Blog 5 Cuckoos Nest

The hospital did cause Bromdens problem not his past. His paranoia is from the way the hospital treats the patients. He sees more then the other men do because they think he's deaf. He gets to hear behind the scenes information when he cleans the back room while the staff talks because they think he can't hear him. Which is probably why he is so paranoid. He gets a glimpse at the truth that is destroying all of the patients. They say that Bromdens paranoia and his mental instability is due to the war. They are saying that his issues are from shell shock and that things he saw and went through during the war. I argue that the ward is responsible for his "problems". He also is treated differently because he is thought to be deaf. Hes is neglected and I think that the things they say right in front of him that they think he cant hear, the hurtful things, definitely effect him and probably causes paranoia as well. When he hears them all talking about giving lobotomy's or how they think the patients are close to nothing that would most definitely effect anybody. Nurse Ratched is messing with all the men in the ward. Of course Bromden has some effects from the war. He has seen things that most can't even imagine, but the way he is treated in the hospital caused the damage he suffers from. If Bromden never went to war his paranoia might not be as bad, but is he never went to the ward his paranoia wouldn't be as bad either. Nurse Ratched tortures these men. In the very beginning of the book they force Bromden into the shower and they force shaving on him. He went into the "fog" and probably does has the more vivid and crazy hallucinations because how terribly he is treated and that could be his brains way of trying to make sense of what is going on. He also pictures the nurse as a combine machine in the beginning of the book with multiple metal arms. He feels this way because of how controlling she it towards everyone. When the black boys are walking towards him he tries to disappear into the wall trying to hide from the men when they are trying to force him into the shower, that's how he is coping with the way he doesn't have a say in how his life runs anymore. Having no control over your own life would take a toll on you without a doubt and because of that Bromden is worried about everything all the time as he should be.

Blog 4 Cuckoos Nest

My favorite character in the novel is McMurphy, because of his will to fight against Nurse Ratched. I personally love the way that he just doesn't care about the way the Nurse is trying to control them and stands up to her. I love how McMurphy talks back and laughs in the faces of the people at the ward. I really liked when they were making him brush his teeth at certain times and he just said "god forbid someone brushes there teeth five min till 630" making fun of them. He doesn't care if they get mad at him because he sees through the combine and what they try to plant in the heads of the patients. I like that McMurphy tries to communicate with Bromden even when everyone says he deaf and can't even hear. I like that he treats Bromden like a normal person, because he is even if he was deaf, he still is a normal person. He respected him when no one else knew any better then to not talk to him. I like the kind of person McMurphy is. His spirit of rebellion. One of my favorite things that McMurphy did in the book was break the glass. McMurphy was fed up with the Nurse and all she was hiding behind her wall, and he walked up and hit the glass and broke it. He pretended that he didn't even see the glass and  it was an accident to break it. He wanted to make a statement to the other men in the ward that even though they are just patients and the Nurse and staff is in charge of them they don't have to take it. The staff hides the real world from the patients and McMurphy metaphorically broke that boundary. He is that person to push the boundaries and thats why I like him. I like that he isn't afraid, even in the end of the book he acts brave when he knows he is either going into shock therapy or getting a lobotomy. I also really liked when he tried to get all the men to vote on getting the right to watch the World Series. He wants to see the outside world and he wanted the men to see it too. I like that he fought for everyone to have a good time. I also like that he tried so hard to get everyones vote to watch the game, and he did, but then Nurse Ratched said that the votes were too late, but he did fight for what he wanted and fought for the other men in the ward.

Blog 3 Cuckoos Nest

The ward is a microcosm for society. The way the ward is ran in order to corrupt the patients more then they already are, is the way our society works. People with authority have the power to manipulate, and that is exactly what Nurse Ratched does, and society. There are boundaries put up to "block out" people lower then others. The boundaries don't necessarily mean walls or fences, its a mental block. Society fills are heads with ideas and thoughts that are wrong and misleading, like they are meant to be. Society puts up a wall to hide the truth from people. They only let us see what they want us to see and hide behind a "curtain" with the things that truly are happening and the things are truly are begin effected. The same thing is happening in the hospital. The Nurse and everyone working the ward with the Nurse are hiding behind the truth and keep reality from the patients. But this mental block that is trying to be done can be broken and McMurphy shows us that when he punches the glass window at the hospital that the Nurse and the workers work behind. They don't want the patients seeing what they are giving them or information going on in the real world. They want to hide it from them. Nurse Ratched brain washes all the patients literally and mentally over time. She gives them pills that literally makes them all out of it and they don't know what is going on, but they way she treats them mentally brain washes them. As does society, when they try to hide the truth from the people. One example is war the way society shows the public, society makes war seem like a noble outgoing and that everyone is left with respect and in a great way, and thats not the case, just like we read in The Things They Carried. Society and the Ward do this in the same way, putting on a front to hide the truth. The ward represent the way the outside world works on the inside. They hide behind lies to benefit themselves (society, ward).

Blog 2 Cuckoos Nest

The argument that Nurse Ratched is crazier then the patients can go both ways. I guess it can be  said that she technically isn't as crazy as the patients because she technically seems sane. She doesn't have the problems that the patients have, she can speak clearly, unlike Billy, she can hear fine, unlike Bromden(so they think). She seems to be put together having everything on such a tight schedule, everything in order every day. Nurse Ratched always has a perfectly white put together uniform to work in, and has a certain way she runs everything. In some eyes I can see why she might seem sane. But in my opinion I think she is the craziest of all of them. She is a machine, the combine, she is insane for the way she needs everything to be ran in the same order. Nurse is obsessed with order, which to me seems pretty crazy. She forces the men to take pills against their will. When Taber stands up to the  nurse asking what pills she is trying to have him take, which seems perfectly logical to me, she treats him like a child for not wanting to take medicine that he doesn't know what is it. She tells him she will give it to him one way or another. Thats crazy of her, she drugs the men to make them unaware, she shelters them from whats real and life. She won't even let them watch the world series. Her mind set is crazy. She seems calm and collected which she is but only because of the fact the she is crazy. The way Nurse Ratched has a grip on these mens lives and can control them, and the fact that she feeds off it, is insane and not healthy, she needs more help then the men inside the ward. She's addicted to control and you can see it eating at her when McMurphy tempts her and pushes her the wrong way. McMurphy stands up to her for himself and for the other boys. He knows that they aren't being treated like they should and doesn't take it from her and will push her limits. When he does you can see her freaking out(even though it isn't shown). She keeps still and just gets a different look in her eyes. So in conclusion yes, i can see the fact that "technically" in societies eyes she is sane, but when you think about her actions and the way she runs, she is crazy.

Blog 1 Cuckoos Nest

My least favorite character of the novel is easily Nurse Ratched. She is overly controlling and likes to manipulate the patients in the hospital. She likes to make the patients feel like they are "smaller" then they are, "'Miss, I don't like to create trouble. But I don't like to swallow something without knowing what it is neither.' 'If Mr.Taber chooses to act like a child, he may have to be treated as such. We've tried to be kind and considerate with him. Obviously, that's not the answer...You can go, Mr.Taber, if you don't want to take your medication orally' "(35). She wouldn't tell Mr.Taber what type of medication he was taking and, of course, he fought back, but she acts as if he is in the wrong and she won't tell him and will force it on him because of his unwillingness to take it. She likes to force things the patients don't want on to them. In the beginning of the novel Nurse Ratched forces Bromden into a shower and shave room. "If you yell its just tougher on you. I hold back the yelling. I hold back till they get to my temples"(13). This is when they are putting him in the shower. She likes to make the men feel like they are just a part of her machine, the way the hospitals runs is very orderly and in line and she doesn't like anything less of that. I don't like the way she treats the men, I don't think anyone likes the way she treats them. She likes to run their group therapy sessions too, she doesn't want anything to be said or herd that she doesn't approve of and Harding points that out; " Is this the usual pro-cedure for these group therapy shindigs, a pecking party"(70)? Harding points out that the way the group therapy is run is like a pecking party, relating it to chickens pecking until the patients crack. Even the group therapy ran by Nurse Ratched is torturous to the patients in the ward. She doesn't do anything good for the patients nothing helpful, only harmful. Thats why she is my least favorite character, reading about the way she disrespects the patients and her control over human beings as if they were animals is bull shit. I don't understand where this control she needs to have came from? Maybe when she was younger she had no control over her own life and is taking it out on these men, or maybe she's just a crazy person. She doesn't have a right to talk down on men especially men in psychiatric need.