Thursday, May 6, 2010

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Kelia

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest it is obvious that if it's set in a mental hospital and the narrator is a patient in the for mentioned mental institute, that he's not going to be completely stable. Chief Bromden appears sane enough at first, more stable than some of his fellow patients at the very least, but it becomes apparent that the information we get through his view point isn't always going to be very reliable. You get a firsthand account of his delusions when he describes the Big Nurses transformation in the hall, saying she "Swelled up, swells till her back's splitting out of the white uniform and she's let her arms section out long enough to wrap around the three of them five, six times"(11). We know that a small women in her fifties can't transform into some sort of beast that can swell into a monster that could constrict three full grown men five or six times. It brings up the question why does the Chief see the nurse as this fantastic beastly creature even when she puts on the face of innocents when all the other patiets come out of their rooms. He even states "...she has to change back before she's caught in the shape of her hideous real self" (11). Chief Bromben seens to act as if he has an over active mind in a way from looking at his throughts and seeing how in a metaphorical sense they are right yet in comparison with the real world he is delusional.
- Kelia Murata
Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. New York: Penguin Books, 1962. Print.

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