One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: Suicide or Accident
While you are reading, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, there is a dilemma where Cheswick, a patient at the mental hospital, dives into the pool and does not come up. Some readers may imply that he committed suicide. Others believe that it was merely an accident.
What I believe is that Cheswick committed suicide. My reasoning for this is that before he dove into the pool, Cheswick said, “I wish something mighta been done, though” (Kesey 151). If I was there, I would take it that Cheswick was threatening his life and was going to commit suicide. Another reason that I believe that Cheswick committed suicide is that he did not want to go back to the Disturbed ward. He was afraid that he would do something wrong and he would be sent to the shock room again. He committed suicide to avoid that. Another reason to believe that Cheswick committed suicide is that when the lifeguards finally released him, they saw that his fingers were rapped around the drain like he was gripping it to stay underwater.
For those of you that believe that Cheswick did not commit suicide, I totally disagree with you. Most of the events that occurred to Cheswick could lead to possible suicidal attempts. Cheswick actually completed his task by gripping the drain until he drowned himself.
This is a confusing part in the book and can cause a lot of dilemma between both sides of the argument, like in my group. Mason and I believe Cheswick drowned himself on purpose, while Tori and Amy believe that it was just an accident that caused his death.
By Craig Noe

Karissa's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“When the fog clears to where I can see, I’m sitting in the day room.” (Kesey 14). Children have high imaginations; they see life in a different perspective. The eyes of a child see things different than an adult. They see the good in things, the innocent facts of life. Now if a mental patient were to be defined or described, they would most likely be described in a derogatory manner. However, they also are like children. So oblivious to the world around them, they are set with rules and people to watch over them. They can't be left on their own; they depend on another to help them survive. Sometimes mental patients can be worked with and taught how to take care of themselves, this is similar to childhood and growing up.

In the mental hospital "Big Nurse" would play the role of their mother because she is their caretaker. The patients are her children, and the staff would be the people who influence their life and upbringing to make them the people they become. Now in a "normal family" these children would eventually leave home and fly away from the nest creating new lives for themselves. However in the mental hospital, these patients aren't leaving anytime soon. The patients in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" aren't really getting the care they need. They are there for rehabilitation, yet they feel like they are prisoners, unaware of what it truly going on.

Their imagination sores and searches for explanation as to why they are there. They act in a child manner, this is apparent in "Group Therapy" when they all yell over each other (Kesey 49). They whine and complain just as little kids do and their attention span is generally hanging by a thread. Their patience is usually very thin and limited this is apparent by their actions, "Pete shook his arm loose, "I'm tired," he warned."(51). They are never told what medication they are taking or what is being done to them. So like children, they make up stories to fill the void of the unknown. Even though, in society they are considered "mental" they are so comparable to children. The people in mental hospitals should be treated like people, not cattle where they're separated into certain groups and herded into a specific area. These people have knowledge if someone would just allow them to use it. I believe that some of these people aren’t crazy. They just aren’t given the chance to prove it yet. An example of this is the Chief, he sees life differently, but doesn’t everyone? And for that matter he really hasn’t shown any signs of craziness. Just because he thought process is different.

Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. New York: Penguin Books, 1962. Print.