Michael

10 Conflict Questions:

1.How many kinds of conflict(character vs. self, character vs. character, etc.) are there in the novel?

A: There are 2 kinds of conflict: character vs. self and character vs. character 

2.How many conflicts are there in the book?

A: There are 4 conflicts(Bromden trying to deal with his past memories and visions, and McMurphy/the patients/the staff vs. the Big Nurse)

3.Why does McMurphy create a conflict with Mrs. Ratched?

A: McMurphy had a bet that he could make Mrs. Ratched mad(McMurphy had a gambling problem). He also believed Mrs. Ratched wasn’t a threat and that the other patients were simply being cowards, so he wanted to prove there’s nothing to fear of her and restore some bravery in the other patients.

4.If Mrs. Ratched was so angered by McMurphy, why did she not want to send him to the Disturbed Ward?

A: Mrs. Ratched mostly wanted the patients to still know she was the highest power in the ward so they would still be intimidated by her. She thought that if she sent him to Disturbed then the other patients would think she couldn’t break McMurphy. She also believed that McMurphy was nothing special and could be subdued or defeated just like the other patients.

5.Have the patients at the ward become less intimidated by Mrs. Ratched, more intimidated or stayed just as intimidated as they were in the start?

A: The patients have become less intimidated by the Big Nurse since the beginning of the novel. This is shown when they joint McMurphy in watching the blank TV in the tub room. Had they been how they were during the start of the novel, they wouldn’t have risked angering the Big Nurse.

6.Is there any foreshadowing in the novel? If so, what do you think it will foreshadow?

A: One example is when McMurphy wins all the patients’ cigarettes gambling, but then lets them win it back. This could be foreshadowing McMurphy winning the bet later on in the book. Another example would be when McMurphy bets he can lift the concrete panel from the ground, where, even though everyone knows McMurphy can’t lift it, everyone thinks he might for a second before he fails to. This could foreshadow an event where McMurphy tries to break down Mrs. Ratched, and even though everyone thinks he can’t, he might almost be able to before failing.

7.There are a few very short chapters near the end of the second quarter, what do you think the purpose of these chapters are about?

A: The purpose of these chapter is to show that Bromden feels safe, but McMurphy is disrupting that by trying to antagonize the Big Nurse. When he does this, he gets the help of the other patients which makes them vulnerable too. Even though they are cowardly they feel safe. Bromden calls the cowardice, or at least what keeps the patients safe, the fog. This Chapter shows that the fog Bromden sees is what he sees when he feels safe, but alone. The second short chapter talks about a man in Disturbed who killed himself. This chapter shows that people who stay in the Disturbed Ward usually die eventually(probably from mistreatment or electric shock therapy).

8.The staff is also intimidated by Mrs. Ratched, how is this shown in the novel?

A: The staff try to know what Mrs. Ratched wants to do and then suggest the idea in staff meetings to get on her good side. When suggesting something that contradicts Mrs. Ratched’s view, the other staff members will attack them, much like how the patients do.

9.How does Mrs. Ratched anger McMurphy?

A: Mrs. Ratched angers McMurphy by not allowing him to view the World Series even though there is a majority vote to watch it, and she did so using loopholes (since the vote was taken after the meeting was adjourned, the vote didn’t technically count even though the majority wanted to watch the series).

10.How does McMurphy anger Mrs.Ratched?

McMurphy watches the game anyways, and when she turn off the TV he continues to watch he blank screen as if he was still watching it. He does this so that she doesn’t win in the situation and acts like he wasn’t at all affected by what she had done, which enrages her.

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Book Review Response

Personally, I disagree with most of the author’s points of the review. For example, the author, David, says that Chief Bromden is a walking cliche. He claims that Bromden is much like a stereotypical hippie who thinks that power is built on hatred, order can’t allow freedom to exist and that “democracy is a mere cover for authoritarian impulse”. The reason I don’t agree with this is because Bromden isn’t just some average person off of the street who thinks this way and that the government controls everything, this is a native american with mental disabilities including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Bromden, being native, lived off of the land with his father for a long time. After his land is taken away, it’s taken away by the government and they use a machine to exploit the land. Seeing his reality be taken over by a machine so quickly would make Bromden think the Combine(what he calls the government) is trying to mechanize things, especially since after his land was taken he was using much more machinery afterwards, in the army in particular. To me, Bromden isn’t a hippie, but a man who’s just not used to the order and technology of the modern world he lives in, and who can’t understand it either, due to his mental disabilities.

The author of the review also mentions about how Bromden “lapses into authorial omniscience”. When the author says this he is talking about a part in the book where Bromden tells the reader about a traumatizing childhood experience of one of the ward’s aides. What I don’t think the author took into account when he wrote this was that the staff, at the time Bromden tells the reader about the experience, think he is deaf and often say personal things around him because they don’t think he will know what they say. Although it doesn’t say in the novel, Bromden could have easily overheard the aide talk about the event over the 10 years he lived in the ward.

Some things the author of the review also mentions is the character which I mostly agree with. He compares Mrs. Ratched to a comic book villain: shallow and whose motivation lies on nothing besides power. I do agree with this slightly, Mrs. Ratched doesn’t seem to have much of a reason to be cruel to the patients, however I think the author’s comparison is a bit of an over exaggeration since Mrs. Ratched probably thinks she must control the patients or they could become violent, after all they are in a mental asylum. One thing I do agree on with the author, however, is the description of McMurphy, who thinks that McMurphy has a deep and very human like personality.

This review didn’t change how I read the novel too much, it did make me reconsider how I thought about some characters, but for the most part I disagreed with the author of the review and didn’t find he really brought anything up that was new to me.

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Journal Entry #1

During the beginning of the novel, I found the story a little boring since it was moving fairly slow and not much was happening, however afterwards I found it to be much more intriguing. What interests me is how the characters react with each other and how Bromden simply watches them and how they react. Since everyone at the ward thinks that Bromden is deaf, the Big Nurse, as well as other characters, don’t hide things from him because they don’t think he will be able to tell anyone if he knew about what they hide from others. For this reason, other characters are more open around him. Since Bromden is the narrator, having his knowledge of the characters makes the story more interesting and lets you understand the characters and their morals. Morality is a major theme in the novel, so being able to know these things about the characters makes the story more interesting to read.

One of the first thing I noticed was the atmosphere of the novel. During the very first page, the mood of the novel is shown and not long after that the setting is too. When the Big Nurse harasses Bromden in the beginning, it is easy to tell that he and the other patients are always in fear of her. Since everyone is in a psychiatric hospital, you can already tell that the patients are in a sad, scary place, which adds to the feeling of fear shown in the story. Later on in the book, you are told that the patients are pressured into turning against each other and are even too afraid to laugh, which really shows how intimidating the Big Nurse is. Even when the Big Nurse talks nicely and keeps a calm expression she still has the same effect on the patients, which shows that it’s not how she reacts to them or her look that intimidates the patients its the power she has and what she can do to hurt them that scares them. I thought the most compelling thing about the first quarter of my book is about how McMurphy, despite seeing the consequences of going against the Big Nurse(shock therapy) and seeing what she does to the patients, he still tries to get a rise out of her for a bet. I’m still wondering whether this will help the patients feel safer and more in control(if McMurphy makes her to snap) or  if it will end up costing McMurphy, which I also find helps me stay interested in the story.

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Journal Entry #2

Personally, I found the second quarter of the novel to be much more interesting than the first. Already you can tell that the conflict between Mrs. Ratched and McMurphy is escalating, and quickly too. The atmosphere is also becoming much more intense and scary, which is shown in many occasions, but most specifically in the chapter about the patient is the Disturbed Ward’s suicide. Another thing that is becoming much more evident is Bromden’s conflict with his himself. It is shown in this quarter that he most likely has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from being a soldier in World War 2. One last thing that is starting to become much more clear is how Bromden feels about the situation that is happening in the ward. It is shown in the book that Bromden doesn’t like McMurphy causing trouble with the Big Nurse even though she’s cruel, because Bromden feels safe when she is calm and McMurphy is making everyone vulnerable by angering her. Bromden feels even less safe now because he knows she knows he is not deaf. He fears that if she realizes there have been thing he has heard in the past that he should not have, she might become violent with him or send him to the Disturbed Ward.

Another thing I noticed is that Bromden is mentioning machinery and the Combine more in the second quarter. In the novel Bromden often says he hears the machinery in the walls and calls the staff a part of the combine, however now he’s talking more about McMurphy and about how he is safe from the combine. When I first read about the machinery, I though it was just Bromden’s crazy thoughts, which I saw as irrelevant. However the more I read the more I realize the idea of the Combine and the machinery is important to the story. I think Bromden is seeing the ward as a strict and cruel government run by the Combine’s(Mrs. Ratched and the staff) machinery to make everything run just how it wants to, like a computer. What I find interesting is the idea that McMurphy is immune to the Combine’s attempts to make him a “machine”, like they have done with the other patients. By which I mean, all the patients bend to the Big Nurse except for McMurphy, which shows that McMurphy is the only one who can help the patients and defeat the combine.

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Journal Entry #3

After reading the third quarter of the book, I noticed there were a lot of different major things that happened. For this journal entry, I’m going to talk about these events: when McMurphy punched the glass window and when Bromden spoke to another patient for the first time.

During the beginning of the quarter, McMurphy stops trying to rile up the Big Nurse, because she can extend the time he stays on the ward. However, after she takes away the tub room from the patients, McMurphy punched his hand through the window of the room she stays behind during meetings. McMurphy claims he only wanted to get cigarettes, but he was obviously trying to anger Mrs. Ratched and make her feel less powerful and safe from him. I found this part to be pretty interesting because all of his reasons for acting polite and not trying to anger Mrs. Ratched suddenly didn’t matter to him anymore when she took away the tub room, which makes me think what his motivation was. Did he just enjoy having the tub room to play cards, or was he just upset with the way Mrs. Ratched pushes the patients around and then punishes them for rebelling?

Another important part of the story that happens in this quarter is when chief Bromden first talks to another patient. When Bromden’s stash of gum is discovered and thrown away, McMurphy offers him one to which Bromden accidentally replies with a thank you. For the first time in the whole story, and for Bromden, years, he finally speaks to someone. I think this is a really important part of the story because it shows not only how McMurphy makes the patients feel comfortable and, in the case of Bromden, less cagey, but also sheds some light on why Bromden never talks. Bromden’s flashback explains that most people ignore him so he didn’t bother trying to talk, and by being silent he could be almost invisible to others and listen into what he shouldn’t. The story(or flashback) Bromden gives which explains this is when the Americans came to buy his father’s land to put up a hydroelectric dam. This is also a very important part because this is when he first starts to stop talking and also first comes up with the idea of the combine turning everything into machinery. He sees the government workers trying to turn the land into a machine(the dam) which shows that the government is the combine(in Bromden’s mind). This is how Bromden sees the ward, a part of the combine trying to turn him into the machinery like the did with the falls at his father’s land. This event in the book really shows how Bromden sees the world and illustrates quite thoroughly what McMurphy is up against by fighting the Big Nurse.


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Journal #4

The last quarter of the novel was definitely the most eventful of them all. For the first time in the book, the title is mentioned and gives a little bit of an explanation on why the title is what it is. The three biggest events come shortly after when Billy kills himself, McMurphy is lobotomized and Bromden escapes the ward.

Firstly, I would like to talk about when Bromden is given shock therapy and mentions the title of the book: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. While he is being shocked, Bromden thinks about his military experiences and back to his childhood. His flashbacks are a bit random and jumbled up, but one of his memories was about a nursery rhyme his deceased grandmother used to tell him. The whole rhyme isn’t mentioned in the book, but it is called William Trimmytoes and goes like this:

Ting.Tingle, tingle, tremble toes, she’s a good fisherman, catches hens, puts ‘em inna pens. Some lay eggs. Some lay none. Wire, blier, limerlock. Three geese inna flock. One flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo’s nest. O-U-T spells out, goose swoops down and pluck you out.

In the novel Bromden mentions about how he likes the goose that flies over the cuckoo’s nest, but doesn’t like the fisherman. This leads me to believe the fisherman is a symbol for Mrs. Racthed. Not only does Bromden dislike her, but she catches hens and traps them in pens, much how Mrs. Ratched keeps the patients scared and in the hospital, never permitting leave. Another thing I find interesting is that the fisherman catches hens, which is what McMurphy calls the patients several times all throughout the novel, as well as birds. I also believe the goose who flew over the cuckoo’s nest is McMurphy and the nest is the ward. This is because the nest is representative of a house, and cuckoo’s are often associated with insanity and craziness, and when McMurphy first arrives he tells everyone he is “head bull-goose loony”. Another reason the goose who plucks you(“you” would be Bromden, since his grandmother put emphasis on “you” when she sung him the rhyme) out would represent McMurphy since he shows Bromden how to escape and gives him the courage to do so(by destroying Mrs. Ratched’s reputation and power over the patients). It shows that McMurphy plucked Bromden out of the ward and saved him by doing so.

Secondly, I would like to mention McMurphy’s lobotomization. After he has had surgery performed on him, the other patients don’t believe it’s him because his body looks so fake. Even though it is the real McMurphy, the patient’s think that McMurphy, a rebellious, confident, self controlled man, could suddenly become a dumb, stiff vegetable who must rely on others for his survival. Even I thought it was odd how in one chapter McMurphy was this tough rebel, and in the next, he’s just a body who can’t even take care of himself or even talk anymore. Although it doesn’t say, I think this is the point where Bromden believes the “Combine” finally got him.

Personally, I thought that the last part of the book was great since everything that happens made me think that Bromden would become the new McMurphy: Confident, and rebelious. I thought this because before the self proclaimed “head bull-goose loony” McMurphy is lobotomized, he tells Bromden that he can be the new head bull goose loony. Another reason is because after Bromden puts McMurphy out of his misery by smothering him at night, he escapes the ward using McMurphy’s idea of smashing the window with the panel. Once Bromden escapes, he hitchhikes with a Mexican man and travels to Canada, which also relates to McMurphy since McMurphy’s escape plan was to move to either Mexico or Canada, and a mexican driving Bromden to Canada brings the thought of both plans being used. 

When I got to the end of the novel, I also looked back to the starting and really saw the contrast of how the patients acted then and in the end. The change is gradual, so you don’t notice it too much as it happens, but during the beginning the patients are terrified of Mrs. Ratched: tattling on each other to get her trust and obeying her without question. However, at the end of the book, the patients are laughing at her and clearly don’t care about what she threatens to do, until the incident with Billy. 

I thought the book was great: very intense by the end and it has interesting aspects of psychology and human nature that was put into the book.