I can’t do something till I try it…”(109) I walk near the control panel and tell everyone to take a step back. Hardings still talking, calling me a fool. I’m so angry it’s like I’m taking all the air out of the room. I shift my feet, put my hands under the cement, and start lifting. It’s heavier than I thought, but I can’t let them know that. I might be turning red, it’s like my veins are about to pop out of my arms and like my hands are gonna fall off. I was lying, I can’t do this, I know it. If I keep trying my hands will fall off and no one will ever listen to me again. I used all my strength, I showed them my strength, who cares I couldn’t lift it. I turn to them all and say, “But I tried though… God damn it, I sure as hell did that much, now, didn’t I?” I’m not embarrassed. How could I be?

stylistic choices: Writing from McMurphy’s point of view I wanted his arrogance to show. Throughout the ward, he believes he is the top dog and above everyone, including Miss Ratched who he refers to as Rat-Shed. In this particular scene, McMurphy’s arrogance comes through. He almost rips off his hands trying to show everyone how strong he is so that way they’ll vote to change the T.V. time. Like McMurphy’s character, I wanted to start off the passage calmer, as he is in the beginning. He’s never thoughtful but he tends to blow up as situations evolve. I wanted to show the evolution of his character moving from verbal conversations to him then becoming physical and a bit scary.

Aidan Simas
Lit Log 3
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

The perception someone has of the world around them can drastically influence their life in a lot of different ways. The narrator of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”, Chief Bromden has a unique perception of the world around him. Every perception is flawed and imperfect but Bromden experiences heavy delusions which are mechanically oriented in nature but still representative of the situations he is in. He describes in detail all of these machines that cause fog to fill the whole area or to slow down time. But being clinically insane we can not take these words at face value. To find the true meaning we must infer to the best of our ability. However there is the one moment where all these mechanical delusions fade while Bromden wakes up late one night. He goes to the window to see the moon and remembers his childhood. Specifically how he said he “watched that big Oregon prairie moon above me put all the stars around it to shame.” As he watched the “Canada honkers” fly overhead. This temporary escape from the delusions that plague Bromden is extremely rare and much needed. Not only for him but for me and everyone else as well.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. The ability to so vividly remember the “good times” in our lives can be both a driver of impulsive and unnecessary purchases, and it can help us get away from the daily routine that fills so much of our vision and time. A return to simpler times or a moment in which we felt at peace. These memories allow us to think deeply about our own situations if only for a brief moment. In Chief Bromden’s case he is stuck inside the mental institution and reflects on how it was to be free out in the wilds of America with his family. He longs for a better life just like everyone else in this world. Nostalgia offers a rosy eye’d perspective on the past, and a clearer picture of the present. I know that for me when I remember the past like that I see how much better things are now. I never had any security or certainty in my life until I was nine years old. My father was a sociopath that used my mother for his own personal gain. My parents were divorced by the time I was two and all throughout my childhood my father was trying to take me away from my mother and avoided paying child support whenever he could. I grew up in a single parent household, I moved from place to place and never really understood why. I had One friend throughout my whole childhood and I lost connection with him after I moved to Philly and his mom died of cancer. My father kept me away from anyone who genuinely cared about me as much as he could. And my mom had constant awful roommates who acted awful towards her just so she could pay the bills and put food on the table. But looking back I try to remember the small moments in between. The times I actually had fun. There were more than a few. But overall my childhood was a harsh one, so when I look back all I can think of is how much better off I am now.

My perception of things around me has been in the past quite unreasonable. I remember thinking everyone hated me and that the whole world was against me. And looking back on it, how could I not? I was bullied for my autism in elementary school, the federal government was constantly at my mother’s door making sure she could provide for me or else they would give me to my dad, and people I cared about kept dying without me getting a chance to say goodbye. As a child my life could not have been any more chaotic and uncertain. If I had continued on like this they would have most likely locked me up in a mental ward too! But things change, and my life changed for the better. I learned to be able to trust people and after middle school I finally felt like I fit in. I have through all that I have been through, gotten better and started taking my own life into my own hands. And now things are great, I have never been better, genuinely. I have my whole life ahead of me and I have everything I’ve ever wanted (that being people who actually give a damn about me). There is so much love and happiness in my heart, and my perception of everything around me is so much more clear. Where Chief Bromden sees his fog I saw an air of uncertainty and hate, but it has dissipated. And now by looking back on the past both me and him can see the present ever so clearly.