(1) For this task, type a favorite excerpt of 30+ words directly from the novel, placing quotes before and after the copied words and including the page number. If you are copying quotes that are in the novel already, be sure to place single quotes where Kesey has double quotes.
(2) Then, discuss in 300+ words why this excerpt enlightens, entertains, puzzles, provokes you--why this excerpt is a favorite.
Kesey is a literary genius who has improved countless minds with this insightful and insane narrative. Know his great novel inside the mind and out.
101 comments:
Phillips Period 7 the ID and Superego
My favorite line in the novel we are currently reading is this,
‘“Oh, yes; I forgot to add that I noticed your primitive brutality also this morning. Psychopath with definite sadistic tendencies, probably motivated by an unreasoning egomania. Yes. As you see, all these natural talents certainly qualify you as a competent therapist and render you quite capable of criticizing Miss Ratched’s meeting procedure, in spite of the fact that she is a highly regarded psychiatric nurse with twenty years in the field. Yes, with your talent, my friend, you could work subconscious miracles, soothe the aching id and heal the wounded superego. You could probably bring a cure for the whole ward, Vegetables and all, in six short months, ladies and gentlemen or your money back.”’
Now, I find this line in the book most funny because it brings up the id and superego aspect of the story and many other things we do as a class. Mr. Harding starts this argument. I think that as a whole Harding is jealous of McMurphy for being confident and prude. Then again, I don’t honest think that anyone in the ward had the guts to go off the way Harding did. It amuses me to know that there is some patient as equally clever as McMurphy.
The proportion that I want to stress is the part that is italicized and in bold. It is a metaphor to compare that one could soothe and heal items that are of the subconscious mind. A hint of personification simply because physically you cannot heal the superego and soothe the id, they are not humans only the ideas of one. Also a view of the Freudian Lens, it’s going into depth saying that both men have the id and superego. Harding displaces it by just stating the obvious and McMurphy just stands by taking it as if he acknowledges it. Truthfully I love this quote in the book and maybe Kesey will make another one in a different light.
Wilson Trent
period 7
pages 217 - 218
"He held out that last note and twiddled it down me like a feather. I couldn't help but start to chuckle, and this made me scared I'd get to laughing and not be able to stop. But just then McMurphy jumped off his bed and went to rustling through his nightstand, and I hushed. I clenched my teeth, wondering what to do now. It'd been a long time since I'd let anyone hear me do anymore than grunt or bellow. I heard him shut the bedstand, and it echoed like a boiler door. I heard him say, 'Here,' and something lit on my bed. Little. Just the size of a lizard or a snake...
'Juicy Fruit is the best I can do for you at the moment, Chief. Package I won off Scanlon pitchin' pennies.' And he got back in bed.
And before I realized what I was doing, I told him Thank you."
What can I say? Awesome. Truly Amazing!
It is at this point in the Novel that Chief blows his cover. This comes to him at a shock and then he finds himself unable to stop talking. I can understand this; it could be a rush of adrenaline. I would be doing the same thing if I were him. If I hadn't for so long done something so significant as to talk and then actually spew words from my mouth...Exhilarating!
I feel proud of Chief, as crazy as that sounds. I shouldn't feel proud of a character (or should I?)
This has got to be my absolute favorite part of "One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest!"
Pg. 201
“The glass came out splashing, and the nurse threw her hands to her ears. He got one of the cartons of cigarettes with his name on it, and took out a pack, then put it back and turned to where the Big Nurse was sitting like a chalk statue and tenderly went to brushing the slivers of glass off her head and shoulders. ‘I’m sure sorry ma’am,’ he said. ‘Gawd but I am. That window glass was so spick and span I com-pletely forgot it was there.’”
When I was reading this little piece from the novel, I was surprised about McMurphy’s character because to me this would be something that I wouldn’t think he would do. To me I guess McMurphy was getting to the point where he was getting back to his non-conformist ways and didn’t want to follow Nurse Ratched’s way of things so he wanted to test Nurse Ratched’s buttons so he breaks the glass to see if she would move and it gave me the impression when the glass broke it was loud because she covered her ears, but she also could have been covering her ears because maybe she did not want to get her ears cut because if she got her ears cut then she might not look good anymore because in the beginning of the novel it said that Ms. Ratched looks clean and straight all the time including her uniform so if she cut her ear it might ruin her appearance and might just piss her off even more. It entertains me because I like seeing people test Ms. Ratched’s way of doing things because she always has a way of doing things and if it doesn’t go that way she thinks that someone should be punished for what they do. I find it interesting where McMurphy breaks the glass says his sorry sincerely and then he grabs his carton of cigarettes and grabs a pack and Ms. Ratched never moves ever at that point which surprised me because you would have thought that she would have moved instead of doing nothing and not moving at all like a statue doesn’t move at all. Also, when she brushing herself off from all the debris from the window shattering I implied that Ms. Ratched was mad because you know she had that good appearance and now she has lost it and potentially lose it forever.
Trey Martin- Pd. 3
Pg. 163-164
“The moon was low in the sky over the pasture land; the face of it was scarred and scuffed where it had just torn up out of the snarl of scrub oak and mandrone trees on the horizon. The stars up close to the moon were pale; they got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant moon.”
The excerpt is the first part of the book there I would easily see what Kesey was trying to convey. It was like it hit me in the face and I could not pass it up. It’s clear that the moon is symbolizing McMurphy, with his scarred and scuffed up face from the various fights and brawls he has been in, and the moon with it’s various divots and dips it has on its surface. Without the moon there would be no light, therefore leaving people to wander around aimlessly, not knowing where they are heading, and what they are in search for. This is true for McMurphy and the patients of the ward. Before he came into the picture the patients were wandering around, saying what is it in this world that I can do, what is my purpose? When McMurphy comes he sheds light on the patients, giving them a path to follow, whether it be to the Disturbed ward, or just to the boiling temper of Ratched. Just as the moon can have it’s leading moments and uplifting, it can also have a downfall. This could be true in McMurphy’s case. “They got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the moon” simply implies that the patients will at some point, hopefully, step out of the realm of McMurphy, and go on as independents, not needing the push from McMurphy anymore, and up close the stars were pale, meaning to me that the longer they cling on to McMurphy for support, the longer they are going to continue to be the unconfident men they were before McMurphy was in the picture. Father along it says that the moon will at some point bring shame to the stars, but I will try no to get too far ahead of myself. Why this is excerpt stood out me the most was probably because it was where I really saw Kesey’s genius come through in an under toned statement, and not just so blatant, which is always better than having the real meaning just handed to you.
Hanson, 6
“Just one day took to growin’, huh? Well, that’s a new one on me: I never heard of an Indian woman doing something like that.”
“She wasn’t Indian. She was a town woman from the Dalles.”
“And her name was what? Bromden? Yeah, I see, wait a minute.” He thinks for a while and says, “And when a town woman marries an Indian that’s marryin’ somebody beneath her, ain’t it? Yeah, I think I see.”
“No. It wasn’t just her that madder him little. Everybody worked on him because he was big, and wouldn’t give in, and did like he pleased. Everybody worked on him just the way they’re working on you.”
“They who, Chief?” he asked in a soft voice, suddenly serious.
“The Combine…”
I chose this reading because it was the first real conversation that Chief talks and has an opinion. From a Fruedian lens we can assume that McMurphy really has an influence on what Chief does and what he thinks. I think that Chief is becoming a stronger, more confident person because of the way McMurphy talks and acts towards him. McMurphy is able to relate very well to Chief and that makes him feel at ease while talking. I think sometimes that McMurphy has more productive ways of healing the men in the ward than the personnel at the ward do. He can relate better to most of the men, therefore he knows what will help them. However, I also wonder if McMurphy knows he is helping the men or not? I say this because he is constantly satisfying his id and never his superego. He is gambling with the men and stealing from them sometimes too. (Like charging extra for the fishing trip than was needed)
From a Marxist lens, we can analyze this passage as well. As I read the passage I noticed right away that there is a separation between classes. The classes being race. It is obvious that there was tension between the whites and the Indians at one time. Is there still that tension today? Is there greed between them today? In the passage I think there was some greed. Past this small passage you can really tell that there is greed between the white people and the Indian people. Chief thinks that just because his mother is white and she married into the family that she is now much bigger than his father. This shows how powerless Chief feels toward a different race that generally gains more respect than his own. The whites are tightly watching the Indians and they are going to give them more rules to live by. Does this mean that they are flaunting their powers or just doing their jobs? Either way, there was tension and separation of classes when this book was written, and even though they may not be as strong, that tension still pulls our society apart today.
Mitzel Pd. 6
(p.217) "'Juicy Fruit is the best I can do for you at the moment, Chief. Package I won off Scanlon pitchin' pennies.' And he got back in bed.
And before I realized what I was doing, I told him Thank you.
He didn't say anything right off. He was up on his elbow, watching me the way he'd watch the black boy, waiting for me to say something else. I picked up the package of gum from the bedspread and help it in my hand and told him Thank you.
It didn't sound like much because my throat was rusty and my tongue creaked. He told me I sounded a little out of practice and laughed at that. I tried to laugh with him, but it was a squawking sound, like a pullet trying to crow. It sounded more like crying then laughing."
(p. 221) "'Take 'er easy, buddy; shhh.'
'And if you fight they lock you someplace and make you stop--'
'Easy, easy, Chief. Just cool it for a while. They heard you.'
He lay down and kept still. My bed was hot, I noticed. I could hear the squeak of rubber soles as the black boy come in with a flashlight to see what the noise was. We lay still till her left.
'He finally just drank,' I whispered. I didn't seem to be able to stop talking, not till I finished telling what I thought was all of it."
........'I been talking crazy, ain't I?
'Yeah, Chief'--he rolled over in his bed--'you been talkin' crazy.'"
After finding all the gum under Bromden's bed, McMurphy sings and jokes to Chief. He makes up songs and talks so he can loosens up Chief and make him feel wanted. I loved how Chief finally laughs and opens up. I have said since the beginning that there would be no way I would survive without laughing. You laugh to blow off steam, you laugh for fun, you laugh for many things in life. Laughing is natural and would be a healing to all the patients (p. 217).
On page 217-224 Chief speaks for the first time with McMurphy. McMurphy relates to Chief's life making him feel secure and safe. Chief now feels he can open up, he realizes that McMurphy is helping him out of the fog without judging him. When Bromden first speaks he is hesitant and worried that people will hear until finally he gets worked up. It has been so long since he has last spoke that he cannot stop the words from pouring out. He rambles about his past, the land, his father, the Indians, and about how small he is. Bromden is excited; he finally has someone he trusts and can open up to.
McMurphy is the first person who will give Bromden a chance to speak while actually listening. Everyone needs a friend that will sit back and listen now and then. I thought these pages were amazing, it would be so hard to not speak for so long. Everything has to be locked up inside Chief. I am a talkative girl and I would never be able to silence myself for years. It is a great feeling to have someone there to support you and listen even for the little things. These pages mark a huge step in healing and coming out of the fog for Chief. He later becomes more rebellious, talkative, stronger mentally, and believes more in himself.
Bratland Pd. 3
Page 73
“McMurphy rubs his palms together. ‘Here’s what I’m thinkin’. You birds seem to think you got quite the champ in there, don’t’ you? Quite the-what did you call her?-sure, impregnable woman. What I want to know is how many of you are dead sure enough to put a little money on her?’
‘Dead sure enough…?’
‘Just what I said: 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.’ ”
I chose this excerpt because McMurphy’s cockiness and high self-esteem intrigues me. He is so overzealous of his ability to break down Nurse Ratched that he is willing to bet his own money to the other patients that he can take make her break before she breaks him. I like his enthusiasm and confidence he has towards himself. I took this excerpt as a foreshadow saying that McMurphy was going to take down Nurse Ratched at any cost, because he was a gambling man and he would do whatever it took to win this bet; just like any other bet. But, this bet was like none other he has ever made before. This bet would be a bet he would win in the beginning, but was also in for a rude awakening during the duration of his stay in the ward. Once McMurphy broke Ratched down the first time, she retaliated, and it has been a back and forth duel between the two. I really like both of McMurphy’s and Nurse Ratched’s determination to break the other down and be victorious. I also commend both of them for not backing down to the other as well. McMurphy has always been my favorite character in this book, because of his will and determination, and perseverance to help others along the way; even if he didn’t want to. His determination, will, and perseverance to take Ratched down reminds me of anybody who is determined to succeed at anything and everything they do. Whether it be in sports, their job, or academics; just seeing people become determined, and willing to put forth the effort no matter the cost, really inspires me to do my best as well. That is why I have taken so much interest in McMurphy’s perseverance, because it has made me want to persevere in everything I do; academically and athletically.
Boy Pd. 3
Page 222
"That's a lie. I know he's still alive. That ain't the reason I want to touch him. I want to touch him because he's a man. That's a lie too. There's other men around. I could touch them. I want to touch him because I'm one of those queers! But that's a lie too. That's one fear hiding behind another. If I was one of these queers I'd want to do other things with him. I just want to touch him because he's who he is." -Chief Bromden
The excerpt from this page of "Cuckoo's Nest" enlightened me because Chief Bromden questions who he himself actually is. He figures out through a thought process that he is not a gay man. Bromden also works through his problem in a process of elimination by asking himself if he is one sort of person or another. It's one of my favorite moments in the novel because Chief just actually wants to reach out and touch someone as "big" as McMurphy is. He wants to literally feel what it is like to be a self-confident, self-reliant person again. Bromden has gone so long without knowing what it feels like that he wants to touch it and know that it is real and not a schizophrenic-based character from his mind. I believe that this excerpt also shows how holy of a figure that McMurphy is in this novel. Kesey seems to portray McMurphy as the savior of the ward, like Jesus as the Christian savior. McMurphy is so glorified in Chief Bromden's mind that he is willing to let McMurphy into his own mind in hope of destroying the fog. To Chief, McMurphy has an immoveable aura of confidence and everything that a man should be; this compared to Chief's problem of a metaphorical lack in body build. Chief knows that he can once again be this big, but he needs McMurphy's assurance and guidance to coax him back to the path of self-reliance. I believe the reason in Chief wanting to physically touch McMurphy was that Chief was hoping that some of the greatness in McMurphy would transfer to himself. This is similar in the real world when the public idolizes somebody and just wants to touch their hand. For example, if a strong political figure, actor/actress, singer, or pro athlete was in town, they would be on a metaphorical pedestal and the public would want to "kiss their hand", so to speak.
This is a great excerpt from the novel in my opinion; well done Kesey.
Drenth Pd. 2
Pg. 208
“The other Acutes were beginning to follow his lead. Harding began flirting with all the student nurses and Billy Bibbit completely quit writing what he used to call his ‘oberservation’ in the log book, and when the window in front of her desk got replaced again, with a big X across it in whitewash to make sure McMurphy didn’t have any excuse for not knowing it was there, Scanlon did it in by accidentally bouncing our basketball through it before the whitewashed X was even dry.”
I like this passage because it shows that the patients are starting to stand up for themselves. This is the first time that the patients will stand up for themselves. If McMurphy never came to the hospital, all the patients wouldn’t have done any of the stuff that they did in this passage. Scanlon broke Nurse Ratched’s glass window after it was repaired from McMurphy breaking it by “accidentally” bouncing the basketball through it. This is the third time that the window has been broken. He has this basketball from a basketball team that was formed. It was formed by a majority of a vote. McMurphy can up with the idea of a basketball team. The majority of the vote also shows that the patients are taking control. The continually breaking of the glass shows that Nurse Ratched is no longer in control. I think that it is cool how Kesey using the breaking of the glass to show that Nurse Ratched isn’t in control any more. Just before this passage happened, McMurphy broke Nurse Ratched’s window twice. The first time he broke it to show that he was going to take control of the ward again. Just before the first time that he broke it, Nurse Ratched was in charge, but that changed. Harding flirts with the nurses tells me that the patients aren’t afraid to talk to other people and be outgoing. And when Billy Bibbit stops writing in the log book, it shows that the patients aren’t going to tell on each other. They are together to take control of the ward. Also if Billy and other patients don’t write anything in the log, Nurse Ratched can’t get anyone reconditioned at the Main Building. McMurphy even writes stories in the log book. This passage made me wonder what Nurse Ratched was going to do to stop the patients. McMurphy was the reason why all the patients started to act the way they did, so would Nurse Ratched get rid of McMurphy? I like this passage because it shows in many ways how the patients are taking control.
Tayler Elster, pd 3
“The floor’s cold, frosted, crackling. Up above the light whines, tube long and white and icy. Can smell the graphite salve, like the smell in a garage. Can smell acid of fear. There’s one window, up high, small, and outside I see those puffy sparrows strung up on a wire like brown beads. Their heads sunk in the feathers against the cold. Something goes to blowing wind over my hollow bones, higher and higher, air raid! air raid!” (Page 282)
The reason I chose this passage was because I could picture exactly what Chief Bromden was describing and I could imagine being there with him seeing, feeling, and smelling the same things as he. It depicts how the Combine is trying to frighten him into conforming by showing how cold and cruel they could be to those who were against conforming. I love the detail that Kesey puts into that excerpt. And it’s a good leading passage into what is going to happen when Chief gets shocked. McMurphy knows it’s going to be painful and was still willing to go first so he could show Chief that he didn’t have to be afraid because it will all be over in a few seconds. He also goes first to prove to the staff and the Big Nurse that he isn’t afraid of them OR the physical pain he was going to try enduring in silence. When they shock Chief, he has this kind of hallucination type thing forming in his mind and he’s picturing dice, and whenever the dice roll snake-eyes something horrible happens to him. He remembers things from his childhood that he could never remember before now and can remember it almost perfectly. He remembers things such as hunting with his dad and debating the difference between your birth name and your marital name. And then he remembers his grandma telling him a little song-like poem about a fisherman and some geese, and then telling him how to play a game called Tingle-Ting-le-Tang-le-Toes. Then the dice finally don’t roll snake-eyes and that’s when he wakes up to find that he’s done with the Electro-Shock Therapy now. The passage I chose widens my imagination and gets me ready for the excitement that is about to happen so I can picture that in extreme detail.
Zins pd. 7
(pg. 281)“’ And why don’t you add some other things while you’re at it and get them out of the way—things like, oh, me being part of a plot to overthrow the government and like how I think life on your ward is the sweetest goddamned life this side of Hawaii—you know, that sort of crap’”
I really like this excerpt because it shows how the whole world thinks that the men on the ward think. But it tells the whole opposite side of the truth. McMurphy is not trying to overthrow the government, he does not like life on the ward, and he probably thinks that living in Hawaii would be a lot better than living on the ward. I like how McMurphy tells The Big Nurse basically where to shove it, because she has basically been telling people lies about what the men think of the ward and how much they like it and how wonderful it is to live there, when in reality it really sucks. The Big Nurse likes to tell people how much of a wonderful place it is to live and how great they get treated but they actually get treated like crap. If getting molested by the nurse aides and being told what to do, how to do it, and when to do it is what is considered a good living environment then I should reconsider my living situation. McMurphy pretty much speaks for the whole ward when he says this to Nurse Ratched because he is most definitely not the only one who is thinking about this and feeling that she is doing this to them. Nurse Ratched tells lies all the time about the people in the ward and before McMurphy came along none of the men on the ward have had the guts to stand up to her. McMurphy has definitely brought the guts out of these men and people are starting to notice. Nurse Ratched knows that McMurphy will not agree to being “in the wrong” so she encourages Shock Therapy so that she can have her own personal “win”. Ratched is not the only one who wants to see McMurphy punished either, the black boys are also trying to start things with McMurphy so he can be punished, which is total bull, because McMurphy is smarter than them and has more power.
Mariah Nachreiner
Pd. 2
“I remember real clear the way that hand looked: there was carbon under the fingernails where he’d worked once in a garage; there was an anchor tattooed back from the knuckles; there was a dirty Band-Aid on the middle knuckle, peeling up at the edge. All the rest of the knuckles were covered with scars and cuts, old and new. I remember the palm was smooth and hard as bone from hefting the wooden handles of axes and hoes, not the hand you’d think could deal cards. The palm was callused, and calluses were cracked, and dirt was worked in the cracks. A road map of his travels up and down the West. That palm made a scuffing sound against my hand. I remember the fingers were thick and strong closing over mine, and my hand commenced to feel peculiar and went to swelling up out there on my stick of an arm, like he was transmitting his own book into it. It rang with blood and power. It blowed up near as big as his, I remember….” (pg. 25).
Chief-
This excerpt is a favorite because even though Chief is unable to talk at this point in the novel, he has a sense of what people have gone through without asking them. By McMurphy just holding out his hand to give him a hand shake, Chief observes his hand and has an idea as to what McMurphy has gone through in his life. Chief also senses that McMurphy is powerful and strong through his hand shake. I find this very interesting as to how without talking to someone to get to know them and find out what their strengths and weaknesses are, Chief is able to sense it through a hand shake. It shows how powerful McMurphy is and how strong of an impact he has on Chief. I personally have never shook anyones hand and felt like they are more powerful and stronger than me. Chief on the other hand has some special sense. I believe that by not talking and by pretending Chief is deaf made him pay attention to his surroundings more. This made him able to “read” people without learning about them first.
McMurphy-
This excerpt also shows how McMurphy is so powerful and strong. During this part in the book, McMurphy is the new guy and he is trying to get as much power as he can when he arrives. He greets everyone as he walks in or in other words, “climbs the social ladder”. He wants to be the “Bull Goose Looney”, these all are observed by using the Marxist lense. He is gaining power by the minute. He is obviously obtaining it too; otherwise Bromden would not be able to sense such power through a hand shake. Chief describes McMurphy’s hand as “ringing with blood” (pg.25). Nothing like how Bromden feels about himself.
Hansen Pd. 6
'"Juicy Fruit is the best I can do for you at the moment, Chief. Package I won off of Scanlon pitchin' pennies.' And he got back in bed. And before I realized what I was doing, I told him Thank you. He didn't say anything right off. He was up on his elbow, watching me the way he'd watched the black boy, waiting for me to say something else. I picked up the package of gum from the bedspread and held it in my hand and told him Thank you. It didn't sound like much because my throat was rusty and my tongue creaked. He told me I sounded a little out of practice and laughed at that. I tried to laugh with him, but it was a squawking sound, like a pullet trying to crow." (Pg. 217)
In the selection Chief is getting his gum taken away from under his bed. McMurphy sees what is going on and sings a hillbilly song to Chief about his gum. He just tries to lighten the mood and make Chief laugh little and maybe feel more comfortable and open. It's almost as if McMurphy knew that Chief would open up and talk to him. He gave him a pack of Juicy Fruit he won, and he makes Chief feel loved, nobody had ever really done anything special for him like that before. How could you resist from laughing when someone can make up a rhyme like that. In the book McMurphy tries to use jokes to invoke laughter out of the guy to make them feel better. I know I would go insane if I hadn't laughed or talked for years!! For the First time in years Chief laughs and TALKS!!! McMurphy makes him feel comfortable, he relates to Chief. He tells him a similar story about how when he was young and felt unimportant and stopped talking for awhile. Chief feels comfortable with him, he lets McMurphy pull him out of the fog because he knows that McMurphy isn't going to judge him, he knows the feeling and wants to help Chief out. When Chief first speaks out his voice is very weak and creaky he hasn't said a thing in years. He is very reluctant to say a lot until, McMurphy talks back and Chief has memories come to thought. He has to say them! He has to let them out! He gets all worked up the he "starts talking crazy" he just needs someone to hear what he has to say and McMurphy is there to listen. He starts to yell almost and McMurphy has to settle him down and make him quiet for a minute so he doesn't get caught. Chief feels so good about talking, McMurphy has been the only person who would sit back and listen to what he had to say! He didn't interrupt he was very kind and caring when Chief spoke. He told him they could talk all night.
I liked this excerpt a lot because everyone needs a friend. Someone who will be there for you when you need to talk, even if you are talking crazy! A friend who can relate to you and make you feel comfortable. When you don't talk about things they build up inside you until you feel like exploding, and Chief finally is able to let some out. McMurphy is starting to Help Chief begin to heal and come to the real world. He lets Chief know everything isn't so bad and he is there for him.
Brianna Bly Pd. 6
“One Christmas at midnight on the button, at the old place, the ward door blows open with a crash, in comes a fat man with a beard, eyes ringed red by the cold and his nose just the color of a cherry. The black boys get him cornered in the hall with flashlights. I see he’s all tangled in the tinsel Public Relation has been stringing all over the place, and he’s stumbling around in it in the dark. He’s shading his red eyes from the flashlights and sucking on his mustache. ‘Ho ho ho,’ he says. ‘I’d like to stay but I must be hurrying along. Very tight schedule, ya know. Ho ho. Must be going. . . .’ The black boys move in with the flashlights. They kept him with us six years before they discharged him, clean-shaven and skinny as a pole.”
This excerpt from the novel is one of Chief’s shortest thoughts, but yet there is a lot of meaning the reader could get out of it. It made me think about my past and just how this mythical character affected me. I also think it’s interesting the way Kensey portrayed the Christmas icon in a new light. This fat man is portraying Santa Claus, the one person children look forward to seeing every year. The black boys move in on him and don’t allow him to leave, and I think this has a lot to do with their childhoods. They were raised in an environment that never got a chance to look forward to Christmas like the wealthy white rich children. They lock him up and keep him until he meets the criteria of our system. He’s the fantasy children learn to love, and then later in life discover the truth. How can we expect children to believe what we teach them about God when we set them up for disappointment with Santa Claus? By keeping him until he’s clean-shaven and skinny, he returns to the outside world looking like everyone else. The staff in the ward transforms him from a jolly idol to a normal everyday man. Could the black boys want this change as a sort of revenge for their childhoods, or could it be to protect children from further heartbreak? I have never thought of Santa Claus as crazy, yet he is definitely a flaw in the system. They take him into the ward to correct this flaw, to make him look like something kids should aspire to look like. Does choosing whether to tell or not to tell our children the story about Santa Claus affect how they’ll end up? Throughout the whole novel, the patients are being “punished” for being different from the rest of society and Santa Claus is a famous individual that is beyond normal. He pushes the limits on what is accepted and what we can believe in, and because of this he is used to reach the reader.
Pg. 163 “I slid from between the sheets and walked barefoot across the cold tile between the beds. I felt the tile with my feet and wondered how many times, how many thousand times, had I run a mop over this same tile floor and never felt it at all. That mopping seemed like a dream to me, like I couldn’t exactly believe all those years of it had really happened. Only that cold linoleum under my feel was real right then, only that moment.”
I feel like this passage is saying a lot about what Chief is going through right now. Not only in this passage but in the ones following, Chief is describing some of the things that he has never realized. The feeling of the tile, the placement of the moon. Chief is somewhat saying that now, he is starting to find out things that were once hidden or were not in Chief’s “vision”.
This passage really moved me because it really made me realize some of the things that he is feeling. It really seems that his mind is really starting to expand. It also seems like his eyes are READY. All of these things feel or look new or refreshed. He is ready to move on, ready to grow!
I can also relate to this passage. As I read this passage, my mind instantly went to marching band! I thought about how since my freshman year, I have marched each show, letting it push me to new limits each time. But I remember stepping out onto the field at Waseca this year, knowing that this time was my last. And for some reason the field was different. Yes I know the field WAS different. It was torn up and muddy, but it wasn’t just that. The air, field, and just the overall feeling was different. Just knowing that this was it changed everything for me. Now I know that this is not a perfect example of what Chief is going through, but I feel that if something happens in someone’s life, and that it can take a toll on it, then that feeling of something being different is scary and yet exciting!
Natalie Turner
Period 2
“ ‘To hell with what you think; I want to know can you promise to lift it if I get you as big as you used to be? You promise me that, and you not only get my special bodybuildin’ course for nothing but you get yourself a ten buck fishin’ trip, free!’ “ Page 223
This intrigues me because McMurphy seems like he is trying to help Chief. A few pages later you find out that McMurphy uses Chief for one of his gambling games. This just proves that McMurphy only uses his id because all he wants to do is better himself, even if it means that others could get hurt in the process. This part also reminds me of how a lot of people are towards others. People are normally always looking out for themselves first. Of course, McMurphy chooses the most vulnerable person, which is Chief, to use for his benefit. Vulnerable people will follow anyone that tells them that if they follow them or do what they say that these people will be happier or want whatever they want. Chief just wants to be big again and not feel like his is only three feet tall. Chief wants to feel like a man again and be able to take care of himself, so this is why I feel McMurphy picks or does this to Chief because McMurphy wants a big man that will follow his orders. This is what a lot of cult leaders do to their followers. They make them feel like they belong and that they can have a better life with them if they just do what the cults wants them to do. This just shows how everyone is pressured into things by their friends, family, classmates, and celebrities. Some people are very vulnerable so they will do whatever the first person they come across tells them. They do this because they think that celebrities or these other people have everything figured out so that if they do what these people are doing that they will be just like them and be happy. This part just shows that people can be influenced very easily.
Henning pd. 7
"Oh, yes; I forgot to add that I noticed your primitive brutality also this morning. Psychopath with definite sadistic tendencies, probably motivated by an unreasoning egomania. Yes. As you see, all these natural talents certainly qualify you as a competent therapist and render you quite capable of criticizing Miss Ratched’s meeting procedure, in spite of the fact that she is a highly regarded psychiatric nurse with twenty years in the field. Yes, with your talent, my friend, you could work subconscious miracles, soothe the aching id and heal the wounded superego. You could probably bring about a cure for the whole ward, Vegetables and all, in six short months, ladies and gentlemen or your money back.”
I think Harding's sarcasm towards R.P. McMurphy in this paragraph is hilarious. I thought it was kind of strange how Harding was defending Miss Ratched at first, but then I realized that he is just trying to fool himself. He is trying to make himself and the other patients in the ward believe that Miss Ratched is not ruining their lives and is there to actually help them move forward in life. McMurphy does not want to believe Harding though because he is so stubborn and knows he is right that Miss Ratched is not there to help the patients get better. Even though he is trying to be convincing he is actually in part telling the truth. How can McMurphy cure the whole ward or save all the men like he would like to think he can? This paragraph also shows how much of an intellect Harding really is. Harding has such a big vocabulary and it definitely shows in this paragraph. Even though he is in a psych ward he can still be a super smart person. Some people probably think that because a person is in a psych ward they are just crazy and stupid, but Harding proves that thought wrong. What Harding does not know is that McMurphy is one determined guy. Harding definitely underestimates McMurphy's powers because he has been so brain washed by Ratched that he himself forgets how to be clever and conniving. He does not know that McMurphy really will bring about a sort of "cure" for some of the acutes including himself. I am a little bit amused by the fact that in this paragraph Harding talks about the id and superego because we as a class have also discussed these terms in depth. I pretty much just chose this paragraph because of Harding's sarcasm and that there really is truth to what he is saying, but just does not know it yet.
Henning pd. 7
"Oh, yes; I forgot to add that I noticed your primitive brutality also this morning. Psychopath with definite sadistic tendencies, probably motivated by an unreasoning egomania. Yes. As you see, all these natural talents certainly qualify you as a competent therapist and render you quite capable of criticizing Miss Ratched’s meeting procedure, in spite of the fact that she is a highly regarded psychiatric nurse with twenty years in the field. Yes, with your talent, my friend, you could work subconscious miracles, soothe the aching id and heal the wounded superego. You could probably bring about a cure for the whole ward, Vegetables and all, in six short months, ladies and gentlemen or your money back.”
I think Harding's sarcasm towards R.P. McMurphy in this paragraph is hilarious. I thought it was kind of strange how Harding was defending Miss Ratched at first, but then I realized that he is just trying to fool himself. He is trying to make himself and the other patients in the ward believe that Miss Ratched is not ruining their lives and is there to actually help them move forward in life. McMurphy does not want to believe Harding though because he is so stubborn and knows he is right that Miss Ratched is not there to help the patients get better. Even though he is trying to be convincing he is actually in part telling the truth. How can McMurphy cure the whole ward or save all the men like he would like to think he can? This paragraph also shows how much of an intellect Harding really is. Harding has such a big vocabulary and it definitely shows in this paragraph. Even though he is in a psych ward he can still be a super smart person. Some people probably think that because a person is in a psych ward they are just crazy and stupid, but Harding proves that thought wrong. What Harding does not know is that McMurphy is one determined guy. Harding definitely underestimates McMurphy's powers because he has been so brain washed by Ratched that he himself forgets how to be clever and conniving. He does not know that McMurphy really will bring about a sort of "cure" for some of the acutes including himself. I am a little bit amused by the fact that in this paragraph Harding talks about the id and superego because we as a class have also discussed these terms in depth. I pretty much just chose this paragraph because of Harding's sarcasm and that there really is truth to what he is saying, but just does not know it yet.
Mork pd. 2
Pg.129 “There’s a shipment of frozen parts come in downstairs—hearts and kidneys and brains and the like. I can hear them rumble into cold storage down the coal chute. A guy sitting in the room someplace I can’t see is talking about a guy up on Disturbed killing himself. Old Rawler. Cut both nuts off and bled to death, sitting right on the can in the latrine, half a dozen people in there with him didn’t know it till he fell off to the floor, dead. What makes people so impatient is what I can’t figure; all the guy had to do was wait.
This excerpt alone pulls my mind in three separate directions. First of all the body parts kind of actually intrigues me in that it makes me think of my all time favorite movie serious SAW. But in thinking of SAW it makes me think totally different of the ward in that if this isn’t just in Chiefs mind what are they doing to these innocent people and why are there random body parts going down a coal chute into cold storage? That brings me to the next pull in my mind from this excerpt which is me totally confused is Chief making this stuff up and seeing things again or is this one of the things that is actually happening. I seriously wish it would hint when Chief has his day dreams as I would call them so I could actually know what is going on and maybe I could even get into the book more but I seriously get a little confused at some parts in this book like in this example from the book. The third direction my mind is getting pulled to is a sad/depressing place. What is going on in the Disturbed Ward that some guy would have the nerve to cut off his balls? Also if people where in the room with him there is no way no one saw him why didn’t they try and stop him. The whole excerpt makes me very sad, intrigued, and confused.
Part 1:
Danielle Granberg Pd. 2
Page 212-213
“I let them say another thing or two about the heat and the house; then I stand up and tell the fat man, in my very best schoolbook language, that our sod house is likely to be cooler than any one of the houses in town, lots cooler!” ‘I know for a fact that it’s cooler’n that school I go to and even cooler’n that movie house in The Dalles that advertises on the sign drawn with icicle letters that it’s cool inside!’ “And I’m just about to go and tell them, how, if they’ll come on in, I’ll go get Papa from the scaffolds on the falls, when I see they don’t look like they’d heard me talk at all. They aren’t even looking at me.”
I feel this passage is important to the novel because it explains why Chief Bromden doesn’t talk. When the government comes to his house Chief is just a young boy. It is easy for me to understand how Chief Bromden was feeling in this situation, because I have felt like I was in the same situation before. When I was younger I would try to voice my opinion or tell someone important information and I felt like no one listened to me either. It is hard for me to understand how adults can just ignore children, when most of the time the child is the one who is right. Adults do not take the time to understand children’s feelings.
Part 2:
Danielle Granberg
The Marxist lens can also be used to analyze part of this situation. The Marxist lens can be used because adults always want power, both in real life and in this part of the novel. The government in this situation is being portrayed as the highest social class. The government has come to take over the land the Native Americans are on. They think that they have the power to do as they wish, including ignoring anyone that doesn’t matter to them. Chief is being oppressed in this situation by the government. Later in his life he continues to be oppressed by the government, who is trying to conform him.
This situation in Chief’s life also makes him feel small. He feels feet smaller then his normal height because he has been ignored and oppressed. It is at this point in Chief’s life where he chooses to not talk and pretend to be deaf and dumb. He decides to do this because he does not see the point in talking or paying attention to others, if others do not pay attention to him.
I think the author of One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey, might have felt the same as Chief Bromden. During the time period this novel was written and when Kesey was a kid, it was normal for kids to be “hidden away in the corner” or not allowed to say anything. I think that Ken Kesey knew it was important for the readers to know that children and Native Americans are oppressed by society.
Niklason Period 6
“Those are the rules we play by. Of course, she always wins, my friend, always. She’s impregnable herself, and with the element of time working for her she eventually gets inside everyone. That’s why the hospital regards her as its top nurse and grants her so much authority; she’s a master of forcing the trembling libido out into the open-“(73)
I chose the quote above because I think it shows how much power Nurse Ratched has over the patients and how much they fear and respect her. It explains why no other patients have stood up to her and why they just all conform to her ways because there is no other way around her. Harding talks about how Nurse Ratched is impregnable and how that she is unconquerable to anyone at the ward no matter what they do or say to her. She has too much authority so she will never lose no matter who she is up against. Harding also says she can force the libido out of people. It does not matter who you are she will find all your energies and desires that are derived from your id and use it against you to gain power and make you feel like you did something wrong. Harding also says that Nurse Ratched will get inside everyone. She will get inside you by breaking you down no matter what the cost and how long it takes her to do it. She will not settle losing to whoever stands up to her because she controls how long McMurphey stays there, if he should be sent to disturbed, or even if he needs some Electroshock Therapy. What I most like is that McMurphey is not swayed by all this talk from the patients in the ward. He is so confident in himself that he can get the best of Nurse Ratched in one week that he is willing to put money on himself even after he is told how much authority she has, how impregnable she is, and just powerful Nurse Ratched really can be when she wants to. It gives us a look about what the other patients think about Nurse Ratched, not just Chief.
Moss-pd 7.
My Favorite quote is on the top of page 73.
‘Those are the rules we play by. Of course, she always wins, my friend, always. She’s impregnable herself and with the element of time working for her she eventually gets inside everyone. That’s why the hospital regards her as its top nurse and grants her so much authority; she’s a master of forcing the trembling libido out into the open-‘
This excerpt is my favorite because it shows how much control Nurse Ratched has over even the sane characters. This shows that Nurse Ratched is very powerful and has control over whoever she wants! I don’t necessarily think this is how it should be, but it makes the book better. Everyone conforms to her system, otherwise they’ll be electrocuted! She uses a threat to get what she wants from some of the patients. Nurse Ratched runs the ward and is obsessed with keeping things as neat and efficient as possible. Nurse Ratched is close to the head nurse, so it is almost impossible to get her fired. She uses guilt, manipulation, and disapproval to keep the men in line. When they turn violent, she sends them for shock treatment, and occasional lobotomies. This is how she keeps everyone following her orders. Almost everyone conforms, but McMurphy sees right through her spell. She is granted so much authority, and that also gives her the power to force everyone to conform to what she wants. Some of the patients are very unstable, and she uses that to her advantage. Nurse Ratched thinks she has so much power because almost everyone is afraid to go against her system! I think it starts to get better when McMurphy comes, because he gives some of the patients their voices back and shows them how to have fun. Nurse Ratched sees that, and doesn’t like it at all.
Ryan Rohrbach period 3
Page 217
“ ‘Juicy Fruit is the best i can do for you at the moment, Chief. Package i won off Scanlon Pitchin’ pennies.’ And he got back in bed.
And before I realized what I was doing, I told him Thank you.”
This section helps to enlightens people who are reading this book because it shows them that if everything is going wrong and the end up at a place they do not want to be at but think that there is nothing they or anyone can do to get them out of that place, that they are wrong because there is always someone who can help them but most of the time it is themselves that help them get out of that place. In this section Chief has never spoke in a long time but what McMurphy did for Chief, that he could not hold the words back any more and told McMurphy “Thank you.” So now that McMurphy knows that Chief can talk that he has Chief talk to him which helped Chief feel more important so he starts to gain his sanity back because he was talking when he then said that he was crazy but if he was crazy he would not be thinking like that. McMurphy is the only one who has tried not to conform with everyone else because he did not want to be there or at the work farm so he tried to help everyone who is there at the ward to act more like themselves instead of what people tell them to act like. So when Chief was listening to McMurphy after he said “Thank you” McMurphy was talking about one time at a job the other workers would ignore him, so when he did not talk for so long the other workers where surprised that he could talk when he tried to stop them from gossiping about the other workers when they were home sick or doing something else, so McMurphy knows how Chief feels when he started talking again before they went to bed.
Thelen-Period 3 pg. 201
“He stopped in front of her window and he in his slowest, deepest drawl how he figured he could use one of the smokes he bought this mornin’, then ran his hand through the glass.
The glass came apart like water splashing, and the nurse threw her hands to her ears. He got one of the cartons of cigarettes with his name on it and took out a pack, then put it back and turned to where the Big Nurse was sitting like a chalk statue and very tenderly went to brushing the slivers of glass off her head and shoulders.”
To me, this is one of the most inspirational passages to be written in a novel. Kesey gives an example here of how going against the system and standing up against overpowering control could actually have the outcome of success for the cause. McMurphy pludges into the rebellion in this passage and gives us the foreshadow to let readers know the ward shall be saved. We know the struggle between McMurphy and Ratched is getting more intense the farther we read into “Bromden’s” words and what he observes. What McMurphy does in this passage shows there will be success for the patients and their cause and he will be triumphant because he grabs hold of the cigarettes, and causes Ratched to be distraught . The cigarettes symbolize what he wants, and that he is going to attempt to get it. This could include all his disciples finding the strength within to stick up for themselves and listen to their own voices and not others around them or those they think they hear, or finding a way for them to feel accepted and get out of the Nurse’s twisted nest that is crushing their development. All these goals are disguised by Kesey in the cigarettes. Behind her perfect looking glass, Nurse Ratched sees McMurphy pacing her control panel trying to reach his goal, and even she knows that he might just be the one who has what it takes to obtain what the wards needs, the “thing” she can not give them. When the glass, her control, comes shattering it might just be one of the biggest foreshadows that McMurphy will save disciples and win the ongoing strife with the Big Nurse. With words like “tenderly” and “chalk”, Kesey shows how vulnerable Ratched is at this time. McMurphy has to treat her very carefully. Without her glass to hide behind, without that control, the “Big” Nurse is nothing but a small woman.
Thelen-Period 3 pg. 201
“He stopped in front of her window and he in his slowest, deepest drawl how he figured he could use one of the smokes he bought this mornin’, then ran his hand through the glass.
The glass came apart like water splashing, and the nurse threw her hands to her ears. He got one of the cartons of cigarettes with his name on it and took out a pack, then put it back and turned to where the Big Nurse was sitting like a chalk statue and very tenderly went to brushing the slivers of glass off her head and shoulders.”
To me, this is one of the most inspirational passages to be written in a novel. Kesey gives an example here of how going against the system and standing up against overpowering control could actually have the outcome of success for the cause. McMurphy pludges into the rebellion in this passage and gives us the foreshadow to let readers know the ward shall be saved. We know the struggle between McMurphy and Ratched is getting more intense the farther we read into “Bromden’s” words and what he observes. What McMurphy does in this passage shows there will be success for the patients and their cause and he will be triumphant because he grabs hold of the cigarettes, and causes Ratched to be distraught . The cigarettes symbolize what he wants, and that he is going to attempt to get it. This could include all his disciples finding the strength within to stick up for themselves and listen to their own voices and not others around them or those they think they hear, or finding a way for them to feel accepted and get out of the Nurse’s twisted nest that is crushing their development. All these goals are disguised by Kesey in the cigarettes. Behind her perfect looking glass, Nurse Ratched sees McMurphy pacing her control panel trying to reach his goal, and even she knows that he might just be the one who has what it takes to obtain what the wards needs, the “thing” she can not give them. When the glass, her control, comes shattering it might just be one of the biggest foreshadows that McMurphy will save disciples and win the ongoing strife with the Big Nurse. With words like “tenderly” and “chalk”, Kesey shows how vulnerable Ratched is at this time. McMurphy has to treat her very carefully. Without her glass to hide behind, without that control, the “Big” Nurse is nothing but a small woman.
Herrman 3pd.
Pg222
“That’s a lie to. There’s other men around. I could touch them. I want to touch him because I’m one of these queers! But that’s a Lie too. That’s one fear hiding behind another. If I was one of these queers Id want to do other things with him. I just want to touch him because he’s who he is.”-Chief
I find this interesting because Chief questions his sexuality. He thinks because he wants to touch McMurphy that he is a queer. But he says he is lying. He wants to touch him because he is a man. He wants to be like McMurphy in lots of different ways. Such as being strong, not scared, masculine, he talks and laughs. McMurphy through out this whole book as brought Chief to where he is now. He has helped him grow, talk and mature. He wants to touch someone that is “big”. In control. Chief feeds off of McMurphy and his attitude. McMurphy is astounded that Chief want to let him in and bring him away from the fog. To help him to talk and become “sane”. Chief wants to be as big as McMurphy once again and he knows he is getting closer the more he comes out of the fog. By first reading this I thought that Chief was gay. But I kept reading and realized its no different them me wanting to touch a famous singers or Athletes hand because I look up to them , Idolize them and want to be like them. Chief Idolizes McMurphy. He watches him and looks up to what he does and who he is. I mean McMurphy Is just like God in Chiefs eyes. Who wouldn’t want to reach out ant touch some one with great significance and meaning in your life? Chief wants to be McMurphy.
Logan p.6
“The guys complained and kidded and joked about it, trying not to look at one another or those floating slate masks working down the line behind the tubes, like nightmare faces in negative, sighting down soft, squeezy nightmare gunbarrels. They kidded the black boys by saying things like, “Hey, Washington, what do you fellas do for fun the other sixteen hours?” “Hey, Williams, can you tell me what I had for breakfast?” Everybody laughed. The black boys clenched their jaws and didn’t answer; this wasn’t the way things used to be before the damned redhead came around. When Fredrickson spread his cheeks there was such a sound I thought the least black boy’d be blown clear off his feet. “Hark!” Harding said, cupping his hand to his ear. “The lovely voice of an angel.”’
I found this excerpt very enlightening. These men are beginning to act positive. I’m sure it’s extremely hard to take anything positive out of this terrible ward. The men are starting to realize that their lives are important and to live a happy life you need to make the best out of any situation. In this situation the men that went on the fishing trip had to get a test done that required the black boys to shove tubes up their butts. Personally I would’ve been freaking out because that’s just uncomfortable, especially with all the men watching you. Right before this testing took place, Big Nurse gathered all the men except for McMurphy. Nurse asked them many questions pertaining to him. She talked about how much money each of them had lost because of him. Big Nurse explained to them that McMurphy had obtained a large amount of money from different instances. The men were extremely surprised. The Nurse began to talk about how RP McMurphy is using them to get more money. Slowly the men began to doubt whether or not Mcmurphy was really their friend or just some selfish guy. I was beginning to doubt myself whether or not McMurphy was being a good friend. But then I read this excerpt and realized how much he has changed these men for the better. They are starting to laugh and smile. When McMurphy first came to the ward all the men were just satisfied with their same old boring lifestyle. Now they are coming out of their shells and making their life worth living.
Nick Karber P. 7
“Harding finally saw McMurphy wasn’t going to do anything, so he got the gaff and jerked my fish into the boat with a clean graceful motion like he’s been boating fish all his life. He’s big as my leg, I thought, big as a fence post!” Pg. 248
This is, thus far, my favorite part of the novel. It is truly heartwarming how Chief finally starts to realize who he is in this book. He says that the fish is as big as his leg, yet before McMurphy came he would have been deathly afraid of water, fish, and that boat. He is being pulled out of “the fog.” Smaller than Chief, the fish was once fearsome and gigantic. Everyone is starting to build confidence. Billy wraps his arms around Candy to help with the fish, and all the guys are simply just staring at her chest. They have started to get their manhood back after nurse Ratched castrated them in a sense. They all just start laughing at the utter chaos of the fish, and the doctor, at each other, and how they have been acting at the asylum. They all know they have become something they aren’t and now they are having fun and excreting testosterone. One thing that is somewhat concerning is how McMurphy is acting. Obviously his fate is sealed and doesn’t need to be discussed for those who haven’t finished it; however all that needs to be stated is that McMurphy has run his course. He has done a number on Ratched and he is saving the other patients, but at the expense of his own life. It makes me wonder what would happen had he slipped up on one occasion and been sent to disturbed. After reading up to page 288, I realize that every single event has a purpose and I believe it will play into the epic conclusion of Cuckoo’s Nest. Kesey wants us to strip this novel down and find answers within it. On the topic of puzzles I am confused as to where to expect all the characters to go from here. After the book I want to know where the characters lives will go, however I don’t know at this point what Billy is going to do, or if Harding will loosen up and respect his wife. Only finishing the book will give me the answers I look for.
Kramer pd.7
Pg 267 “’By God, Chief,’ he said,’it appears to me you growed ten inches since that fishing trip. And lordamighty, look at the size of that foot of yours; big as a flatcar!’ I looked down and saw how my foot was bigger than I’d ever remembered it, like McMurphy’s just saying it had blowed it twice its size.
This excerpt from the novel enlightened me because of the effect that McMurphy has had on Chief during his stay at the ward. Earlier in the novel McMurphy made Chief promise that if he got as big and strong as he used to be he would be able to lift the control panel. After the fishing trip and Chief, talking after his many years of silence this shows how one person can influence another in a positive way changing their entire life. McMurphy shows Chief that he matters, that someone out there will just listen and recognize him for who he is. When Chief looks down at his foot and sees how much it has grown since that night he talked with McMurphy he sees it bigger than it ever has been in his life. This is a metaphor for how much Chief’s self-confidence has been boosted since McMurphy’s arrival at the ward. I like this part because of how it shows what one person can do in another’s life. Why do we all have face book, phones, say funny stuff in class to be noticed? It’s because we all want to be “wanted” by other people and not be alone. That’s how Chief felt for so many years, that’s why he acted deaf and dumb because nobody took the time to see or hear what he had to say. The first day when McMurphy came to the ward and Chief shook his hand he knew right then that chief wasn’t, at least deaf, because it’s instinctive to be wanted and McMurphy was the first to see Chief was so small and needed to become big again. His self-confidence was through the roof by now when Chief himself realized how much he had grown in just that short while. Even though McMurphy may have built Chief up for some of the wrong reasons without him Chief would still be sitting silent in the fog.
McNamara Pd: 3
(pg. 217)
‘“Juicy Fruit is the best I can do for you at the moment, Chief. Package I won off Scanlon pitchin’ pennies.” And he got back in bed.
And before I realized what I was doing, I told him Thank you.
He didn’t say anything right off. He was up on his elbow, watching me the way he’d watched the black boy waiting for me to say something else. I picked up the package of gum from the bedspread and held it in my hand and told him Thank you.
It didn’t sound like much because my throat was rusty and my tongue creaked. He told me I sounded a little out of practice and laughed at that. I tried to laugh with him, but it was a squawking sound, like a pullet trying to crow. It sounded more like crying than laughing.”
This excerpt of the novel really intrigues me because of the fact this is the very first instance in the novel that we hear Bromden actually using his voice. Up to this point in the novel we haven’t heard Bromden speak, we have only read his thoughts and opinions. When Bromden speaks for the first time and says “Thank you” this has a lot of significance in the novel I believe because of the importance and meaning of the word. I believe that he shows a great deal of power and importance when he first speaks again because it shows how much he has grown as a human being and also how much McMurphy has influenced him. Speaking is a natural way to express ones opinion, making it easier for a person to want to be given more freedom. Freedom is often times tied closely to speaking, because when people speak it is one of the ways people can use to climb the social ladder if they so choose. In the novel Bromden is not often in the spot light, by speaking this allows him to open up so the men in the ward can learn more about his background and the stories of his past. Also by sharing your stories with others they can connect to you and help you to feel wanted and you can have someone to open up to. I particularly enjoyed this part excerpt of the novel because it shows just how much letting others share your stories and emotions can really boost your confidence or help to heal the pain. Also I could not have gone that many years not talking or laughing because I feel that expressing your emotion through speech and laughter is very important, in this instance the men in the ward could use this to their advantage to help heal themselves.
Sjoberg Pd. 3
"'Juicy Fruit is the best I can do for you at the moment, Chief. Package I won off Scanlon pitchin' pennies.' And he got back in bed.
And before I realized what I was doing, I told him Thank you.
He didn't say anything right off. He was up on his elbow, watching me the way he'd watch the black boy, waiting for me to say something else. I picked up the package of gum from the bedspread and help it in my hand and told him Thank you.
It didn't sound like much because my throat was rusty and my tongue creaked. He told me I sounded a little out of practice and laughed at that. I tried to laugh with him, but it was a squawking sound, like a pullet trying to crow. It sounded more like crying then laughing. He told me not to hurry, that he had till six-thirty in the morning to listen if I wanted to practice. He said a man been still long as me probably had a considerable lot to talk about, and he lay back on his pillow and waited. I thought for a minute for something to say to him, but the only thing that came to my mind was the kind of thing one man can’t say to another because it sounds wrong in words. When he saw I couldn’t say anything he crossed his hand behind his head and started talking himself” (217-218)
I choose this excerpt in the book because it inspires me how chief finally lets loose and talks. He did this because he finally feels wanted. McMurphy lets chief know that everything is fine. He sings and talks with chief, which makes him feel wanted; someone is actually there for him to talk and to listen. When chief finally talks it is like a baby’s first words out of its mouth. Even Chief is surprised by his actions and isn’t use to it. He mentions how his throat was rusty and his tongue creaked for he has been silent for so long. McMurphy jokes about how he seems out of practice, he is warming up to Chief and letting him know that he is there to listen. Chief mentions that it wasn’t him who started acting deaf and dumb; it was people that first started acting like he was too dumb to hear or say anything at all. It was his appearance that made people think this. Chief opens up and talks to Mcmurphy because McMurphy does not judge Chief by his appearance. He makes him feel secure and safe. McMurphy realizes that if you look beyond Chiefs appearance he is actually very intelligent. This also goes for the other patients in the ward; they are all unique in their own way. Chief talks about anything and everything, he lets everything out. He has been bottled up for so long that it has to come out sometime and somehow. Everyone needs a friend that will just listen to you. McMurphy is Chiefs friend that will just sit and listen. This section in the book is only the beginning for Chief. He not only starts talking but standing up for himself and realizes he is not small as he once thought of himself. Chiefs first words mark the beginning of new life for him.
Abby Moschell pd2
“Papa says if you don’t watch it people will force you one way or the other, into doing what they think you should do, or into just being mule-stubborn and doing the opposite out of spite.” Page 210
I really like this quote because it is so true. People will make you change all the time. I think people in our school and society do the same things. They make people feel like they are nothing until it is like that person has to change. How people act around you make you think that you may have to act the same way. People are so influenced by others, whom they trust. I also like it because it is showing a little bit of his background in his tribe. The “Combine” just stomped his dad into the ground so bad that he couldn’t had to change his ways of life because the combine was going to take over his land whether he liked it or not. The quote shows that government has power over all the Indians and the Chief can’t do anything about it because the government went to Brombden’s mom instead because they knew they could get their way if they went to her. They went to the chief so many times and didn’t budge but his mom was all for getting money because she was a greedy person and just wanted some money. I personally don’t thing that Brombden doesn’t like his mom very much because of the problems that she made with the tribe and the government. I think he really looks up to his dad and when his dad got to such a low point in his life, he kind of gave up on everything as well. This could be why he has such a fear of machines and the government that power over him and he is so scared to go outside of the hospital into society.
Flier Pd. 6
"He held out that last note and twiddled it down me like a feather. I couldn't help but start to chuckle, and this made me scared I'd get to laughing and not be able to stop. But just then McMurphy jumped off his bed and went to rustling through his nightstand, and I hushed. I clenched my teeth, wondering what to do now. It'd been a long time since I'd let anyone hear me do anymore than grunt or bellow. I heard him shut the bedstand, and it echoed like a boiler door. I heard him say, 'Here,' and something lit on my bed. Little. Just the size of a lizard or a snake...
'Juicy Fruit is the best I can do for you at the moment, Chief. Package I won off Scanlon pitchin' pennies.' And he got back in bed.
And before I realized what I was doing, I told him Thank you."
This passage is without a doubt my favorite that has been read so far, because Chief finally comes out of his shell! This shows the human drive to interact with other people. This passage affirms the fact that the inmates in the ward are actually people. They need the social interaction with other people; they need to talk to others to keep themselves from going insane. This passage shows that people don’t just want to talk to other people, they want to be heard they want people to actually listen to them. The passages made me start to think that maybe Kesey is using a role-reversal sort of thing, as in the inmates are the sane ones and the world in which they live in is insane. Then I knew that Kesey is a genius. With one simple statement he put so many theories into my head, showing that someone who is “insane” is quite possibly the most sane person out there.
Kendra Hatle
Period 7
Pg. 160
“…’maybe not clean enough for some people, but myself I plan to piss in ‘em, not eat lunch out of ‘em.’ And when the Big Nurse gave in to the black boy’s frustrated pleading and came in to check McMurphy’s cleaning assignment personally, she brought a little compact mirror and she held it under the rim of the bowls. She walked along shaking her head and saying, ‘Why this is an outrage… an outrage…’ at every bowl. McMurphy sidled right along beside her, winking down his nose and saying in answer, ‘No; that’s a toilet bowl… a toilet bowl.’’’
I love this part mostly just because I reread it like 10 times and every time it makes me laugh! It’s probably not that funny but I found it funny. It’s something sarcastic that anybody in his position would want to say but probably wouldn’t, for the fear of getting in trouble. I’m the type of person who usually says what I think, and he does even though he might get in trouble. McMurphy also knows that he is trying to push Mrs. Ratched’s buttons to see what she will do when pushed far enough. Although she doesn’t do anything in this section her fumes are getting higher and higher whenever he tries to pull stunts. What makes me wonder is why she doesn’t do anything for a punishment for not cleaning the toilets enough. He has done stuff before but no punishment… in the beginning they talk about all the bad things that happen in the ward such as lobotomies and such, but none of this has happened to him. Is it because Nurse is like a “mom” figure and McMurphy is a “father”, so no one is going to punish there so called “spouse”? Another thing I don’t get is that this is from Chief’s perspective, and it’s McMurphy in the bathroom cleaning. So, is Chief in the bathroom with him or does McMurphy tell him this or is he hearing it from the nurses in the meetings? It just doesn’t make since that Chief knows all of this but he couldn’t be everywhere to see it all happening at the same time. Or is this just what he wants McMurphy to be doing to get in trouble so the rest of them can get some slack while McMurphy’s the one always getting in trouble. Through all of this though you never hear Mrs. Ratched get really upset or angry and she never punishes them to an extreme extent.
Kendra Hatle
Period 7
Pg. 160
“…’maybe not clean enough for some people, but myself I plan to piss in ‘em, not eat lunch out of ‘em.’ And when the Big Nurse gave in to the black boy’s frustrated pleading and came in to check McMurphy’s cleaning assignment personally, she brought a little compact mirror and she held it under the rim of the bowls. She walked along shaking her head and saying, ‘Why this is an outrage… an outrage…’ at every bowl. McMurphy sidled right along beside her, winking down his nose and saying in answer, ‘No; that’s a toilet bowl… a toilet bowl.’’’
I love this part mostly just because I reread it like 10 times and every time it makes me laugh! It’s probably not that funny but I found it funny. It’s something sarcastic that anybody in his position would want to say but probably wouldn’t, for the fear of getting in trouble. I’m the type of person who usually says what I think, and he does even though he might get in trouble. McMurphy also knows that he is trying to push Mrs. Ratched’s buttons to see what she will do when pushed far enough. Although she doesn’t do anything in this section her fumes are getting higher and higher whenever he tries to pull stunts. What makes me wonder is why she doesn’t do anything for a punishment for not cleaning the toilets enough. He has done stuff before but no punishment… in the beginning they talk about all the bad things that happen in the ward such as lobotomies and such, but none of this has happened to him. Is it because Nurse is like a “mom” figure and McMurphy is a “father”, so no one is going to punish there so called “spouse”? Another thing I don’t get is that this is from Chief’s perspective, and it’s McMurphy in the bathroom cleaning. So, is Chief in the bathroom with him or does McMurphy tell him this or is he hearing it from the nurses in the meetings? It just doesn’t make since that Chief knows all of this but he couldn’t be everywhere to see it all happening at the same time. Or is this just what he wants McMurphy to be doing to get in trouble so the rest of them can get some slack while McMurphy’s the one always getting in trouble. Through all of this though you never hear Mrs. Ratched get really upset or angry and she never punishes them to an extreme extent.
Danielson Pd 3
Page 224
In the dark there he went on, spinning his tale about how it would be, with all the men scared and all the beautiful young girls panting after me. Then he said he was going out right this very minute and sign my name up as one of the fishing crew. He stood up, got the towel from his bed stand and wrapped it around his hips and put on his cap, and stood over my bed.
‘Oh man, I tell you, I tell you, you’ll have women trippin’ you and beatin’ you to the floor.’
And all of a sudden his hand shot out and with a swing of his arm untied my sheet, cleared my bed covers, and left me lying there naked.
‘Look there, chief. Haw. What’d I tell ya? You growed a half a foot already.’
Laughing, he walked down the row of beds to the hall.
I picked this excerpt because it is really funny and touching in the fact that Chief had just said his first words in a countless number of years, ‘Thank you’, and that he is laying in his bed naked when McMurphy takes off chief’s sheets and bed covers with a swing of his arm. Also it is good to know that McMurphy isn’t mean and is in fact a very nice person, with a sense of humor, and listens to chief and doesn’t make fun of him for not speaking for all those years. And then goes on to say after chief is done with his story that he is going to help him fight the combine and help him grow big and tall again and then all the young girls will be chasing and panting after him tripping and beating him to the floor. It’s really funny when he actually does pull back his sheets and Chief is there naked and all McMurphy says is ‘You growed a half a foot already’. But if you were to look at this excerpt through the Freudian lens you would think when Chief is there naked and McMurphy says He had grown a foot already that McMurphy is referring to something else other than his actual height. But thought a feminist lens you would argue that it women and young girls wouldn’t be chasing him just because of his height or chasing him at all as if it were their job. The main reasons I picked this excerpt was because its one everyone knows because we read it in class, it was really funny and stuck out to me, and because it seemed like a very important part in the book with chief saying his first words, ‘Thank you’, in many years.
Page 250.
"Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He knows there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girlfriend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain."
This is one of my favorite sections of the book so far. It's a real life lesson that everyone could apply to themselves, and to their own personal struggles. Sometimes people are just too wrapped up in the negative, and everything that's eating them up. They get like this; they then stop seeing the beauty there is in life. When you forget how to laugh; you forget how to enjoy simple things. People always say laughter is the best medicine. I think more people need to realize that and really put it to play in their lives. Laughing and enjoying life can really keep you from letting day to day life drive you crazy. Even Chief finally realizes this, and he hasn't laughed in years. Whether it was the alcohol, Mcmurphy, or the rare freedom that drove him to finally laugh, is unimportant. What's important is that he finally loosened up and let himself enjoy life for what it really is. Chief was focusing on the pain all these years; he was letting the pain blot out the happiness he could have had. If you can choose to blot out pain with happiness, or blot out happiness with pain, isn't the choice clear? Why should someone live in fear of happiness, or obvlivious to the happiness that is to be had. I respect Mcmurphy even more than I did before. I respect him for what he's able to show all the patients. Just one day out on the boat with Mcmurphy, and all of a sudden they're all laughing and enjoying themselves. People who are trapped under the watch of the Big Nurse and the black boys every single day, yet they're still able to laugh and enjoy themselves thanks to Mcmurphy. True, they could just be happy to finally be out of reach of the Big Nurse, but even if that is the case; it wouldn't've happened without Mcmurphy's help.
Kendall Cressman
Period 7
Edwards p.7
page 250
"He (McMurphy)knows there is a painful side... but he won't let pain blot out the humour no more'n he'll let the humour blot out the pain.
I notice Harding is collapsed beside McMurphy and is laughing too. And Scanlon from the bottom of the boat. At their own selves as well as at the rest of us. And the girl with her eyes still smarting as she looks from her white breast to her red one, she starts laughing. And Sefelt and the Doctor, and all."
I thought that this was a big turning point in the book. When the patients go out on this fishing trip they start to finally come out of their shells. They start to become bolder and happier. For once they actually laugh. They laugh at all the chaos going on on the boat, The captain at the pier, at the Nurse, and the ward. On the fishing trip Mcmurphy makes the patients take care of themselves and doesn't help. He laughs at how they beg for his help because he knows that they don't really need it and can take care of themselves. When they get back from the trip they start to see through all of Ratched's illusions and see that she is just a normal person and not some god. They begin to stand up to her and rebel more often. Also the patients don't need McMurphy around to stand up to Ratched. The patients are no longer scared of her, the ward, or the world it seems like. They just laugh to get over all the pain that they've been through. When something bad happens the best thing to do is smile and get through it instead of staying mad or sad.
Groninger pd 2
page 221
“’He finally just drank,’ I whispered. I didn’t seem to be able to stop talking, not till I finished telling what I though was all of it. ‘And the last I see him he’s blind in the vedars from drinking and every time I see him put the bottle to his mouth he don’t suck out of it, it sucks out of him until he’s shrunk so wrinkled and yellow even the dogs don’t know him, and we had to cart him out of the cedars, in a pickup, to a place in Portland, to die.’”
I find it interesting that for a guy who’s been ignored and treated dumb and deaf Chief sees a lot of what goes on and can put what he sees into words, as he does when he is talking to McMurphy. First he talks about how he saw his dad got his home taken away and he started to drink and Chief describes how the alcohol sucked the life right out of him and made him into something else, something worse. I think this also may be showing how Indians at the time were getting land taken away and that they didn’t know what to do with their paychecks or their lives now that they were on their own and had lost their way of life which the government had taken away by forcing them off their land which was their way of life. I think chief paints a good picture of what happens to alcoholics, showing that the alcohol sucks the life out of them and makes them wrinkled husks of their former selves who are not recognized even by their family anymore. I think that Ken Kesey is trying to point out that it is wrong in real life how the government took Indians land and their way of life and pointing out that we created the problem and should try and fix the problem such as how now days Indian reservations are very bad in some places in the fact that the people do not work and sit around and drink all day and any houses built for them by outsiders the doors and parts of the building are ripped out and stolen and a lot of non Indian people are scared to even go onto the reservations. This is what Kesey is most likely trying to point out how the government caused this and it needs to be fixed.
Alyssa Erickson pd. 2
Pg. 222
"That's a lie. I know he's still alive. That ain't the reason I want to touch him. I want to touch him because he's a man. That's a lie too. There's other men around. I could touch them. I want to touch him because I'm one of those queers! But that's a lie too. That's one fear hiding behind another. If I was one of these queers I'd want to do other things with him. I just want to touch him because he's who he is."
This is my favorite quote because it changes opinions frequently. Each opinion is very different and interesting. Bromden is trying to convince himself of his true personality. He still is unsure of who he actually is. Right after I read “one of those queers,” immediately I thought he was actually queer. He could be silent when he is in the ward because he doesn’t want his opinions to lead to the other guys thinking he is gay. If he is gay in an all guy ward, he is most not likely to have many friends. If he did, they would be gay too. After I continued reading I realized he was just thinking of reasons why he would want to touch McMurphy. For me, this scene is kind of creepy. He wants to touch a guy while he is sleeping. If he actually were to follow through with it, I would be very concerned if I was being touched. Once I think about it, I would do the same thing. When I am at a concert or game, I want to touch the famous person. So is Bromden any different than me? Chief is like fans at a concert or game; they all want to touch the star. McMurphy is the star in the ward. I interpret this scene as showing Chief’s soft side. He wants to touch McMurphy to show appreciation to him for getting him to talk. Chief idolizes McMurphy. McMurphy is strong and masculine. Bromden lacks in these categories. McMurphy isn’t afraid to speak what is on his mind. Chief is scared to speak. When he does speak his mind, his opinions are often interpreted as stupid. Now that McMurphy has told Chief that is okay to speak, Chief feels McMurphy is his hero just for being who he is.
Kayla Sorensen Pd. 3
Page 217-218!!
'"Juicy Fruit is the best I can do for you at the moment, Chief. Package I won off Scanlon pitchin' pennies.' And he got back in bed.
‘And before I realized what I was doing, I told him Thank you.’
He didn't say anything right off. He was up on his elbow, watching me the way he'd watched the black boy, waiting for me to say something else. I picked up the package of gum from the bedspread and held it in my hand and told him Thank you.’
It didn't sound like much because my throat was rusty and my tongue creaked. He told me I sounded a little out of practice and laughed at that. I tried to laugh with him, but it was a squawking sound, like a pullet trying to crow. It sounded more like crying than laughing.
He told me not to hurry, that he had till six-thirty in the morning to listen if I wanted to practice. He said a man been still long as me probably had a considerable lot to talk about, and he lay back on his pillow and waited. I thought for a minute for something to say to him, but the only thing that came to my mind was the kind of thing one man can’t say to another because it sounded wrong in words. When he saw I couldn’t say anything he crossed his hands behind his head and started talking himself.”
This section in the novel is my favorite because it’s the first time Chief Bromden actually talks. He opens up to McMurphy and after years of not talking he finally opens up. It kind of makes McMurphy act like his dad. I felt as if McMurphy knew due to the gum incident that if made Chief feel more comfortable and safe and able to trust him he would get him to open up and talk. And by giving Chief the juicy fruit gum it made him feel loved and made him like McMurphy more. Due to this Chief trusted McMurphy and talked for the first time. I am surprise Chief could last and not laugh for years. I know I laugh at least every hour of the day. So that’s also why this is my favorite section because Chief laughs finally and it’s amazing he went this long without laughing or talking.
kayla sorensen cont.
I also love the next few paragraphs:
“’Ya know, Chief, I was just rememberin’ a time down in the Willamette Valley-I was pickin’ beans outside of Eugene and considering myself damn lucky to get the job. It was in the early thirties so there wasn’t many kids able to get jobs. I got the job by proving to the bean boss I could pick just as fast and clean as any of the adults. Anyway, I was the only kid in the rows. Nobody else around me but grown-ups. And after I tried a time or two to talk to them I saw they weren’t for listening to me scrawny little patchquilt redhead anyhow. So I hushed the livelong four weeks I picked that field, workin’ right alongside of them, listening to them prattle on about this uncle or that cousin. Or if somebody didn’t show up for work, gossip about him. Four weeks and not a peep out of me. Till I think by God they forgot I couldn’t talk, the moss backed old bastards. I bided my time, then, on the last day, I opened up and went to telling them what a petty bunch of farts they were. I told each one just how his buddy had drug him over the cols when he was absent. Hooee, did they listen then! They finally got to arguing with each other and created such a shitstorm I lost my quarter-cent-a-pound bonus I had comin’ for not missin’ a day because I already had a bad reputation around town and they bean boss claimed the disturbance was likely my fault even if he couldn’t prove it. I cussed him out too. My shootin’ off my mouth what time probably cost me twenty dollars or so. Well worth it, too’” (page 218-219)
This also is my favorite section in the novel because McMurphy helps show him that he can trust him by telling him a similar story. This helps Chief trust and let he lets McMurphy pull him out of the fog. McMurphy basically tells Chief that he is here for him and that he can trust him and he will help.
Brianna Bly
My excerpt is on Pg. 76
Ryan Angerhofer
pd. 7
p. 12
“He stands looking at us, rocking back in his boots, and he laughs and laughs. He laces his fingers over his belly without taking his thumbs out of his pockets. I see how big and beat up his hands are. Everybody on the ward, patients, staff, and all, is stunned dumb by him and his laughing. There’s no move to stop him, no move to say anything. He laughs till he’s finished for a time, and he walks on into the day room. Even when he isn’t laughing, that laughing sound hovers around him, the way the sound hovers around a big bell just quit ringing-it’s in his eyes, in the he smiles and swaggers, in the way he talks.”
This excerpt from Cuckoo’s Nest fascinates me in so many ways. It is so descriptive in describing McMurphy’s appearance and the way he acts and will probably act during his stay on the ward. The excerpt paints a mental image in my head of McMurphy’s appearance that I kept throughout the book. It also, in a way, foreshadows how McMurphy is going to act and how he is going to make large scale changes on the ward. He is already doing whatever he pleases. Just by acting the way he does he has already shown who the new leader on the ward is. It makes you wonder what he is going to do. He is obviously not scared to act different so he will not be scared to do things that are not custom and push his limits. Just by the simple act of laughing, he has proven to the other patients that he is indeed a nonconformist and he is not someone to be messed with. We can guess, without even knowing much about him, that McMurphy is a total B.A. We guess that his hands are so beat up from fighting in his past. When he laughs the sound “hovers around him” giving him a very large, dominating, threatening, intimidating look and vibe that strikes fear into everyone on the ward. It really makes you think. What does this guy have up his sleeve? Who is he going to beat up using his big and beat up hands? What is he going to do to this insane asylum? Is he going to kill someone? McMurphy is obviously a BIG deal. All I can remember thinking when reading this section was “Wow! This guy is gnarly and totally out of place. What is he going to do? Something HUGE.”
Bruggeman 2nd Period
"All that five thousand kids lived in those five thousand houses, owned by those guys that got off the train. The houses looked so much alike that, time and time again, the kids went home by mistake to different houses and different families. Nobody ever noticed." (240)
I find this excerpt interesting because it is an example of mass conformation, and it reminds me of a song I like that I relate to this part of the book. All of the children look the same and go to their houses that look the same. The houses show no individuality, and the children show no personality. It makes me think of the changing times throughout the 60s, and how people started to break the mold of society. I think of how the patients used to be when they would be in the ward before McMurphy arrived, none of them were really people, they were just numbers that were kept in control by Miss Ratched. Miss Ratched made them fear her, and in fear the patients all conformed with each other to her rule. They would obey the rules and lose their individuality, because Miss Ratched doesn't want anyone to have any power over what happens in the ward. I think that Miss Ratched is symbolic of the "don't stand out or do something to be different" thought. Like the emergence of individuality beginning in the 60s, when McMurphy arrives in the ward, many of the patients start becoming individuals. Patients stop being categorized, and are called by name, they stop belonging to a "group" and start becoming individuals. The song that comes to mind when I read this passage is "Little Boxes" by Pete Seeger. The song talks about the mass production of houses that are the same, as well as children that go through a predetermined life. It makes me wonder if Kesey had this in mind while he was writing this part of the book, because to me it seems like a very obvious reference, as the words of the excerpt and lyrics and meaning of the song are almost the same.
Maassen pd. 3
“She lifted her head and gave us a look that asked where was that hard boiled bunch she’d seen and why weren’t they saying something to defend her? Nobody would answer the look. All our hard boiled strength just walked up those steps with his arms around the shoulders of the bald headed captain. She pulled the collar of the jacket high around her neck and hung her eyebrows and strolled as far away from us down the dock as she could go. Nobody went after her.”(pg.243) I like this part because it shows how the combine has beat them down so much to conform that they no longer have any confidence in themselves. From the Freudian lens you can see that McMurphy gives confidence to the men and without McMurphy they do not stand up for themselves. This is probably the reason why they are in the ward because they are afraid of society making fun of the lack of confidence that they have. The ward keeps them safe from society and even though they have to put up with Miss Ratched it is better than being made fun of in society. This is showing how much trust they have in McMurphy, showing they are willing to fallow him because he will protect them and stand up for them when society trying to beat them down. You can also see that Candy can’t stand up for herself. The men do not have the courage to stand up for themselves nor can they stand up for a girl they like. When Candy walks away down the dock and no one comes after her it shows that all of the men are ashamed that they cannot stand up for a girl. In the feminist lens you would be angry to see a girl not stand up for herself and let the men have dominance over her but you would be happy that she does not get any help from the men. In the Marxist lens it is shown that McMurphy is leading the group not the doctor. McMurphy tries to reason with the captain showing that the doctor has no control over them right now. Also that the crew men show that they are more dominate than the ward men by making fun of them and that the ward en don’t try to stop them makes them look week.
Quentin Goley
Period 2
"I been silent so long now it's gonna 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."
When I came to this part of the book, I was utterly confused until I read the quote above. Cheif Bromden is a psychopath. Up to this point in the book, Cheif hasn't addressed the fact that he has been telling a story to the reader. We seem to follow a shadow of Chief as if we were him, listening to his every thought as if all this insanity was happening. "But it's the truth even if it didn't happen", how absolutely astonishing. Chief explains in part one of the book how a dense fog rolls into the asylum every once in a while. He say everyone just acts like they can't see it, and it's because they don't! Chief's mind creates false images that cause his craziness. Later he says that when he is being held down by the black boys in order to be shaved, the nurse transforms into a giant machine, almost robot looking thing. Then while they're actually shaving him, he begins to yell "Air raid" as if someone is attacking him! To chief, all this is actually happening, and who's to say it isn't? Maybe everyone else is psychotic, and Chief may be the only one who sees the truth behind everything. After Mcmurphy has stayed at the ward for a few weeks, Chief begins to realize that the fog has lifted and isn't as dense when it rolls around. Once during a meeting, Chief has hallucination that he is floating above everyone and there is a huge, dense fog underneath of him, covering all the other patients up; just then though, Mcmurphy seems to be pulling all the patients out of the fog and saving them. Since then, whenever Chief is stressed or worried, the fog never comes in anymore and if it does, it's durastically thinner than before. This quote struck shock and awe into me because when I read it, it all made sense, Chief absolutely believes that everything he sees is real and to a certain point, who can deny that it may all be true?
Nick Larsen Pd.6
‘“Juicy Fruit is the best I can do for you at the moment, Chief. Package I won off Scanlon pitchin’ pennies.” And he got back in bed. And before I realized what I was doing, I told him Thank you. He didn’t say anything right off. He was up on his elbow, watching me the way he’d watched the black boy waiting for me to say something else. I picked up the package of gum from the bedspread and held it in my hand and told him Thank you.
It didn’t sound like much because my throat was rusty and my tongue creaked. He told me I sounded a little out of practice and laughed at that. I tried to laugh with him, but it was a squawking sound, like a pullet trying to crow. It sounded more like crying than laughing.” (Pg.217-218).
This excerpt is my favorite by long shot, at least so far. I love the fact that of all people in the asylum doctors, nurses, therapists, that McMurphy is the one to break chiefs silence and bring him out of the fog that he has been stuck in for so long. I found it appalling that the therapists inside the system couldn’t help “heal” him and that one of the most unconformed wildly outrageous man could bring him into reality again. I had a feeling that Chief would talk at some point in this novel and when I read this I was happy that he did, because I think that chief could be influenced greatly by McMurphy to help fight the system with his size. He just needed that extra shove from somebody and finally got it. The first words being “thank you” is also powerful for the fact that most people don’t say thank you in their head, but verbally when needed; and chief hasn’t talked in such a long time that you would think he would forget his manners or those phrases that are spoken and not thought of. Having manners affects a person social status by putting an impression on people. Speech plays a huge role in society and how people are placed on the ladder by speaking intelligently and in a manner that is respected. I cant imagine doing what Chief did and be silent, emotionless, and zombified for all of those years! I need to show my emotions or else I would go crazy! Also in this excerpt McMurphy shows that he is good at working with people by relating to Bromden and his experiences in life, and relating to someone makes people more interested so they interact more. Relating to someone can also make one feel important and everyone wants to feel important, we don’t want to feel left out or outcasted. Being heard and listened to can be such a relief, I feel better after talking with my friends when something’s on my mind and they always listen which makes me feel important. McMurphy should teach the therapists and doctors how to heal people!!! It enlightens me to know that there are people out there that do care and listen to you when you need to be heard!
(Page 219)
“He [McMurphy] chuckled a while to himself, remembering, then turned his head on his pillow and looked at me.
‘ “What I was wonderin’, Chief, are you biding your time towards the day you decide to lay them?”
“No,” I told him. “I couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t tell them off? It’s easier than you think.”
“You’re . . . lot bigger, tougher’n I am,” I mumbled.
“How’s that? I didn’t get you, Chief?”
I worked some spit down in my throat. “You are bigger and tougher than I am. You can do it.”
“Me? Are you kidding? Criminy, look at you: you stand a head taller’n any man on the ward. There ain’t a man here you couldn’t turn every way but loose, and that’s a fact!”
“No. I’m way too little. I used to be big, but not no more. You’re twice the size of me.”
“Hoo boy, you are crazy, aren’t you? The first thing I saw when I came in this place was you sitting over in that chair, big as a damn mountain.” ’
My favorite section of the novel so far is right after McMurphy relates to Chief. He relates to him by telling him a story about a time when people did not really listen to him, so he “acted out” because of their silence towards him. McMurphy then goes on to ask Chief if he’s not just waiting for a time to lash out on everyone there, on account that he most likely could beat everyone up there. I believe Chief’s statement is so powerful: “No. I’m way too little. I used to be big, but not no more. You’re twice the size of me.” Yet this statement also puts emphasis on how important self-esteem and self-worth are. McMurphy can physically see that Chief could easily take anyone in that hospital down, yet Chief feels he cannot do that. Chief is referring to his self esteem in that statement. Like in McMurphy’s story, he has been oppressed, made-fun-of, and silenced because of certain things he may have said or did in his past. I believe many people today can relate to Chief’s thinking. Yeah, they may look all big and tough, but their self worth is a -1 on a 0-10 scale. This is brought upon mostly because we seem to think others’ opinions of our self are much more important than our own. For example, many teenage girls think they need to look like fashion models to be the happiest they can be, when in reality, those models don’t have much of a self esteem either because they are relying on what others tell them looks good. I personally can relate to his thinking because, as an elementary student, I towered over most everyone, even some of the teachers. I felt that people that are bigger (in stature) would somehow have so much more confidence than others who were much shorter. Well, turns out being as tall as I was made me self-conscious. I did not feel confident at all; oddly I felt “fat” because I happened to weigh more than others. Like Chief has McMurphy, I had/have family members trying to bring me up from my negative thinking. I think most people get so caught up in what others think, because it’s so easy to do! I think the most important opinion is what you think of yourself, character-wise. People will most likely not care what you wore or how you look in 30 years, but will judge you on your character along the way.
Sickler, Period 6
Neuberger. -- Period 7.
“But something happened that let most of us come away feeling there’d been a kind of victory, anyhow: in one scramble for the ball our big black boy named Washing ton got cracked with somebody’s elbow, and his team had to hold him back as he stood straining to where McMurphy was sitting on the ball—not paying the least bit of heed to the thrashing black boy with red pouring out of his big nose and down his chest like paint splashed on a blackboard and hollering to the guys holding him, ‘He beggin’ for it! The sonabitch jus’ beggin’ for it!’”
I really liked this paragraph in the book. It just shows how much the social classes clash. Washington being one of the big black boys playing for the staff team got elbowed by one of the patients. The patient was then in control. And the fact McMurphy just sits on the ball and acts like nothing happened is great. I love McMurphy. He shows no emotion for anyone but other patients on the ward. I believe he is truly a good guy. There is binary opposition in the section of the book too. Patients vs. Staff. It is obvious that the staff should be in control of the patients at all times. But the roles are switched in this section. Just like many of the assumed roles in society are switched throughout this whole book. Nurse Ratched being in charge of the ward is odd, because you would think it would be a man. The doctor is even very timid towards Ratched. She really just runs the whole show. The fact McMurphy and other patients keep breaking her window is also another symbol of the clashing social classes. As soon as Nurse Ratched’s window is fixed someone “accidently” breaks it. I don’t believe it is an accident at all. But the fact she still sits in her room with the cardboard over the window seems weird. She obviously can’t see anything. It brings out the fact she truly is just a “machine.” A human wouldn’t just sit and stare at a cardboard window day in and day out. She is programmed to do that, so she does. Back to the caption from the book, how Kesey explains and describes the situation really jumps out at me. I can see in my head McMurphy just sitting on a basketball without a care in the world. Washington is a big guy. That would be something someone would notice. I can picture how distinct red paint on a blackboard would be too. His descriptions are very realistic.
Nick Vigants
Period 3
Page 289
“there had been times when I’d wandered around in a daze for as long as two weeks after a shock treatment, living in that foggy, jumbled blur which is a whole lot like the ragged edge of sleep, that gray zone between light and dark, or between sleeping and waking or living and dying; where you know you’re not unconscious anymore but don’t know yet what day it is or who you are or what’s the use of coming back at all-for two weeks...”.
This is my favorite quote from the Cuckoo’s Nest because it tells us that you can overcome anything. But it also states that nothing comes easy; you have to have your mind on it. You have to want it and to be able to do anything for it to reach your goal. In chiefs case it’s probably because he feels he has a reason to live. He doesn’t want to waste his life anymore. He has been more toward dying than living, until Mcmurphy came and changed him to be a beast who can lift over 400 pounds. This shows us how much are subconscious really does. Are subconscious does this little thing in the back of our heads can give us the power to believe we can do anything and be Huge; or it can make us feel like we aren’t able to do anything, feeling powerless, and will help us hide (example: The fog). This is another reason I love this quote it shows us that are subconscious controls more than liking Abercrombie clothes because they have gorgeous women in their ads. I think this also may foreshadow what may happen in this chapter because this is telling us that chief has the power to do just about anything if he wants to. So he is going to put his mind on getting out of this mental institution so he can live a normal life.
Jacob Bachman Pd. 6
Pg. 23
“I’m the last one. Still strapped in the chair in the corner. McMurphy stops when he gets to me and hooks his thumbs in his pockets again and leans back to laugh, like he sees something funnier about me than about anybody else. All of a sudden I was scared he was laughing because he knew the way I was sitting there with my knees pulled up and my arms wrapped around them, staring straight ahead as though I couldn’t hear a thing, was all an act.”
I like this passage in the novel because it relates McMurphy to a christ-like figure almost immediately after he enters the ward. He is christ-like because Jesus saw through every lie and deceit anyone tried to convey onto him, just like McMurphy sees right through Chief’s ruse. The phrase “The last but certainly not least” applies very well into this passage also because Chief is the last person he meets and yet throughout the book, McMurphy helps Chief out the most out of anyone on the ward. Also when McMurphy laughs it could be to either Chief or himself. He could be laughing at Chief because he knows Chief is faking being deaf. He could also be laughing at himself because he can see what kind of people are in the ward and thinks he is better than them because he doesn’t feel he is in the ward for the same reasons they are. He isn’t insane like they are, even though most of them aren’t “insane,” just socially inept. One thing I don’t understand too well is why Chief is “…sitting there with (his) knees pulled up and arms wrapped around them.” The only reason I can think of for a deaf man to be hugging his knees is because he is trying to hide something. We find out later is hiding the fact that he can hear, but I don’t see why you would draw attention to yourself by looking insecure. If you do that, then people are actually more prone to notice you.
Wetrosky Pd.3
Page 129
"There's a shipment of frozen parts come in downstairs - hearts and kidneys and brains and the like.I can hear them rumble into cold storage down the coal chute. A guy sitting in the room someplace I can't see is talking about a guy up on Disturbed killing himself. Old Rawler. Cut both nuts off and bled to death, sitting right on the can in the latrine, half a dozen people in there with him didn't know it till he fell off to the floor, dead. What makes people so impatient is what I can't figure; all the guy had to do was wait."
Right away in the beginning of this section of the book, you can tell that Chief Bromden cannot be trusted. There obviously weren't any frozen body parts being thrown down a coal chute. Maybe he is hearing clothes being thrown down a laundry chute. Something that this excerpt teaches me, is that paranoid schitzophrenics really do believe that wierd things are always happening, such as frozen body parts being dumped down a coal chute and computers being in the walls and pills. It makes me want to know what it is like to have those thoughts for one day. I really like this because Kesey wrote it so well. He took something that would mean nothing to a normal person, and put it into this section. It really makes you think about what it could mean. But then again, it could mean nothing, because Bromden is a paranoid schitzophrenic and thinks that things are happening that really aren't. Another thing that this section teaches me is that you never know what will be around the corner in your life. I thought about that because Bromden said, 'all the guy had to do was wait.' But then again, what could Rawler possibly have to wait for? Could Chief be talking about Rawler being cured, or was he talking about death? This statement vexes me, and provokes such a huge amount of questions in my head, that it is almost unbearable to start thinking of the possibilities of meanings of this statement.
This part is very important because of what was said earlier in the book. It is important because Rawler bleeds himself out by cutting off his testicles. Nurse Ratched is described earlier as a 'ball-cutter' and now that term is used literally. Maybe Rawler can actually perceive what others are saying, and heard what was said about Nurse Ratched being a ball-cutter. He could have been making a statement to others in the ward that she was in fact an evil being, by taking his life in an extreme way. It is obviously a reference to the ball-cutter statement earlier in the book. Another theory could be that he couldn't take the pain of being locked up anymore, and was tormented with the fact that he would never be 'normal.' Looking through a Marxist lense, you can see that one figure in an environment can change a person so much, that they are unrecognizable. Rawler may have been 'normal' at one point in his life, but electro shock therapy, lobotomies, and a constant flow of drugs in the system changed him. This section of the book has made me think harder than anything I have ever read.
Selken Pd. 6
(pg. 223) “To hell with what you think; I want to know can you Promise to lift it if I get you big as you used to be? You promise me that, and you not only get my special body-buildin’ course for nothing but you get yourself a ten buck fishin’ trip, free!”
I found this part in the book most interesting because everyone always sees McMurphy as a Christ figure or as Jesus. In this part though we really see how he may be using the men in the ward for his own personal benefit. Earlier in the book he figures out that he is one of the only men on the ward that is actually committed, while everyone else is there voluntarily. Once he realizes this I think he goes into something of a survival mode. He quits taunting Nurse Ratched and starts to behave quietly and exactly like Nurse would want. In addition to that it seems like he’s almost making a back-up plan with Chief. He talks up Chief, listens to his worries, thoughts and his past and then decides that Chief may actually be useful. He sees how strong Chief is and how if the nurse decides to keep McMurphy he could use Chief to lift up the panel and break one of the windows, resulting in McMurphy being able to escape. McMurphy also talks about being able to give Chief a free fishing trip if he decided to help him. When really the fishing trip is already completely overpaid for and Chief could have gone for free anyway. McMurphy continually seems to fool or con the men into thinking like him and then acting like him so McMurphy can always get his way. Although when Cheswick needs the help of the other men, specifically McMurphy, he doesn’t help or even acknowledge that Cheswick is talking. I think this may show how McMurphy is really getting sick of being in the confines of the ward, and under Nurse Ratched’s iron fist. McMurphy may have enjoyed it at first, but it’s really starting to show how much everything on the ward is really starting to get to him. I think that within the next few chapters we’re really going to see McMurphy’s escape plan begin to form.
Francis pd. 6th
“I heard McMurphy laughing and saw him out of the corner of my eye, just standing at the cabin door, not even making a move to do anything, and I was too busy cranking at my fish to ask him for help. Everyone was shouting at him to do something, but he wasn’t moving. Even the doctor, who had the deep pole, was asking McMurphy for assistance. And McMurphy was just laughing. Harding finally saw McMurphy wasn’t going to do anything, so he got the gaff and jerked my fish into the boat with a clean, graceful motion like he’s been boating fish all his life.” Pg. 248
I chose this passage because it shows how much Chief actually sees even when he’s not paying that much attention to things. I also chose it because it shows how McMurphy is changing. The passage states the McMurphy was relaxed enough and found enjoyment out of the watching the guys struggle with the fish. Even though the guys are all bagging him for help McMurphy just leans against the cabin watching the guys struggle with the lines and laughs and laughs and laughs. Is he trying to make them, the guys, more independent and show them that they can do things for themselves? Or is he just so drunk that he literally can’t do anything but laugh? I believe it is more of the first one because he has been secretly training Chief so he’ll be stronger. Although I do believe that I’m saying this because of the forum quiz and what everyone said which is probably influenced my thinking on this part. But I am also going to say that a more practical reason is that McMurphy is drunk. This explains why he is laughing uncontrollably and why he won’t help anyone with their poles because if he moves he’ll probably fall over. But I guess this wouldn’t explain the symbolism of Harding being the one that helps Chief get his fish on board. Kesey probably had Harding be the one to help chief bring his fish aboard because Kesey is foreshadowing that Harding will be the new leader when they get back. Or else he did it to show that all the men are growing into themselves and could all survive in the real world if they just believed in themselves. This excerpt just says so much about the whole book and can be interpreted in so many different ways. This is just such a fascinating section and there are lots more in this great educational book
Kalo Pd.2
The quote I chose from the book was “Juicy Fruit is the best I can do for you at the moment, Chief. Package I won off Scanlon pitchin’ pennies.” And he got back in his bed. This quote was my favorite quote because it reminded me of when we were little kids and we would argue over who got a piece of gum, and when we would split a piece of gum who would get the bigger part or whose piece could make the biggest bubbles. At some point in our life we wish we could go back in time and change they we acted or what we did or what we said that could change us the way we are today, but if we could rewind then everybody would be perfect and if everybody was perfect what would the world come down to who is most perfect and is better than most perfect, so why would we try to change the way we are? Just like Ken Kesey is like in this book so people don’t need to be there they decided themselves that they wanted to go there to help themselves, and when they do get out they have no place to go no one want them to live them or be around them since them were in a mental hospital, but u would treat a person any different they just got out of a mental hospital then treating a normal person who is just a normal person with a normal life. You can’t tell if they just came out of the mental hospital they are the same people they just have different thoughts on certain subjects and some subjects they overreact to some subjects, but you could also say that to a normal person to, so what do u think Ken Kesey is trying to portray about the men/women that are in the mental hospital? Saying they actually need help or they just trying to fit in into the norm what do u think?
Murtha, period 6
“The picture is a guy fly-fishing somewhere in the mountains, looks like the Ochocos near Paineville-snow on the peaks showing over the pines, long white aspen trunks lining the stream, sheep sorrel growing in sour green patches. The guy is flicking his fly in a pool behind a rock. It’s no place for a fly, it’s a place for a single egg on a number-six hook-he’d do better to drift the fly over those riffles downstream.
There’s a path running down through the aspen, and I push my broom down the path a ways and sit down on a rock and look back out through the frame at that visiting doctor talking with the residents. I can see him stabbing some point in the palm of his hand with his finger, but I can’t hear what he says because of the crash of the cold, frothy stream coming down out of the rocks. I can smell the snow in wind where it blows down off the peaks. I can see mole burrows humping along under the grass and buffalo weed. It’s a real nice place to stretch your legs and take it easy (126).”
I think that this excerpt is my favorite because it shows a side to Chief that you haven’t seen thus far into the novel. It shows that he is completely in tune with nature and that he ready to strike out and live a life outside of the ward. It also shows that even though Chief seems sane he still needs help from those around him. I mean he understands every detail in the picture but he feels that he is actually part of the painting which is completely impossible. I also think that it slightly reveals Chief’s greatest desire in contrast with his greatest fear. He is afraid of technology and all the pressures of the Combine and so he hides in the fog. In this picture he sees clearly because he is a place lacking technology and there is no society to bind him to their rules up in these mountains. I also noticed that Kesey made it so that Chief recognizes the town near the mountains as a place called Paineville. I myself can interpret that this may symbolize that to go to the place that makes us our happiest we must come above the pain of the life we used to leave or that others try to force upon us. Some might be struck in awe by this scene because, as Chief tells it, he seems that he sees all he does in this painting in the blink of an eye, but one must remember that Chief has been looking at this painting while sweeping this hallway for countless years. I think that Chief sitting down on the rock symbolizes that Chief is tired of trying to climb above the pain that the Combine and Nurse Ratched have caused him over the years. This is sort of showing that he is giving into fog, that he is no longer going to run from its shadowy embrace and that he will let it consume him. That is one reason I love this scene because in a short two paragraphs Kesey has made me think than most books ever have.
Engebretson, 7
“Once he wrote something on a slip of paper, strange writing that looked like a foreign alphabet, and stuck it up under one of those toilet bowl rims with a wad of gum; when she came to that toilet with her mirror she gave a short gasp at what she read reflected and dropped her mirror in the toilet. But she didn’t lose control. That doll’s face and that doll’s smile were forged in confidence. She stood up from the toilet bowl and gave him a look that would peel paint and told him it was his job to make the latrine cleaner, not dirtier…”—page 160
I chose this excerpt because it shows the true R. P. McMurphy and that he is not ready to back down from Nurse Ratched’s wrath. McMurphy, as a Christ symbol throughout the novel, is just trying to show the other patients of the ward that there is hope and that with a little perserverence and guidance they can succeed in the harsh society. The patients of the ward don’t know, yet don’t want to rebel against Nurse Ratched because they are afraid of what could happen, and would rather be in the ward than out in the real world. With McMurchphy’s help, the patients are breaking out of their shells and proving to not only themselves, but Nurse Ratched and the black boys that they can live in the ward and maybe even in the outside world. The proof of this is shown when Chief Bromden says his first words in over two decades. He says, “thank you” to R. P. McMurphy for bringing out the best in him and overcoming his worst enemy, himself, by talking. The excerpt above could almost be compared to a temptation that the devil gives people on a daily basis, and as the novel continues, McMurphy resists that temptation as well as the patients, and together they prevail and defeat Nurse Ratched. Although Nurse Ratched did not crack during the excerpt I chose, she, like the devil would crack when people resist temptation. She later felt defeated and eventually lost it later in the novel vs. McMurphy. Although this entire novel is full of literary devices, binary opposistions, crazy symbolism, I chose the above excerpt because it shows the true McMurphy, and even though he acts all tough and intense, he later softens up and like Christ, shows the other patients to the promised land; otherwise known as society.
Crowe, period 6.
Page 250: "Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He knows there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girlfriend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain."
Up until the moment Chief speaks to McMurphy, he lives a life full of silence. He chose to completely give up his power of speaking rather than risk not being heard. Because of this, Chief begins to feel less and less valued over the years. Although he is giant-like, he feels smaller than ever. He doesn't communicate with the other patients - never speaks, laughs, or engages with any of them. But then McMurphy came along, and suddenly Chief is testing his own self-created boundaries. He begins to talk, laugh, drink, etc. He acts like he's actually enjoying himself.
The reason I chose this quote is because I think it relates to the novel as a whole. I think each character can relate to this. Nurse Ratched, although always wearing a plastic smile, doesn't allow herself to feel emotion. All she seems to care about is perfection and precision. Despite all the pills and medication the ward hands out to the patients, the sheer presence of McMurphy in the hospital has a more beneficial impact on the so-called insane men there. He's no doctor; all he did was talk and laugh with the guys (and steal their money a time or two).
Aside from the novel, this quote can most definitely be used as a guideline in everyday life, and that's part of why I like it so much.
Greenhoff Pd.3
Pg. 217
He held out that last not and twiddled it down me like a feather. I couldn’t help but start to chuckle, and this made me scared I’d get to laughing and not be able to stop. But just then McMurphy jumped off his bed and went to rustling through his nightstand, and I hushed. I clenched my teeth, wondering what to do now. It’d been a long time since I’d let anyone hear me do anymore than grunt or bellow. I heard him shut the bed stand, and it echoed like a boiler door. I heard him say, “Here,” and something lit on my bed. Little. Just the size of a lizard or a snake…
“Juicy Fruit is the best I can do for you at the moment, Chief. Package I won off Scanlon pitchin’ pennies.” And he got back in bed.
And before I realized what I was doing, I told him Thank you.
I enjoy this excerpt from the novel. This is the first time that Bromden speaks out loud in the novel. McMurphy finally gets him to open up and say those two words that confirm that his is not deaf, but very much aware of his surroundings and what’s going on. I find it entertaining that McMurphy starts singing to Bromden. By performing this simple and slightly childish act, he makes Chief feel something different and stirs up his emotions. Chief is so happy to have someone giving him attention that he breaks his silence and thanks McMurphy. McMurphy sings, something that does not happen in the ward often and something that Chief probably has not heard a patient doing in quite some time. Maybe it makes him feel human again, like he is normal and not a mental patient in a mental institution. At first Chief fears that McMurphy is making fun of him like others have in the past, but then he realizes how childish McMurphy is being and just simply starts laughing, which is something he has not done in years. Chief has not let anyone hear him do anymore than grunt or bellow for a long time. I think that Chief’s laughing is a huge turning point. Now that he has sort of opened up emotionally, he can’t really go back. McMurphy now knows for sure that he can get a reaction out of Bromden, and won’t stop until he wants to. Chief says McMurphy’s last note tickled him like a feather, and he couldn’t help but chuckle. It was so funny to him he couldn’t help but laugh and couldn’t make himself stop. To someone like me or you, it really isn’t that funny. But Chief’s mind perceived it differently and it kind of struck a nerve. I think that it is interesting that Chief, who hasn’t spoken for years, breaks his silence simply by McMurphy’s child-like singing. I like that something this simple and common changed Bromden's behavior.
Engebretson, p.3
Pg. 114-115
“ ’Martini, you been seeing them other things all over the board for two days. No wonder I’m losing my ass. McMurphy, I don’t see how you can concentrate with Martini sitting there hallucinating a mile a minute.’ ‘Cheswick, you never mind about Martini. He’s doing real good. You just come on with that three fifty, and Martini will take care of himself; don’t we get rent from him every time one of his ‘things’ lands on our property?’ ‘Hold it a minute. There’s so many of thum.” ‘That’s okay Mart. You just keep us posted whose property they land on. You’re still the man with the dice, Cheswick. You rolled a double, so you roll again. Atta boy. Faw! a big six.’ ‘Takes me to…Chance: ‘You Have Been Elected Chairman of the Board; Pay Every Player..’ Boogered and double boogered!’ ‘Whose hotel is this here for Christsakes on the Reading Railroad?’ ‘My friend, that, as anyone can see, is not a hotel; it’s a depot.’ ‘Now hold it a minute..’ McMurphy surrounds his end of the table, moving cards, rearranging money, evening up his hotels. There’s a hundred-dollar bill sticking out of the brim of his cap like a press card; mad money, he calls it. ‘Scanlon? I believe it’s your turn, buddy.’ ‘Gimme those dice. I’ll blow this board to pieces. Here we go. Lebenty Leben, count me over eleven. Martini.’ ‘Why, all right.’ ‘Not that one, you crazy bastard; that’s not my piece, that’s my house.’ ‘It’s the same color.’ ‘What’s this little house doing on the Electric Company?’ ‘That’s a power station.’ ‘Martini, those ain’t the dice you’re shaking….’”
This has to be my favorite excerpt so far because it shows them having fun. Even though they are under the hellish reign of Nurse Ratched they still have fun. They live in a bad ward but they make the best out of what they have. It also shows that they can actually have fun in the ward. It didn’t say if they smiled or not but I bet McMurphy wanted to laugh the whole time. It made me respect him more as a character because he stays the leader throughout the situation and never cracks. He keeps control of the whole chaos and control of himself at the same time. In my head I thought that in a ward there is little fun and more pressure to get the patients as normal as possible. Now that I read this part I realize that they have fun and it’s not a bad place. It’s a good place for people with disabilities. I mean they probably wish they were on the outside but atleast they aren’t being tortured from other people because they are different or have problems. I also like how McMurphy makes everybody feel like a normal person, has fun with each and every person there, and makes them feel good. He harrasses people in a fun way and when people are picking on other people he always takes the losing side and raises them up. He calls everybody “buddy” and tells them “You’re doing fine. Keep on rolling.” If I were the patients in this situation I would have the biggest smile on my face because I would have realized that McMurphy was “brightening up the whole room” and making everybody smile. This excerpt also shows that even with a little confusion, things can go in the right way. Martini is worried about the illutions he sees and McMurphy turns it into a positive situation by telling Martini to tell him everytime he sees them.
Schwarz- pd. 7
"I could see it was too late to keep him from doing whatever fool thing he had in mind, and I just watched, like everybody else. He walked with long stpes, too long, and he had his thumbs hooked in his pockets again. the iron in his boot heels cracked lightning out of the tile. He was the logger again, the swaggering gambler, the big redheaded brawling Irish-man, the cowboy out of the TV set walking down the middle of the street to meet a dare." -- page 201
I chose this excerpt from the book because it jumped out at me with such imagery that it was easy to see in my mind. I also chose it because it relates to the readers by connecting it with other things in life, an example would be the western shows that contains such intensity that watchers sometimes even hold their breath. When Kesey describes McMurphy's shoes as iron, it's comparing the power that McMurphy holds in that institution over the Big Nurse. By using such images, I personally feel that it is much easier to understand and comprehend the book when you have something to relate and connect to. Giving the "nick-names" to McMurphy shows that he is so much of an important character that there is more than one way to even start to show the power.
"... He stopped in front of her window and he said in his slowest, deepest drawl how he figured he could use one of the smokes he bought this mornin', then ran his hand through the glass." -- page 01.
The second part of this excerpt is showing the aftermath of what was mentioned earlier in the page. The first part is almost like the rising action of that one specific part of that book, the last part, when he ran his hand through the glass, the climax, the intense part of where McMurphy is tired of Nurse Ratched taking his "smokes" that he says he has willingly earned from the other patients. McMurphy acts as if the glass wasnt even there of how clean it was, adding humor to a somewhat serious story which adds a comic relief and maybe even gets readers more intrigued. When McMurphy hits the glass, it breaks free Chief Bromden's "ringing" in his head and a whole new person is revealed. Bringing in excitement as to what is going to happen with the main character and how they evolve.
Bri Matthies .6
“At home she locks herself in the bathroom out of sight, strips down, and rubs the crucifix all over the stain running from the corner of her mouth in a thin line down across her shoulders and breasts. She rubs and rubs and hails Mary to beat thunder, but the stain stays. She looks in the mirror, see it’s darker’n ever. Finally takes a wire brush used to take paint off of boats and scrubs the stain away, puts a nightgown on over the raw oozing hide, and crawls into bed.
But she’s too full of the stuff. While she’s asleep it rises in her throat and into her mouth, drains out of that corner of her mouth like purple spit and down her throat, over her body. In the morning she sees how she’s stained again and somehow she figures it’s not really from insider her- how could it be? A good Catholic girl like her? And she figures it’s on account of working evenings among a whole wardful of people like me. It’s all our fault and she’s going to get us for it if it’s the last thing she does.”
This is my favorite paragraph because it shows Kesey’s amazing talent to paint a picture with his words. As I was reading the part I literally saw the nurse in my head with purple goo coming out of her mouth. It shows how society has people who are trying to reform everyone and get rid of all of the imperfections when in reality they have many imperfections themselves. It is showing how hypercritical the leaders of conformist movements are and showing that total conformity is impossible. The nurse is totally at fault for the stain but she would never own up to that, instead she is going to blame it on people who are already guilty in societies eyes just to make herself still appear to be a saint. Bromden says that he knows the nurse is going to come and get him and the others for staining her when she is really having an internal struggle and taking it out on others (abuse in relationships). He also refers to it as a wardful of people like me. I love how he is referring to them as being like me when they are all suffering from different disabilities but they band together to show that they have strength together. The fact she thinks of herself as a good Catholic girl is funny for the fact that throughout the whole book McMurphy is shown to be a representative of Jesus and a good Catholic girl would follow Jesus not challenge him and try to degrade and take control of him. Is that showing that no matter how much we try to live by a faith or religion that we will never be able to fully do it because of our animalistic nature?
Bri Matthies .6
Mine was from page 165 and 166
Koens
Pd. 3
Pg 163-164
“I looked out the window and saw for the first time how the hospital was out in the country. The moon was low in the sky over the pasture land; the face of it was scarred and scuffed where it had just torn up out of the snarl of scrub oak and madrone trees on the horizon. The stars up close to the moon were pale; they got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant moon. It called to mind how I noticed the exact same thing when I was of on a hunt with Papa and the uncles and I lay rolled in blankets Grandma had woven, lying off a piece from where the men hunkered around the fire as they passed a quart jar of cactus liquor in a silent circle. I watched that big Oregon prairie moon above me put all the stars around it to shame.”
I particularly liked this part of the book. This section of the story just grabbed my attention while I read it. It caught my attention with the intense scene of nature through Bromden’s, free of fog eyes. It is one of the first times in the book Chief Bromden is actually seeing clear and not through the fog. When Bromden wakes up there are not crazy activities going on in his head, as they have been before. There are not robotic devices or anything doing extreme operations to people while they are asleep. He just sees everyone in their beds peacefully sleeping without anyone or anything interrupting them. This really intrigues me and makes me want to know what has changed in Bromden’s mind from earlier to this moment. I think his clear mind is because of McMurphy who is playing the role of God. He is healing patients in the ward. Earlier in this novel Bromden sees these robotic devices and sees them doing unordinary things to people from the ward. Also, Bromden’s mind has changed in its thinking. He is not seeing what he has before in this certain excerpt. Something at this point is keeping his mind clear; I believe it is the McMurphy. There is no fog or other imaginary things going on in this scene. I also like this section of the book because he describes a beautiful scene in a perfect, detailed description. “The stars up close to the moon were pale; they got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant moon.” This quote is great; it really makes you see what he is seeing. He describes this breathless scenery flawlessly. This could also describe the patients of the ward. I think of the patients closest to the moon, in a sense McMurphy, brightest and as they get father away they weaken. Patients seem to get better as they are around McMurphy and worse as they leave his side.
Jess Peterson pd 2
"'Juicy Fruit is the best I can do for you at the moment, Chief. Package I won off Scanlon pitchin' pennies.' And he got back in bed.
And before I realized what I was doing, I told him Thank you.
He didn't say anything right off. He was up on his elbow, watching me the way he'd watch the black boy, waiting for me to say something else. I picked up the package of gum from the bedspread and help it in my hand and told him Thank you.
It didn't sound like much because my throat was rusty and my tongue creaked. He told me I sounded a little out of practice and laughed at that. I tried to laugh with him, but it was a squawking sound, like a pullet trying to crow. It sounded more like crying then laughing. He told me not to hurry, that he had till six-thirty in the morning to listen if I wanted to practice. He said a man been still long as me probably had a considerable lot to talk about, and he lay back on his pillow and waited. I thought for a minute for something to say to him, but the only thing that came to my mind was the kind of thing one man can’t say to another because it sounds wrong in words. When he saw I couldn’t say anything he crossed his hand behind his head and started talking himself”
This exert is what stuck out to me. I feel like Chief has had so much built up inside his mind that he can finally let it out to Mc Murphy. Even though he struggles and doesn’t say much, it’s the little things that mean the most. Someone can be super loud and talk a thousand words per minute and you could remember only 2 words they said, but for a person that barely talks those 2 words have been deeply thought about and are important to be brought up. Also Chief says that it’s not that he thought he was deaf and dumb but the people around him made him feel deaf and dumb. If someone is constantly being put down or told they are something, eventually they will believe everyone and start thinking less of themselves. This proves the power of the mind, Chief is huge and strong but his mind surely isn’t. Once he speaks out I think he will gain more confidence and talk more and stand up for himself.
Jessica Johnson Pd 6
Bottom page 57
“ ‘Why then, I’ll just explain it to you.’ McMurphy raises his voice; though he doesn’t look at the other Acutes listening behind him, it’s them he’s talking to. ‘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 get spots and get 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.’”
I like this exert from the novel, because it greatly displays the way society can have a monstrous effect on the way people think, and perceive other’s ideas as well as their own. A person gets sight of another’s weakness, and when in unstable mindsets themselves, it is easier to focus on problems they didn’t create for themselves, that doesn’t effect their life in the least bit. The thing that gets to me about this characteristic of human nature, is how civilization has torn people to shreds for centuries, for showcasing the interests of the individual as distinguished from the interests of the community. So, with people constantly being constricted by society, the mind of the people is molded into tightly-knit borders between right and wrong. Every thought is based on opinions forced upon us as children, through decades of social norm. Human nature is suppressed, through traditional gospel, giving no room for the mind to expand and learn from the past, taking away progress for future generations. Change in society comes from a person, such as McMurphy, acting on “rebellious” thoughts that everybody has the capability of thinking of. Except those who act on these id thoughts, get spotted for going out of the borders of normal, and get emotionally slaughtered for exhibiting individuality, until the individual is eventually refined into the system.
Sperlich_6
“That's a lie. I know he's still alive. That ain't the reason I want to touch him.
I want to touch him because he's a man.
That's a lie too. There's other men around. I could touch them.
I want to touch him because I'm one of those queers!
But that's a lie too. That's one fear hiding behind another. If I was one of these queers I'd want to do other things with him. I just want to touch him because he's who he is" (222).
I choose this excerpt from the novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey, because Chief Bromden knows he does not want to touch McMurphy because he is attracted to him. Chief figures out that he is not gay or queer for wanting to touch him. He wants to touch him because he is a “real” man, at least in his eyes. McMurphy stands for something much more then just a man. Standing for power, change, and a new beginning is what he stands for. Chief is relieved when he finds out that someone cares for, connects with, and understands him. Knowing that McMurphy might or will the change the way things happen there, Bromden is truly happy. He wants things to change, not only for himself, but also for the patients that are to come in the future. This is my favorite because Chief does not have to go through the process of beating the fog and coming over his self put up walls, keeping people away from him. He has Ronald Patrick McMurphy by his side. I think that Chief wants and hopes that McMurphy will save them like Jesus saved the us. Chief may also think that some of McMurphy’s awesomeness will rub off onto him, causing him to be greater, stronger, and more like McMurphy or Jesus, as McMurphy is compared to.
Hallstrom Pd. #6
The following sentence is my favorite sentence of the book so far is in Part 1. “I been silent so long now 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”. Already we hear signs of Chief Bromdens paranoia even from the beginning lines of the novel. An example of his paranoia would be Chief Bromden describing Nurse Ratchet as transforming into a machine, and he has to be sedated in order for the Black Boys to be able to shave, and he starts screaming “air raid, air raid”. The reason this quote is my favorite is because in just the beginning of the novel this sentence or phrase tells us about Chief Bromdens paranoia. So that the reader can understand how the chief goes through his life every single day in the ward. He cannot go through a day without having some kind of a panic attack or a random flashback back to his days when he was in the military. One flashback that goes into some detail is when he talks about the time when he got off the plane and all he saw was fog. He could not see further than about 3 ft. he had to be led by people that guided him to where he needed to go. Just like how Nurse Ratchet and the Black Boys control and lead the patients of the ward however they want and the patients of the ward can do nothing about it, because they have no control over how they are treated. Overall this sentence explains a lot of the paranoia behind Chief Bromden for some of these previously mentioned reasons.
Petersen__pd 2
“”By God, Chief,” he said,” it appears to me you growed ten inches since that fishing trip. And lordamighty, look at the size of that foot of yours; big as a flatcar!”…”And that arm! That’s the arm of an ex-football playing Indian if I ever saw one….”” I chose this excerpt because of the fact it is supposed to make the reader feel better for Chief. Or perhaps the reader is given the opportunity to feel satisfied because the underdog seems to be coming up on top. If you were to keep reading you find out Chief can lift the control panel. It shows he is gaining his power back, his strength. Looking at Chief with a Freudian lens you would say without a doubt that he is not gaining brute strength but he is gaining sanity, and his place in society. As Mr. C explained to us that one can see McMurphy as “Christ”, because he is in-fact saving the patients in the hospital. McMurphy has shown the way to success and healing to Chief. He is working on some of the other Acutes so they can be “normal”. Such as Billy, George and Harding slightly. He is saving them so they can become one with society. But isn’t Kesey trying to say that the government is bad? That he is trying to keep you from conforming? So why would he put McMurphy in the position as “Christ”, to save the patients, in reality he is conforming them. In a sense McMurphy is work for the government and is making the patients sane again, so they (the government) have more zombies to control. He is clearly the leader in the group. He is taking all the defects from the sick persons in the ward and bestowing it upon himself. When it comes right down to it, McMurphy is helping people like Chief, who are mentally unstable, and turn them into something society can handle. While at the same time doing exactly the opposite that Ken Kesey was trying to get at. Maybe Kesey realized that you can’t be a hippy and run from society and the norm forever. He grew up and conformed.
Ellis, pd. 2
“You must have had a real moose of an old lady. How big was she?”
“Oh-big, big.”
“I mean how many feet and inches?”
“Feet and inches?….”
“Bigger than Papa and me together.”
“Just one day took to growin’, huh?”..
“She wasn’t Indian. She was a town woman from The Dalles.”
“…Everybody worked on him because he was big, and wouldn’t give in, and did like he pleased. Everybody worked on him just the way they’re working on you.”
“The Combine…”
I chose this one because it is the first conversation Chief has. We really haven’t known our narrator besides he sees many things and he isn’t very trustworthy, now we know where a lot of more that stuff is coming from. From the Marxist lens it shows how the Government over powers everyone and is able to go into any place in America and act like its there land to have. Is the Government racist against Indians? Is all of this racist? Why is it so strange the mother was not an Indian? They make it seem like such a bad thing that she had married Chiefs dad. Today it wouldn’t be a big deal at all. McMurphy is able to relate to the men very well. I don’t think he realizes he is helping them, he just seems to talk to them and they seem to open up to him more than anyone else in the institution.
Chief says he just wants to touch him to see if he is real. That doesn’t seem real to me I don’t see McMurphy as being that great of a man as they all seem to see him as. It is just because he is normal and the rest of them are crazy, and a normal man is talking to a bunch of crazy guys for no apparent reason. The nurse is normal somewhat why don’t they open more up to her during discussion? If McMurphy is able to affect the men that much for how little time he has been there why doesn’t he just lead everything and help the men out if he is doing more then the actual staff.
Haase pd.dos
"Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He knows there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girlfriend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain."
Aight so this is what i got to say blah blah blah wasting space wasting more space... Basically this exert is saying sometimes in life you need to just laugh things off, but even though your laughing doesn't mean that words no longer hurt and feelings are no longer broken by certain comments. So you can't let your pains take away your happiness but you can't expect to let your laughter to just make painful feelings disappear from your soul. I like exerts in books like this that can teach you a lesson about life but can also relate to almost every person or reader. Many people think authors just happened to write things like this on accident but writing is an art just like drawing many artist put thought and underlining thoughts and meanings into there work. Every piece of art has some sort of message, meaning, or use. Kesey is so intellectual yeah he does acid but he doesn’t let it slow him down from teaching people facts of life or way’s to live their life just like this phrase shows. I thoroughly enjoy phrases that make you think and analyze, this is why many people enjoy music by lil wayne he has so many analogies and phrases with hidden meanings behind them and he mixes them all together in poetry form along with music that many teens enjoy. Sometimes the artists messages are very blunt or to the point in vulgar ways but that’s just another way to stand out and be a mark on history. So blah blah blah that’s my blog task A+ material.
“I’m always good, like grandma cookies” quote lil wayne
Halter pd. 2
Page 274
“Everybody could hear the helpless, cornered despair in McMurphy’s voce. “McMurphy, you forcing me to protect myself. Ain’t he forcing me, men?” The other two nodded. He carefully laid down the tube on the bench beside George, came back up with his fist swinging all in the same notions and busting McMurphy across the cheek by surprise. McMurphy nearly fell. He staggered backward into the naked line of men, and the guys caught him and pushed him back toward the smiling slate face. He got hit again, n the neck, before he gave up to the idea that it had started, at last, and there wasn’t anything now but get what he could out of it. He caught the next swing blacksnaking at him, and held him by the wrist while he shook his head clear.”
I liked this passage because it had got me to think on it after I read it. My mind and thoughts were going in many different directions on how the end result of this fight had occurred. While I was reading this passage I began to think, does McMurphy even know how to fight? Maybe he was just making up all those fighting stories of his to make him look tough and not to be messed with. And he uses his hands for evidence or proof maybe he did that to his hands himself. Or maybe he was just a hard worker and never fought in his life. I was getting very curious at this point. Then as the passage went on I began to notice that he was swinging back but not like he was trying to nail Washington. He was more like stalling for something. He was either fighting dumb, stalling or waiting for Washington to get tired. Maybe even all of the above. I begin to think that maybe since McMurphy seemed to be tired and drained that he was trying to get Washington down to his level for a more even fight for McMurphy. As Washington got tired McMurphy still didn’t seem to be fighting like he gloated about to the other acutes. My end result to McMurphy’s tactics to this fight was for Chief to step up and help his friend. To make chief stronger and have more pride and a drive in his life to help a friend. To make chief feel important and useful. In a deeper since it gave chief feelings that he hasn’t had for a long time. McMurphy truly does care for chief even at times others may think he is an evil scheming man. He had help chief get a little bit bigger that day for fighting with a black boy.
Weatherford pd. 3
Pages 217
“He held out that last note and twiddled it down me like a feather. I couldn’t help but start to chuckle, and this made me scared I’d get to laughing and not be able to stop. But just then McMurphy jumped off his bed and went to rustling through his nightstand, and I hushed. I clenched my teeth, wondering what to do now. It’d been a long time since I’d let anyone hear me do anymore than grunt or bellow. I heard him shut the bedstand, and it echoed like a boiler door. I heard him say, ‘Here,’ and something lit on my bed. Little. Just the size of a lizard or a snake..
‘“Juicy Fruit is the best I can do for you at the moment, Chief. Package I won off Scanlon pitchin’ pennies,’ And he got back in bed.
And before I realized what I was doing, I told him Thank you.
Wow! I mean Chief Bromden has finally spoken. He was breaking out of his “usual,“ he was breaking down his barrier or shell. He hasn’t said anything or lead on to anyone that he isn’t dumb or deaf until McMurphy shows up. From the beginning he always had an uneasy feeling that McMurphy knew his secret and he finally proves it with the best way of all. Best yet he wasn’t angry at himself for letting himself slip. He was shocked. His voice might have been “rusty” but its amazing he didn’t just stop talking after that for fear that McMurphy might tell everyone. I loved how McMurphy hasn’t told a single soul yet. He even told Chief to be quiet that the Black boys are coming.
When Bromden couldn’t stop talking I became eager to hear what he had to say after that. He didn’t speak throughout the whole novel and then he says thank you. I was so excited to read that!! I mean who wasn’t. It was almost like a miracle. I wasn’t expecting him to talk at all. I was hoping maybe at the very end on the last page or something he would say bye or something. But his “early” was shocking. It was marvelous!
Hanson, Pd. 3
“All that five thousand kids lived in those five thousand houses, owned by those guys that got off the train. The houses looked so much alike that, time and time again, the kids went home by mistake to different houses and different families. Nobody ever noticed. They ate and went to bed. The only one they noticed was the little kid at the end of the whip. He'd always be so scuffed and bruised that he'd show up out of place wherever he went. He wasn't able to open up and laugh either. It's a hard thing to laugh if you can feel the pressure of those beams coming from every new car that passes, or every new house that you pass” (240-241).
This excerpt stood out to me because it is saying a lot and I found it to be very interesting. This is saying that all the kids should, and are conforming to how society wants them to be. They are all the same! They live in houses with guys that “got off the train”. This train that these guys got off of could be the “train of conformity”. These guys are doing what they are told to do and all riding on the same train. All the houses look alike because it's a “bad” thing to be different. Oh no! Something horrible might happen if you are different in some way. All these kids went home to the wrong houses and families and nobody ever noticed. Nobody noticed the “normal” kids that were like everybody else. Of course the only kid that everybody noticed was the one kid that was scuffed and bruised. He stuck out to everybody because he was “different” than them and wasn't the same as everybody else. This kid stood out from the crowd of “normal” kids because he went against what society said was “good”. This kid wasn't able to laugh either. I'm sure if he did laugh he would be made fun of for being “different” and going against what society wanted everybody to be like. He was being made fun of by everybody that passed by him just because of one small “imperfection” that made him stand out more than all the other kids that looked exactly the same. This is saying that if you don't conform to how society wants you to be like, you will be judged and made fun of for going against the norm of everybody else and just being you. Society tells you that you can't do your own thing and have it still be “cool” and “acceptable”. I personally think this is all B.S. because I believe you should be able to whatever you want without having to worry about being judged or picked on for how you act/look. Who knows? Somebody that looks like they are weird and dresses in strange clothes could be the nicest person that you might ever meet.
Austin Hanson
prd 7
“They’re out there.
Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them.
They’re mopping when I come out the dorm, all three of them sulky and hating everything, the time of day, the place they’re at here, the people they got to work around. When they hate like this, better if they don’t see me. I creep along the wall quiet as dust in my canvas shoes, but they got special sensitive equipment detects my fear and they all look up, all three at once, eyes glittering out of the black faces like the hard glitter of radio tubes out of the back of an old radio.” -Page 1
This exert is from the very first page and the very first paragraph of the novel. In this first paragraph you are driven to as questions and drawn to it almost immediately. The very first sentence “They’re out there.” is an instant attraction because you ask yourself questions such as: Who’s out there? What is this book going to be about? or Why is this book so strange? It instills fear almost right away because it says how the black boys are going to commit sex acts in the open area and clean it up before anyone can catch them. You may also think there is something wrong with the narrator or maybe he is mentally unstable because he thinks these black boys are robots and have technologies to detect fear. From a Marxist lens you can see the structure how it is stereotypical that the black boys commit sex acts and do the wrong doings. You also can look at this from a Freudian lens and see how the narrator may have a past that entails some sexual abuse because he thinks these black boys will commit some kind of sex act with him. Digging deeper with a Freudian lens you can see how the narrator may have had some bad experiences with electronics because he has equated evil and sexually offensive black boys to robots. This first exert of the book sets up the whole mood of the story and what is to come for the rest of the book and it makes you think what is going to happen already because of all this sick twisted details that they give you in the first 123 words of the book. It is my favorite quote from the book because it is the first thing you see when you open the book and it gets you intrigued, excited, and thinking right away.
Randolph period 3
“The glass came out splashing, and the nurse threw her hands to her ears. He got one of the cartons of cigarettes with his name on it, and took out a pack, then put it back and turned to where the Big Nurse was sitting like a chalk statue and tenderly went to brushing the slivers of glass off her head and shoulders. ‘I’m sure sorry ma’am,’ he said. ‘Gawd but I am. That window glass was so spick and span I com-pletely forgot it was there.’” (p. 201)
This excerpt I found very interesting and entertaining as a reader. A rebel, McMurphy, is being forced to conform. But I find it very relatable to myself as a somewhat rebellious individual who will go against conformity to remain the independent people that McMurphy and I are. In reality neither of us would let somebody make unnecessary rules just to get us conformed with the rest of everybody else. In this scene he has been getting his way for a long time but Nurse Ratched has had enough and is ready to go another round with her biggest challenge at conforming. But when she attempts to try again he goes to grab a carton of cigarettes and smashes the glass on “accident”. This is a great breaking point for the whole ward and McMurphy knows that. He is putting his position in the institute in danger and giving the nurse plenty of reason to send him up to the disturbed ward. It did surprise me how she didn’t give up after putting up with him for so long. It is as if she were proving herself and challenging McMurphy. She wasn’t about to give up so she kept on replacing the glass in her office and the boys kept shattering the window. The window, to me represents the fine line that keeps her from snapping on the boys and especially McMurphy. Every time the glass is shattered it is a sign that her protective barrier and the conformity in the ward is breaking. The boys are now realizing their independence and this scares her. Her being scared causes her to have slight melt downs but somehow when in front of anybody she keeps calm and has a strait face. Sometime this exciting drama between McMurphy and Ratched will end, and its just a matter of who can take more crap of the other…
Hauge p6
"Actually, there wasn't much cleaning of any kind getting done on the ward. As soon as it came time in the afternoon when the schedule called for house duties, it was also time for the baseball games to be on TV, and everybody went and lined the chairs up in front of the set and they didn't move out of them until dinner. It didn't make any difference that the power was shut off in the Nurses' Station and we couldn't see a thingbut that blank gray screen, because McMurphy'd entertain us for hours, sit and talk and tell all kinds of stories, like how he made a thousand dollars in one month driving a truck for a gyppo outfit and then lost every penny of it to some Canadian in an ax-throwing contest, or how he and a buddy slick tounged a guy into riding a brahma bull at a rodeo in Albany... McMurphy told it a couple of times and slapped his thigh with his hat and laughed everytime he remembered it. 'Blindfolded and backwards... And i'm a sonofagun...'" pg 160
This is an excerpt that really inspires me, even though their lives are fully controlled by the nurses McMurphy still brings entertainment and joy to a group of people that desperately needed it. Also he beats nurse ratched at her own game, she thinks she can control them by shutting off the TV, yet McMurphy still gets the group of them to evade their chores by telling stories. I really like how this is his way of bringing the unordinary into the lives of the other patients, breaking the TV schedule for baseball and when they can't watch baseball he tells extravagent stories so far out from what is known and normal to the guys. I think this is my favorite part of the novel partly because it isn't McMurphy's job to entertain these guys and brighten up their days but he does it anyways out of the good in his heart, which is contradictory of his way of life outside the ward. I feel it also shows how much trust the others' put in him, by not doing the chores could mean extreme consequences or make those in charge more hostile to the patients that participated in cooperating with McMurphy instead of them. I guess I just like how McMurphy is just such a meaningful person to the people who had no role models, nothing to look forward to, had troubled minds, and who were just completely controlled by a single group of people, they choose to look up to McMurphy not because they have to, because he inspires them
Alec Hauck, pd 6
(pg. 238) “A man riding a bicycle stopped to ask what was the idea of all the green uniforms; some kind of club? Harding popped right up and answered him.
‘No, my friend. We are lunatics from the hospital up the highway, psycho-ceramics, the cracked pots of mankind. Would you like to to decipher a Rorschach for you? No? You must hurry on? Ah, he’s gone. Pity.’ He turned to McMurphy. ‘Never before did I realize that mental illness could have the aspect of power, power. Think of it: perhaps the more insane a man is, the more powerful he could become. Hitler an example. Fair makes the old brain reel, doesn’t it? Food for thought there.’”
I think this excerpt is a great example of the influence McMurphy has on the patients. It tells you that McMurphy really is changing the ward. The event leading up to this excerpt was McMurphy showing the men that being insane, or in other words in a mental institution, may have a good side too it. Yes it is frowned on by “normal” citizen but McMurphy showed them how people will fear them the more crazy the appear, which can be directly related to power. All the patients are psychologically affected by what McMurphy continues to open them up to, and they like it, are more than content with the new changes. With many events that involve McMurphy like the event leading to this one, you can recognize that the patients look up to him, as if he was a god. Even the events that follow McMurphy’s influences show how much of an effect it has on the ward members. For example, the excerpt above was something that took place right after McMurphy tricked the workers at the gas station into believing that all the patients were insane murderers that should get a discount, trying to scare them into it. This showed all the other men that they too are capable of acting out and that McMurphy has showed them that they are not a waste of life, but can have fun and arent just zombies performing the same boring routine every single day.
Cece Hamrick pd. 6
Pg. 219
“‘What I was wonderin’, Chief, are you biding your time towards the day you decide to lay into them?’
‘No,’ I told him. ‘I couldn’t’.
‘Couldn’t tell them off? It’s easier than you think.’
‘You’re… lot bigger, tougher’n I am,’ I mumbled.
‘How’s that? I didn’t get you, Chief.’
I worked some spit down in my throat. “You are bigger and tougher than I am. You can do it.’
‘Me? Are you kidding? Criminy, look at you: you stand a head taller’n any man on the ward. There ain’t a man here you couldn’t turn every way but loose, and that’s a fact!’”
This is my favorite part of the book so far. It’s the first conversation Chief has with anybody in the whole novel. It’s funny that all the time he’s been at the ward, McMurphy was the one to make him speak. He’s being a really good friend to him, because he tells Chief that he has all night, until 6:30 in the morning to listen to him talk. Chief is starting to come out of the fog, and he’s starting to see more clear. The protagonist is beginning to prevail, rather than quietly sweeping along the walls of the ward. It shows that Kesey is doing his part as an author. We expect a lot of a novel written by someone as brilliant as Ken Kesey, and he delivered. A novelist should provide entertainment, and get the reader to feel a connection to the characters in the story. It’s entertaining because Chief is completely oblivious to the fact that he’s huge! He is so naïve to how people see him. He has no idea how big he really is, or how much power he possesses. It is also entertaining because McMurphy is a comic relief to the intense parts of the story. Kesey also did a great job relating the character to his readers. The way McMurphy tells Chief that he has all night to listen to him hows that he's being a great friend. I don’t know anybody who wouldn’t want a friend to be there for them like McMurphy is there for Chief. Also, people often times underestimate themselves a lot. Sometimes we see ourselves in a different light than everybody else does. We are self-conscious and can always pick out the worst in ourselves. Chief is being self-conscious by thinking that he’s so small. He sees himself as a completely different person than everybody else does. I love the fact that anyone can relate to this book, and the characters in it. That’s why I love this part so much…
“I walked among the guys heaped in long white rows like snowbanks, careful not to bump into somebody, till I came to the wall with the windows. I walked down the windows to one where the shade popped softly in and out with a the breeze, and I pressed my forehead up against the mesh. The wire was cold and sharp, and I rolled my head against it from side to side to feel it with my cheeks, and I smelled the breeze. It’s fall coming, I thought, I can smell that sour-molasses smell of cilage, clanging the air like a bell—smell somebody’s been burning oak leaves, left them to smolder overnight because they’re too green.
It’s fall coming, I kept thinking, fall coming; just like that was the strangest thing ever happened. Fall. Right outside here it was spring a while back, then it was summer, and now it’s fall—that’s sure a curious idea.
I realized I still had my eyes shut. I had shut them when I put my face to the screen, like I was scared to look outside. Now I had to open them. I looked out the window and saw for the first time how the hospital was out in the country. The moon was low in the sky over the pastureland; the face of it was scarred and scuffed where it had just torn up out of the snarl of scrub oak and madrone trees on the horizon. The stars up close to the moon were pale; they got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant moon.” Pg. 163-164
The excerpt that I chose from the book enlightens us because it tells us how he is out of the fog that night and how he can actually feel and smell the things around him. For once he can see past the windows that are usually fogged over, and he can tell that it is fall because of the scents that care coming in through the window; the scent of sour molasses and burning oak leaves that reminds everyone of autumn. He can smell the clear air blowing in through the open window also. All of these senses are helping us see how he has come out of the fog for the night.
It entertains us because when he is telling us about all of the things he is feeling and sensing it is almost like he is feeling it for the first time. We get to see all of these things and smell all of these things in the fall every year. It also puzzles us because we do not understand how anybody could be inside so long that they do not remember what time of year it is. We are also puzzled because we do not know why anyone would miss out on the changing of seasons, and all the things that go along with it.By keeping themselves voluntarily locked up they are missing out on these things that everyone really takes for granted and you don’t realize you are missing them till you’ve been away from them for so long. That is also part of why I chose this to be my favorite excerpt from the book. It stands out with many descriptive words that make you almost feel all the same things that he is feeling. Autumn is my favorite season so I enjoyed reading all of the descriptions and feeling like I was next to him.
Taylor Garner Pd. 2
Pg. 238
“By the time he got back everybody was feeling cocky as fighting roosters and calling orders to the service-station guys to check the air in the spare and wipe the windows and scratch that bird dropping off the hood if you please, just like we owned the show. When the big guy didn’t get the windshield to suit Billy, Billy called him right back. ‘You didn’t get this sp-spot here where the bug h-h-hit.’ ‘That wasn’t a bug,’ the guy said sullenly, scratching at it with his fingernail, ‘that was a bird.’ Martini called all the way from the other car that it couldn’t have been a bird. ‘There’d be feathers and bones if it was a bird.’” (Skipping a paragraph)
“He turned to McMurphy. ‘Never before did I realize that mental illness could have the aspect of power.”
The reason I chose this paragraph from the book was because the whole time I was reading I couldn’t help but cheer the men on. It was an exciting event. We have been waiting the whole novel for these men to go out into the world and stick up for themselves. And not only were they finally brave and stood up to Nurse Ratched, but they also stood up to society. The men united and worked the system to get what they wanted. I love how with each activity or scheme the men in the ward plan they go out of their way to include the nurse and make her feel like she has some control over the matter and then they gradually change details to work in their benefit and make themselves feel like they are going against her. For example Nurse Ratched believes that McMurphy’s aunts are taking the men fishing. She later finds out that it’s just one of McMurphy’s whore friends going along for the ride. They are slowly breaking down the wall between them and the conformists. The men love the reaction they are getting from the people at the gas station and the man on the motorcycle. Harding and the other men are testing out this new rebellious tactic that McMurphy brought into their routine lives. They love the freedom and power that they now possess. I do believe that McMurphy has been the main influence on the whole situation, but I’m very happy that the men are also taking part in the rebellion. They are no longer by standers, but players in the game of life. The men don’t want to conform to society, but they also don’t want to be controlled by the institute and its staff. This paragraph was the one that stood out the most and stuck in my head. Nurse Ratched is slowly losing control and the men are gaining it and that is what we have been waiting for.
Taylor Garner Pd. 2
Pg. 238
“By the time he got back everybody was feeling cocky as fighting roosters and calling orders to the service-station guys to check the air in the spare and wipe the windows and scratch that bird dropping off the hood if you please, just like we owned the show. When the big guy didn’t get the windshield to suit Billy, Billy called him right back. ‘You didn’t get this sp-spot here where the bug h-h-hit.’ ‘That wasn’t a bug,’ the guy said sullenly, scratching at it with his fingernail, ‘that was a bird.’ Martini called all the way from the other car that it couldn’t have been a bird. ‘There’d be feathers and bones if it was a bird.’” (Skipping a paragraph)
“He turned to McMurphy. ‘Never before did I realize that mental illness could have the aspect of power.”
The reason I chose this paragraph from the book was because the whole time I was reading I couldn’t help but cheer the men on. It was an exciting event. We have been waiting the whole novel for these men to go out into the world and stick up for themselves. And not only were they finally brave and stood up to Nurse Ratched, but they also stood up to society. The men united and worked the system to get what they wanted. I love how with each activity or scheme the men in the ward plan they go out of their way to include the nurse and make her feel like she has some control over the matter and then they gradually change details to work in their benefit and make themselves feel like they are going against her. For example Nurse Ratched believes that McMurphy’s aunts are taking the men fishing. She later finds out that it’s just one of McMurphy’s whore friends going along for the ride. They are slowly breaking down the wall between them and the conformists. The men love the reaction they are getting from the people at the gas station and the man on the motorcycle. Harding and the other men are testing out this new rebellious tactic that McMurphy brought into their routine lives. They love the freedom and power that they now possess. I do believe that McMurphy has been the main influence on the whole situation, but I’m very happy that the men are also taking part in the rebellion. They are no longer by standers, but players in the game of life. The men don’t want to conform to society, but they also don’t want to be controlled by the institute and its staff. This paragraph was the one that stood out the most and stuck in my head. Nurse Ratched is slowly losing control and the men are gaining it and that is what we have been waiting for.
Olson Pd. 7
"It's getting hard to locate my bed at night, have to crawl around on my hands and knees feeling underneath the springs till I find my gobs of gum stuck there. Nobody complains about the fog. I know why, now : as bas as it is, you can slip back in it and feel safe. -Chief Bromden (pg.128)
To me personally, this narration made it easy to get inside Chiefs head, to understand what he thinks about when he has no hope of leaving the asylum. He doesn’t want people to see how small he feels, so as his defense he crawls back into his fog of invisibility. The only problem is it tears him apart; to the point that he almost quits functioning. He ceases to recognize even the ever so familiar layout of the ward.
It is chilling to me to put myself in Chiefs shoes and wonder the traumatizing things that his schizophrenic visions portray. A metaphorical and literal fog(to the chief) that incapacitates him to the point of crawling on the ground. Kesey does an amazing job at portraying what the chief really feels and what is actually going through his mind. I think that this excerpt especially, shows how truly magnificent Kesey was as a writer.
Page 19 Shabino
'Damn, What a sorry-looking outfit. You boys dont look so crazy to me.' He's trying to get them to loosen up, the way uou see an auctioneer spinning jokes to lossen up the crowd before the bidding starts. 'Which one is the bigest loony? Who runs these card games? It's my first day, and what i like to do is make a good impression straight off on the right man if he can prove to me he is the right man. Who's the bull goose loony here?'
This excert is one of my favorites from the novel. It enlightens you to McMurphy right at the start. You can tell he is going to be one of the funny,charismatic, and main characters as soon as you read that part. He is the humor of the novel a character everyone functions around. It is very entertaining a great way to start a novel. I didnt know if he was actually crazy or not. He straight up says he is going to run this place one way or another and that he will make friends with everyone if not right away everybody will warm up to him. Its a great introduction to a new character I knew right away that he was going to be the main person. Its funny how he says right away "Who's the bull goose loony here" when he is in an insane asylum. He doesnt care what people tink about him and that he is calling someone crazy while in there means that he is a joking around kind of guy who will mess with the people for his own benifit but he actually doesnt make the people angry becasue they can tell what kind of a person he is. "Who runs these card games" is a funny line because he almost knows how this is going to be. Like jail i think he assumes that people are basically going to be limited and cards are going to be the only entertaing thing to do. This puzzles me the way he is acting so cool in all of this. It seems to me that he thinks he is only going to be in there for a few days or a couple of weeks at the most. It sounds as if he was ill informed or not informed at all about his situation.
Skich P7 LATE
“After grandma’s funeral me and Papa and Uncle Running and Jumping Wolf dug her up. Mama wouldn’t go with us; she never heard of such a thing. Hanging a corpse in a tree! It’s enough to make a person sick.” (287).
I think that this is a cool tradition that the Native Americans carry out. Their reasoning behind it is very logical. I think that they thought that by putting their relative into a tree after death allowed their soul to be free from their earthly attachments, enabling them to pass on to the afterlife. They would place their deceased loved one in a tree, canoes, boxes on stilts, and on top of scaffolds or houses. Then they waited for the body to decompose, signifying that the spirit is free to go to the spirit world. Finally they would gather the bones and bury them in an Native American burial mound, I believe.
But upon further investigation I have found that they put the deceased relatives into the tree to prevent wild animals from bringing their deceased up out of the ground to feast on their corpses. Sometimes if the tree could not support the deceased, then the deceased relatives constructed scaffolding to help support the body. Another fact I found out is that the deceased relatives would wrap the body with multiple layers of fancy clothing. They would also leave trinkets around their bodies. I could go into more detail, but I think it is better if you read some of the descriptions in the first link down below. The second link will bring you to other types Native American burial rituals.
http://www.nanations.com/burialcustoms/scaffold_burial.htm
http://www.nanations.com/burialcustoms/
Erks p. 7
pg. 124
“McMurphy shifts his feet a few times to get a good stance, and wipes his hands on his thighs again, then leans down and gets hold of the levers on each side of the panel. When he goes to straining, the guys go to hooting and kidding him. He turns loose and straightens up and shifts his feet around again.”
This section of the text and what leads into it, and what follows it, I believe really plays a main part in the book. The action that leads up to this text is McMurphy joking with the guys about breaking out of the ward, and one of the other patients points out that the only thing heavy enough to break through the screens is the control panel to the tub room, which is way too heavy for anyone to life. McMurphy automatically takes this as a challenge, and turns it into a bet, a key aspect of his personality. However, McMurphy fails to lift the control panel, and loses the bet. Later on, once McMurphy finds out that Chief Bromden can speak, McMurphy convinces Bromden that he can build Bromden up, and make him a big man, like he was in high school, when he played football, and that he’d be able to lift the control panel. This really shows McMurphy’s intelligence, something that seems to be missed with his very loud and attention-grabbing personality, because McMurphy sees these men, not as people with mental illnesses, but people who have low confidence, or something that sets them apart from most of society, so they feel that they are abnormal, and mentally ill. Once McMurphy “grows” Chief Bromden’s confidence and “body size”, Chief Bromden successfully lifts the control panel, which later on wins a bet for McMurphy.
The reason I like this part of the book is because it’s foreshadowing later on in the book and can also be analyzed in many different ways, not to mention the overall situation of McMurphy always needing to be the “bull goose loony” by one-upping everyone, is entertaining. I think it’s important that it foreshadows because it keeps the readers guessing and thinking about what’s going to happen and why Kesey chose to put this in the book. Kesey puts many hidden meanings in the book and this being one of them. McMurphy’s bloody hands is a Christianity reference comparing to Jesus’ bloody hands on the cross, also showing how McMurphy sacrifices himself for the good of the rest of the patients.
"Juicy Fruit is the best I can do for you at the moment, Chief. Package I won off of Scanlon pitchin' pennies.' And he got back in bed. And before I realized what I was doing, I told him Thank you. He didn't say anything right off. He was up on his elbow, watching me the way he'd watched the black boy, waiting for me to say something else. I picked up the package of gum from the bedspread and held it in my hand and told him Thank you. It didn't sound like much because my throat was rusty and my tongue creaked. He told me I sounded a little out of practice and laughed at that. I tried to laugh with him, but it was a squawking sound, like a pullet trying to crow." (Pg. 217)
This is one of my favorite excerpts from the book so far. In the selection a black boy finds where Chief stores his used gum and takes it all away from him. McMurphy realizes that the gum is very important to Chief and does what he can to console Chief by giving him some Juicy Fruit. This can be thought of as many different symbols. The obvious one is that McMurphy is reaching out to Chief for absolutely no reason. And in response Chief speaks for the first time that we hear in the novel. The reason the gum is so important to Chief is it is like an escape for him. When he wants to forget about his surroundings or get away from something he has a piece of gum. When McMurphy gives him a new pack it could symbolize a few things. Obviously that McMurphy has a special reason to be nice to Chief. Also it could symbolize the fact that Chief has a new beginning with McMurphy there and that many things could begin to change from where the ward is at now to where it will be when McMurphy I finished with it. Soon after this excerpt McMurphy says that Chief can practice talking to him all night and he’ll be there just to listen. This is showing that once again McMurphy cares about Chief. He wants him to get better; he wants him to make a change in himself. The crazy part about it is that nobody can understand why McMurphy would want to do something like that. He first sacrifices his gum, then his sleeping time just to help Chief. It can be taken as many different things but later in the book it is brought up that McMurphy must have some kind of hidden agenda or something otherwise he wouldn’t do this.
Melissa Johnston pd. 3
“ McMurphy and Turkle got the door of the drug room open and brought out a bottle of thick cherry-colored liquied form the ice box. McMurphy tipped the bottle to the light and read the label out loud. ‘Artificial flavor, coloring, citric acid. Seventy percent inert materials - that must be water - and twenty percent alcohol- that’s fine- and ten percent codeine. Warning Narcotic May Be Habit Forming.” He unscrewed the bottle and took a taste of it, closing his eyes. He worked his tongue around his teeth and took another swallow and read the label again. ‘Well,’ he said, and clicked his teeth together like they’d just been sharpened, “ if we cut it a leetle bit with the vodka, I think it’ll be all right. Ho ware we fixed for ice cubes, Turkey, old buddy?’ Mixed in paper medicine cups with the liquor and the port wine, the syrup had a taste like a kid’s drink but a punch like the cactus apple wine we used to get in The Dalles, cold and soothing on the throat and hot and furious once it got down. We turned out the lights in the day room and sat around drinking it.” pg.301-302
This little tidbit alone just blows my mind. As a devout Christian, I see Christ like literary terms everywhere splattered into this book. But this one by far is astonishing. I fell in love with it honestly. The cough syrup, I interpreted it, as Jesus and his last supper. His “so long fella’s” goodbye. Red means sacrifice, and many times in the Holy Bible does it speak about how Jesus predicts his death and how he mentions the blood of the lamb. This simple cough syrup represents that in a way we can relate to McMurphy. He is rebellious. Not our typical Jesus figure. He’s a possible druggie, sex addict, rebellion, just a junkie in general. But they still both experienced and acted within a sacrificial way of living, and most of all dieing. It was literally McMurphy’s way of saying “you don’t know it, but you’re celebrating your freedom right here and now, because of my plan. Ratched doesn’t even see it coming.” Satan didn’t see Jesus’ crusification coming either. But it happened. And it saved. It saved Chief, and everyone else. In a sense he even saved Billy Bibbit, who killed himself. He, I think, sacrificed himself. He got out of his prison. He escaped FINALLY out of the horror he kept living. We as the reader shouldn’t be proud of him by any means, but we should understand that sacrifice is everywhere in this novel. I do thank Kesey for it, he has really opened my eyes when it comes to analyzing a non Christian book in a Christian way. I appreciate greatly the challenge he puts upon his audience. He certainly owes us something, and he has definitely paid it back.
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