blog # 5 my least favorite character

In the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the least favorite character for many would probably be Nurse Ratched, for the very obvious reasons of her manipulation  and cruelty toward her patients, but my least favorite character is Dr. Spivery, the patients primary doctor, who is ironically addicted to opiates.  Even though he is the primary doctor, he is easily manipulated, by both Ratched and his own patients, "yes, the same high school. And in the course of our reminiscing we happened to bring up the carnivals the school used sponsor-marvelous, noisy, gala occasions......The big Nurse is giving him a look that shouldn't have any doubt about about, but he doesn't have his glasses on and misses him" (108 Kesey.) McMurphy can manipulate him into planing a carnival for the ward just by bringing up old high school memories, just as easy as the Nurse does with his addiction to overlook her torturing the patients. He is mild-mannered, which is ok, but he does not have a mind of his own, he let's others control his thinking and decisions. Even though Ratched is "evil" and obsessive and heartless, she at least has a mindset of her own, she has an idea and acts upon it, she has her own goals and wishes, clearly something the doctor lacks. How ever he is a kind man at heart, he'd much rather work in an office looking at charts instead of sitting in an afternoon meeting with mental patients, but again, he is too spineless to speak up about it. Even when he thought he was in control, he was still being manipulated by McMurphy, Dr. Spivey thinks he is able to assert his own power by siding with McMurphy to take down Ratched.  Dr. Spivey has power in the ward that McMurphy hopes to redirect against Ratched and in favor of McMurphy’s desires and the needs of the men. Once McMurphy finds that his proposals will be immediately dismissed, he manipulates the system by using Dr. Spivey to back up his desires like watching a baseball game, going on a fishing trip, having a second day room for playing cards, basically making decisions for him. Rather than saying he is my least favorite character, it'd be more appropriate to say he is a character I feel most sorry for, I feel sorry for him in the sense he is a spineless human, unable to make his own decisions and fight for what he believes in to be right. 

blog #4 last page

As I read the last page of this book, I realized how the tone of narration completely reversed from the beginning of the book. He starts out as a weak character, lost in his own mind of machine and fog and as the story goes on, the fog fades more and more and he begins to see things as well as himself more and more clearly and regains self confidence and a sense of individual.  The entire novel is told through Bromden's point of view, which is questionable, but as the story develops, so does his character. The fog he hallucinates helps him slip from reality, "right now she's got the fog machine switched on, and it's rolling in so fast I can't see a thing but her face, rolling in thicker and thicker, and I feel as hopeless and dead as I felt happy a minute ago," (113 Kesey.)  The "fog" clouds his vision of the world, symbolizing  his desire to escape from reality, every time he acts out of fear, the fogs overcomes him as a form of protection, just like his "deafness". He wants to be as invisible as possible, because that kept him safe all through out the years, hes been invisible and lost. How ever on the last page of the book, Bromden is an whole another person, or more accurately, he becomes the person he's suppose to have become this whole time. He is confident, even begins to communicate verbally with McMurphy, no longer hiding behind a shield of invisibility. At the end of the book, Bromden talks about his plans after McMurphy's death and free of Ratched, "I might go to Canada eventually, but i think I'll stop along the Columbia on the way......Mostly, I'd just like to look over the country around the gorge again, just to bring some of it clear in my mind again. I been away a long time" (325 Kesey.) For the first time in the entire book, he is hopeful, looking forward to the days ahead of him, instead of worry about the fog, the shock shop, the black boys, and the before-breakfast Monday shaves. It made me smile and happy on the inside to know McMurphy's rebellion and sacrifice wasn't for nothing, it helped Bromden and many other patients back to who they were before the ward. It gave me a glimpse of their newly found freedom and individuality, a sense of hopefulness that ends the book with a billion and one possibilities.  The ending tone is in such direct contrast with the beginning of the book it almost, almost made me forget what a frightened and weak character Bromden was.

blog #3 McMurphy and Christ

Many critics believe Kesey intends McMurphy to be a heroic, Christ-like figure, I completely agree with this theory. McMurphy's time through out the novel parallels many of Christ's journey, Kesey uses foreshadowing, symbols and quotes to develop his character. McMurphy is baptized with a shower before entering the ward in the beginning of the novel, and he gets to know Ellis, a character who spends the entire novel in a cross position "nailed against the wall in the same condition they lifted him off the table for the last time, in the same shape, arms out, palms cuped, with the same horror on his face. He's nailed like that on the wall, like a stuffed trophy." (20 Kesey).  Foreshadowing McMurphy's shock therapy treatment later on in the novel where he willingly lies down on a cross shaped table, just as how Jesus Christ was willing nailed on to a cross. The development of McMurphy as a Christ figure deepens when he leads twelve of the patients out on a  fishing trip, "The salt smell o' the pounding sea, the crack o' the bow against the waves-braving the elements, where men are men and boats are boats"(209 Kesey).  This draws parallel to Jesus' taking his twelve disciplesout to sea to test and strengthen their faith in him and empower them. Fish have also been an important religious Christian symbol, as the fishing trip is an important symbol of the novel representing the humanity and connection of mankind.  When the trip is over, the Chief describes the sense of change that most of the patients had and even claims that they "weren't the same bunch of weak-knees from a nuthouse anymore"  (215 Kesey). This really shows the way McMurphy is starting to guide and lead the patients, just as Jesus lead his disciples. McMurphy and Christ both end up sacrificing themselves for the betterment of many others, after McMurphy under goes lobotomy, he is basically brain dead, Bromden does him a favor and suffocates him because he knows McMurphy hates to live under conformity. They are both figures of healing and better times; Christ made blind men see and mute men speak and McMurphy is the one who prompted Bromden to shed his protective layer of defense and speak for the first time in years, when he says "Thank-you." (184 Kesey).  At the end of the novel, Bromden brings to remembrance the things McMurphy had taught them, showing what major a part of McMurphy's life was helping others, just as Jesus' life was devoted to bring goodness to others, and McMurphy, as a character is successfully developed as an important and heroic Christ figure.

Blog #2 Cuckoo's Nest

Ratched's Mental Health
Nurse Ratched is one of the main character in the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, she is a formal army nurse and works at the mental hospital where the novel takes place. Although she is staff and works to "help" the patients, she is crazier than any patient at the ward.She is obsessed with control and having everyone being under her rule. "Please understand, I appreciate the way you've taken it upon yourself to orient with the other patients on the ward, but everything in its own good time, Mr. McMurry. I'm sorry to interrupt you and Mr. Bromden, but you do understand: everyone...must follow the rules." (25 Kesey). She does everything in her power to manipulate the patients and doctors at the ward to insure everything is under her absolute rule; in society, there are things one can control and there are things out of one's control. In the little society of The Combine, Nurse Ratched controls all things, obsessing over every little detail, freaking out if things were done completely done her way. When McMurphy does not conform to her ways of "helping" the patients, she tries to put him under her control by shocking him and it failed, she tries to do it again..and again.."I tried to talk him into playing along with her so's to get out of the treatments, but he just laughed and told me Hell, all they was doing was charging his battery for him, free for nothing." (290 Kesey).  When patients at a mental institute start "playing along" with the staff, there's something seriously off. "Normal" people are usually the ones who play along with the insane to try and help them, not the other way around. The patients that are in the ward are not nearly as insane and sadistic as the nurse, they understand Nurse Ratched's obsession and they understand how to behave to the best of their benefits. Nurse Ratched, however, does not see this and is proud with herself of the "control" she has over the patients, that is, except for McMurphy. Albert Einstein's famous quote, "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" also corresponds very closely to Nurse Ratched's insanity in this case. Her control is a crazy obsession, she is willing to put others through torture just to achieve what she wants.Nurse Ratched’s insanity is personal, she is bitter about her own life and has lost much of her humanity, through power and control she seeks the same for her patients, for her own entertainment as well as to make herself feel better.