Pool Scene

My art piece depicts my interpretation of the first pool scene when Bromden watches and listens to McMurphy talk to the lifeguard. In this scene, McMurphy is talking to the lifeguard, another patient of the hospital. He explains how the commitment works at the hospital, saying how the patients are here for however long the nurses say they should stay. McMurphy starts to realize he has made a mistake. Instead of being stuck working on the farm for a few months, he could be at the hospital for years. He starts to reflect on what he has done and what his next steps are. First, the colors I used are muted and a bit dreary. This is to show the overall life at the hospital, boring, often monotonous and depressing. Diving deeper, the words outside and inside are used throughout the book in many ways, but one notable usage of the words is to highlight the loneliness and isolation the patients of the ward experience. I decided to put McMurphy as the sole person in the artwork to represent that loneliness and separation that he starts to feel after the excitement of not working on the farm wears off. I added ripples in the water that also show him being completely alone. Another big theme of this book revolves around power struggles. The staff of the hospital, most notably Nurse Ratched, and McMurphy constantly have a back and forth for power over the ward and its patients. In this scene, after the lifeguard tells him about commitment, he realizes how little power he has in the grand scheme of things. I decided to make him relatively small compared to the rest of the picture, especially the pool which appears to go on forever. His size compared to everything that is around him represents that lack of power he feels after realizing that he could be in the ward for the rest of his life if the nurses wanted it to be so. McMurphy is drawn using a pen and many non-uniform squiggly lines. I wanted this to show both the chaos his personality brings to the ward, and, again, the lack of control he feels at this moment. From the bottom of the pool, black swirls and shadows come up towards McMurphy. These represent the regrets that start to form in McMurphy’s mind during this scene. They come up from the bottom of the pool to show how these regrets were once far away but are slowly creeping up to him. McMurphy stares out of the window. The window shows an image of what outside of the hospital might look like, but it also serves as a window into McMurphy’s thinking and headspace. Outside, the countryside is visible as well as a farm with rows of crops. The hills go on forever and represent freedom of the outside world. A farm is also visible, but is very far away. This is to highlight how far away that idea is now, he cannot turn back as he is trapped in the ward. Lastly, Bromden mentions the fog many times throughout the book. It represents the actual brain fog many patients of the ward experience, safety, numbness, as well as the general power that the staff have over the ward. Being in the fog is being obedient and docile. In my art, fog is rolling in from the window. McMurphy watching his freedom behind a glass pane reminds him that if he does what the staff wants he has a higher chance of being able to leave, and thus, the fog rolls in. This itself starts to change his actions as following this scene he starts doing everything the nurses want, showing that he truly does get lost in fog.