Escaping Reality (Lit Log #1 Q2)

Quarantine left us all trapped in our homes and, seeing as there wasn’t much else to do, I spent a large majority of my time consuming all sorts of music, movies, Youtube videos, and TV shows. They became my escape from reality. Even though I was physically in my room, this media took me anywhere, across the country, across the ocean, or even to a whole other world. Bromden is trapped within the confines of the Ward, but he is able to mentally escape to his childhood memories where he was happy. This seems to be a coping mechanism for him, he often retreats to these memories in moments where he is feeling afraid or is experiencing pain. In the very beginning of the novel, Bromden is hiding in the mop closet to avoid getting his face shaved by the black boys, something he is very afraid of. He describes his fear and then thinks, “I try to think back and remember things about the village and the big Columbia River, think about ah one time Papa and I were hunting birds… like always when I try to place my thoughts in the past and hide there, the fear close at hand seeps in through the memory.” (6) He then goes further into this memory of hunting with his father and their dog, before he is caught. Readers can see how his fear coincides with these memories coming up, how he “hides” within the comfort of them. This becomes a pattern throughout the novel, even when he gets his final electroshock treatment, he once again thinks of his childhood in the village, of the people he was once surrounded with. While reading, I found it difficult to relate myself to this book, but this was a point I was able to connect with my own experiences. Escapism is definitely a bad habit of mine, whether it is procrastinating doing my homework or avoiding processing my emotions. Something I have noticed is I spent a lot of my day trying to evade silence, as silence invites my own thoughts. I find it more comforting to drown them out with a movie or music. Like Bromden, I do not want to feel those deep emotions, like fear or sadness, so it is easier to just escape and avoid them.

Something Bromden learns by the end, and something I am currently working on understanding, is that those deep emotions are a necessary part of life. You have to have hard moments to enjoy the good ones. By the end of the novel, his memories are still where he goes after his final electroshock treatment, but he is also able to break free from what was holding him at the Ward. That is why he can finally escape. He wakes up from the treatment and thinks, “it’s fogging a little, but I won’t slip off and hide in it. No… never again…” (248) He rubs his eyes and clears his head. He gets up, walks to the window and realizes, I “knew this time I had them beat.” (249) This symbolizes the turning point for Bromden, where he realized he couldn’t let fear control his life anymore. He finally forced himself out of the fog, which had been another source of escape for him throughout the book. He realized he didn’t need the fog anymore and he could stand up for himself. This leads to his eventual escape from the Ward, the very thing that was controlling and confining him. Although I have been out of quarantine for over two years, I still find myself using movies and TV shows as a way to avoid my problems. Facing things head on is scary, but it’s exactly what is needed to overcome them. This idea is something I have known for a while, but have been lacking at putting into practice. Bromden’s bravery to escape his fear, the fog, and the Ward as a whole showed me that avoidance only leads to more harm done. It doesn’t mean the problems will simply vanish, it likely means they will grow bigger and more unmanageable.