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My artwork depicts Bromden’s hallucination/dream when he did not take the medication they gave him from pages 76 to 79. In this scene, Bromden sees one of the staff bring the dorm room down to an underground, dam-like structure beneath the ward. Bromden describes this world below the ward as being very industrial, like a factory or a “tremendous dam”(77). As the floor moves, Bromden sees many things, specifically workers, identical each other, running around, and furnaces. As the floor comes to a stop, one of the chronics, named Blastic, who was pointed out by the men in charge, is taken by a worker and “…with the other hand the worker drives the hook through the tendon back of the heel, and the old guy’s hanging there upside down…his pajama top falls around his head. The worker grabs the top and bunches and twists it like a burlap sack…” (78). This detail can be seen in the piece.

In this part, Bromden says “…there’s no blood or innards falling out like I was looking to see–just a shower of rust and ashes, and now and again a piece of wire or glass. Worker’s standing there to his knees in what looks like clinkers.” (79). He also says “One of the guys takes a scalpel from a holster at his belt. There’s a chain welded to the scalpel. The guy lowers it to the worker, loops the other end of the chain around the railing so the worker can’t run off with a weapon.” (78 - 79). These details are captured in the machinery spilling out of the hole in Blastic’s torso and the hook caught on his heel.

The main scene is placed in the background while the beds are in the foreground, showing the perspective of Bromden, being a witness to a horrible act but not able to interfere or do anything due to fear. The focal point has the most color as it was a scene so vivid for Bromden. Everything else fades into the background as Blastic’s death was the only thing Bromden could focus on. The hallucination is intentionally disconnected from the beds as it is unclear whether this moment was Bromden’s fantasy or reality. This is also represented by the hazy, blurred nature of the drawing. The disconnect also conveys how his death is not acknowledged. They can’t reach him, not even Bromden who is the only one to witness this.

The horrific nature of this scene is captured by the grotesque visual of the hole, stark when compared to the rest of the dark, dimmed scene. The only face you can see is ignorant of his actions and disinterested to the acts he commits. The worker’s face looks “handsome and brutal and waxy like a mask”, shown in the detachment of his features from the rest of his face. I decided to have the machinery falling out candidly to express how sudden the scene was. In place of blood, there are wires and glass, rust and ash. As suddenly as he died, the in-progress nature of the art expresses it.

This artwork portrays how Bromden’s mind alters how characters are perceived. Blastic is depicted as a character that was so far gone, he has no organs or things of human nature left, being reduced to wires like a robot, puppet, or doll. This scene is so significant because it was the first described death in the book. On the ward, the Chronics have no say in what happens to them. They live through the motions set out for them by the staff. Even what happens to them in the night and after death is out of their control. Blastic was forgotten, not mentioned again after this scene, as there are no real treatments for the Chronics, just drawn-out existence and inevitable death. As Bromden would say, they are taken back into the fold by the Combine when their time runs out.

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest, the ward represents a creation of society, with Nurse Ratched symbolizing the oppressive authority and control. McMurphy, A main character in this ward, is seen as the protagonist, challenging the authority and arguing with the patients to rebel against the structures forced upon them. In our lives, authority figures and mandatory structures can make us feel restricted or oppressed. In my own life, there have been moments where I have broken free from these constraints, which have led to personal growth.

In this novel, McMurphy’s character is defined by encouraging patients to rebel against the ward’s rules. McMurphy is often seen challenging the control of Nurse Rached and inspiring patients in this ward to follow his lead in asserting their independence. When McMurphy arrives at the ward, he challenges the rules and authority, questioning the strict routine and rules of the ward that could be seen as dehumanizing.

McMurphy shows a significant moment of rebellion when the patients vote to change the TV schedule to watch the World Series, while Nurse Ratched opposes this idea. A quote reads, “All twenty of them, raising not just for watching TV, but against the big nurse, against trying to send McMurphy to disturbed, against the way she’s acted and beat them down for years”(140). The narrator, Chief Bromden, describes this act of rebellion by McMurphy as one that makes Nurse Ratched question her power. The majority of men who voted on this can be inferred as an immense act of rebellion waiting to occur.

McMurphy foreshadows a personal rebellion evolving into a collective rebellion in which he is the “leader.” He often encourages other patients to join him in this battle against the authority. The actions that he creates inspire the people to stand up against the oppressive environment of the ward.

In my own life, I can relate to moments when I have felt the need to rebel against authority. There have been negative moments with significant people that I found myself around on a daily basis. I was in this rebellious state at a young age with my teachers, parents, and even coaches. I often thought they wouldn’t know better than me, so I would do what I wanted and often paid the price. Challenging simple rules like “Don’t talk while the teacher is talking” or “Stop playing video games and clean up your room” were moments where I felt the need to challenge rules because they were unjust. While I may not have faced the same extreme circumstances as the characters in the novel, these instances led me to question the oppression I faced from then until now.

This novel portrays the ward as a nature of society, with Nurse Ratched symbolizing oppressive authority and control and the character McMurphy, seen as a protagonist in this situation, challenging this authority. This theme of rebellion is seen to have resonated with real life as many people have experienced moments of trying to break free from constraints explicitly placed on them, which often leads to personal growth. The novel’s exploration of rebellion reflects humanity, highlighting the desire for freedom.

In One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey creates a rule-abiding and caged atmosphere in the psych ward. The narrator, Chief Bromden, tells the story through visions and hallucinations that help the reader understand characters at a deeper level. One major delusion that is relevant to understanding the power dynamics in the ward is the fog machine. Bromden claims that there is a fog machine that is controlled by Big Nurse and the staff. “Before noontime they’re at the fog machine again but they haven’t got it turned up full; it’s not so thick but what I can see if I strain real hard. One of these days I’ll quit straining and let myself go completely, lose myself in the fog the way some of the other Chronics have […]” (37) I think the fog symbolizes Big Nurse’s authoritative manipulation and getting lost in the fog means losing sight of reality and individuality. We can see that Bromden is a Chronic but he still fights through the fog and doesn’t want to lose himself in it. But even though he doesn’t want to give in to the fog, he also doesn’t want to escape the fog. Bromden considers the fog a safe place where he can hide from reality. “That’s what McMurphy can’t understand, us wanting to be safe. He keeps trying to drag us out of the fog, out in the open where we’d be easy to get at.” (112) The patients are aware that they are being manipulated by Big Nurse, but they stay in the fog because it’s safer than trying to make sense of everything on their own and rebelling against Big Nurse.

I find myself relating to Bromden and the patients. Growing up, I always obeyed my parents and I never questioned their authority. To me, everything they said went and they knew what was best for me. I think that in a way, this contributed to my people-pleasing tendencies because I was always rewarded for following their rules. As I grow older, my view points don’t align with theirs as much and I start to want different things in life. But because I grew up constraining myself to follow their rules, speaking my mind and rebelling against my parents was something I avoided. I decided to stay in the fog of obedience of my parents and in result, never had to deal with the consequences of rebellion.

I would like to think that my compliance is something I choose for myself, but the hard truth is I’m scared of facing the disappointments of the real world. The actions I make will always have consequences but if I make them on my own, I won’t have the safety net of my parents to fall back on. This is something the patients in the ward also experience. They rely on Big Nurse and view her as a mother figure. They remain loyal to her during the first half of the book when they are in the fog because they see her as someone who is selfless and gave up her life to care of their “insane” selves. “Our dear Miss Ratched? Our sweet, smiling, tender angel of mercy, Mother Ratched, a ball-cutter? Why, friend, that’s most unlikely.” (54) In this quote, Harding defends Big Nurse as McMurphy tries to pull the patients out of the fog. McMurphy shows them the many signs of her manipulation, but the patients refuse to agree with them or take action against her power because of the safety they feel under her fog of authority. It’s Big Nurse’s job to make them feel less crazy, even if that means being caged and controlled. It is only when they see McMurphy succeed to rebel without getting sent to the Disturbed ward that they feel propelled to speak out and step out of the fog.

McMurphy inspires the patients to act on their initial desires to rebel against Big Nurse. Even though he is also a manipulative person, it’s justified because he strives to unite the patients to fight against mistreatment that he also personally experiences. Big Nurse is manipulative in a way that divides the patients so she can have more control over them. From McMurphy I learned that rebellion is extremely important for stopping unhealthy patterns of authoritarians. “The residents, the black boys, all the little nurses, they’re watching her too, waiting for her to go down the hall where it’s time for the meeting she herself called, and waiting to see how she’ll act now that it’s known she can be made to lose control […] There’s no more fog any place.” (129) Big Nurse’s perfect facade that she has been putting up has finally cracked. The fog, and fear that lingers with it, disappears once the patients realize that Miss Ratched can lose control, just like them. We tend to view authority figures as superior and fail to notice they are human as well. Once we take them off a pedestal, we will find the courage to express our individuality and the strength to face the consequences of doing so.

This art piece represents the scene from page 125. McMurphy makes himself comfortable in front of the TV, defying the nurses order to get back to work. The other patients see his actions and pull up a chair to join him. McMurphy had attempted to switch the cleaning schedule so that they could sit and watch the world series however his attempt was unsuccessful. He didn’t want to believe he lost so he stood up against Nurse Ratched and finally made her lose her cool. Nurse Ratched, furious, cuts the TV off but McMurphy isn’t bothered. Bromden notes “That eye doesn’t faze him a bit. To tell the truth, he doesn’t even let on he knows the picture is turned off…” (125) The artwork represents McMurphy’s act of defiance as well as the consequences that followed.

The top right portion of the piece represents the cleaning supplies that the patients dropped when deciding to join McMurphy. “Harding shuts off the buffer and leaves it in the hall.” (125) I chose to include this because it shows that the choice the patients made was spur of the moment. I felt it was most important to emphasize McMurphys character in this piece so he got the most detail. McMurphy leans back, “puts his cigarette between his teeth and pushes his cap forward in his red hair till he has to lean back to see out from under the brim.” (125) I drew McMurphy just as described, leaned back, hands crossed behind his head, cigarette in his mouth and hat brim on his head. His relaxed nature while Nurse Ratched yells from behind is really important to notice. He intentionally acts like this because he knows that it will annoy the Nurse and his goal is to make her lose her temper.

In my artwork, I included the other Acutes sitting in front of the gray TV screen to show that they were supportive of the effect it would have on the nurse Ratched and not so much actually wanting to watch the world series. The patients are “sitting there lined up in front of that blanked out TV set, watching the gray screen just like we could see the baseball game clear as day, and she’s ranting and screaming behind us.” (125) McMurphy continuing to watch the TV as if it were still on shows that he doesn’t want to let the Nurse know that she has won. For him, this front that he has put up must stay intact even if that means he has to act in this manner. By doing this he won the bet that he could make the nurse lose her temper.

The nurse’s appearance is simple, she is drawn to have infuriating facial expressions towards the men by the TV. The artwork shows the important moment when she loses her temper with the patients. Throughout this moment her anger grows more intense, “Mr. McMurphy, I’m warning you!” then she pulled out her fist and “all those red - orange fingernails burning into her palm.” (125) In the piece, Nurse Ratched’s Facial expressions, red cheeks and orange fingernails were done intentionally to replicate this moment from the book.

This scene is significant to the story because it’s the first moment where McMurphy makes Nurse Ratched lose her temper on the patients. Each moment before this, she has calmed herself down before things escalated but this scene shows how McMurphy tipped the scales. This scene could lead McMurphy to have many more moments where he defies the rules and causes Nurse Ratched to be furious with him. It leaves the reader wondering about the amount of control the patients truly have within the hospital.

Beyond The Cuckoo’s Nest: Analyzing Authoritarian Dynamics in Ken Kesey’s Book “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” and The Contemporary World Of Managers

In the maze that is the modern workplace, where the echoes of the proverbial “rat race” reverberate through the corridors of a corporatized society, the compliance demanded by authority finds its counterpart in the soulful yet automatic refrain, “Good Morning, Miss. Rat-ched” as aptly stated by McMurphy on page 86 of Ken Kesey’s book One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. This adjustment in address where “Ratched” is innocuously muddled down to “Rat-ched,” echos a rebellious but subtle confrontation that binds the autocratic nature McMurphy is portrayed to inhabit in this novel. It also echoes what modern workers have been calling the “Rat race” which is a term used in reference to the relentless, competitive, exhausting, and oftentimes monotonous pursuit of inevitable self-defeat encapsulated within the corporate ladder. In response to McMurphy’s greeting and question, “How’s things on the outside?’ Miss Ratched responds “You can’t run around here in a towel!” A response that serves as an immediate reminder of the power structures previously established. The life of Miss Ratched outside the hospital is no business to McMurphy not because it is simply irrelevant but because McMurphy simply has no place in society. Apparently to Miss Ratched’s account that is plainly evident in the fact McMurphy parades himself around the commons in a towel. Such a man in Nurse Ratched’s eye is incapable of understanding what it is like to be normal that is why she feels compelled to get these men to conform. It is her job after all.

Ironically McMurphy’s elegantly poised derogatory remix of Nurse Ratched’s name was supposed to signify Nurse Ratched, much like the patients and staff of this ward painted in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is indeed a rat. If we are to believe it is the nurse’s managerial duty to help the hospital better remold these men back into society we must be open to the idea that the nurse and other staff members alike are to effectively be the only representatives of the “outside” and the values and structures the “outside” would have reflected to the average reader at the time. But through Nurse Ratched’s actions and the sacrifice of oneself, (being everyone else in the ward) we see how the guiding autocratic structures of the outside world creep their way into the hospital.

Autocratic structures have been in place within our society for quite some time now even during the 50s when this book takes place. Parallels can be drawn from the examples of condensation, passive aggressiveness, and conformity throughout the novel. “Don’t you think we’d better climb back into our nice toasty bed?” says Nurse Ratched to Chief Bromden pg. 143, a man perceived in the hospital to be deaf. What is particularly scary about this first example is the fact Nurse Ratched knows Chief is deaf yet she carries on with her language and the usage of words like “we”, “you”, and “our” which all insinuates the illusion of choice. It blunts the sharp edges of authoritarian demands making them look more collaborative and self-serving. The reality, as we see immediately after, is that Bromden chooses that he does not want to go to bed but still, the Nurse aggressively sets her staff on Bromden and they proceed to lock him down to his bed. Bromden is then left in his bed locked up forced to cope with the reality in front of him pg.144 “she figures it’s on account of working evenings among a whole ward full of people like me. It’s all our fault, and she’s going to get us for it if it’s the last thing she does. I wish McMurphy’d wake up and help me.”

Through Nurse Ratched and her managerial stylings comes forth an admission of guilt. Nurse Ratched has her sights set on strict conformity and submission, in Nurse Ratched’s eyes the correlation between a patient’s inability to adhere to her exact instructions and misbehavior and the subsequent punishments dealt out to the patients as a result of that are entirely justified. “You men are in this hospital because of your proven inability to adjust to society.” pg. 144 As a result of this thinking inspired by beliefs fostered within the outside world any opinion or right proposed by these patients is completely invalid as she is sure, using failure to adhere as a soul justifier that the patients are incapable of knowing what is truly best for not only the hospital and overall community but also themselves. That is why I felt it was imperative Ken Kesey introduce a personality like McMurphy to the ward.

McMurphy is a con man, con men don’t like to be conned, and because of that he is particularly good at seeing through the various masks the inhabitants of the ward seem to hide behind, from uncovering Bromden’s lie of deafness to cheating the patients out of their cigarettes. But a man with such an intuition is a dangerous thing for any structure grounded in conformity. He initially detests the adherence to the culture Nurse Ratched was trying to pose within the ward. Eventually, after time it has become overwhelmingly apparent to Nurse Ratched that McMurphy’s failure to adhere would become the ward’s greatest perceived threat. This only begins to affect McMurphy when he finally realizes Nurse Ratched has the ability to extend his sentence at the ward indefinitely if she so desires “You got to swallow your pride sometimes and keep an eye out for old Number One.” pg. 165 McMurphy vehemently exclaims after ditching his original plans of antagonizing Nurse Ratched as a result of this newly acquired piece of knowledge. This instance of submission is telling of the true pressures such a hierarchical framework can have on even the strongest of personalities. It is also the first instance in the book that I began to feel a sense of helplessness, that there is no escape for these men, and that ultimately the fate of these men’s lives will forever be in accordance with the merits of their “caretakers”.

In conclusion, the dichotomy between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy is stark, and that is for a great reason. Pitting these two characters together serves as a fantastic lens into the relationship between the managed and the managers within contemporary society. It puts on display in some of the most extreme of ways the authority we grant professionals and managers in our lives. Nurse Ratched and the significance of the “outside” and how McMurphy so innocently assumed that meant anything exposes the overlap between the scenes and attitudes depicted within this novel and how they may reflect the manifestations of our current reality. In doing this Ken Kesey demands the reader to reflect on the relationships they may have with authority and hierarchy in their day-to-day lives, just as he did when preparing this novel.

Randle McMurphy is always trying to change something, if it’s the way we are or some rule he doesn’t like. This week during the meeting he decided that it’s unfair that he can’t watch the World Series on Friday because of the schedule we have for TV time. He had been wanting to do this for a while and even a few days before he tried to compromise with Nurse Ratched about the schedule so he could watch the World Series in the afternoon. This didn’t change her mind and in the end, she said no. This didn’t surprise him and he moved on to the others.

He moves on to us and asks what we think about this idea (103) “Nobody says a thing”. We don’t want to answer but he continues trying to get us to. We try to ignore it and (104) “Nobody acts like they’ve heard it ”, I want him to move on and leave me alone. But he continues and Scanlon responds with what he thinks and he thinks the schedule should stay the same because he likes watching the news at six o’clock. He continued to ask for a vote and the only ones to raise their hand was Cheswick. I sat there looking around if there was anyone else who raised their hand in support of Randle. No one else does and we sit there looking back and forth at each other.

Randle looks upset and says (104) “Come on now, what is this crap”. He looks towards the doctor to confirm that we can vote to change the rules of the ward and he nods in agreement. I know and everyone else knows they can vote but just don’t want to. We don’t want to know what happens when we vote against the ward. He asks again if we want to watch the series and Cheswick and Scanlon raise their hands. I don’t know why. They should know what happens when we go against the ward. But why doesn’t McMurphy get punished even after breaking all these rules? The meeting still hasn’t started and Nurse Ratched is asking if we could get back onto the meeting. I would also like to get back to the meeting since I’m annoyed with Randle trying to get the rules changed but I shouldn’t say anything now.

We get back to the meeting and Chewick gives us a hard look as he sits down next to McMurphy looking proud and the meeting starts. The meeting goes on and Randle says nothing to any of us because of how mad he is. But I finally have the opportunity to say what I want to him. I walk up to him and say “Some of us have b-been here for fi-fi-five years, Randle”. I’m twisting the magazine that’s in my hands back and forth as I’m talking to him. (104) “And some of us will b-be here maybe th-that muh-much longer, long after you’re g-g-gone, long after this Wo-world Series is over. And… don’t you see…”. As I’m talking to him I’m realizing he probably won’t listen to me or anyone else who says anything to him, he only thinks about himself and probably isn’t even listening to me. At this point, I don’t feel like talking to him anymore so I just throw down the magazine and walk away saying, “Oh what’s the use of it anyway”. I can’t tell him what he doesn’t know or what it is like to be here because he will never understand.

He continues to ask the other guys why they didn’t vote and argues with them but none of them talk to him and he gives up. They don’t want to get in trouble and stay quiet and let Randle do his own thing without dragging them into it. He got mad at us and called us out for being (103) “too cagey-too chicken-shit”. But I do not want to deal with him.

For this perspective, I decided to go with Billy in the scene where they have the meeting and McMurphy asks for the people to vote and have the TV time changed for the World Series. I chose Billy for the fact that he acts timid most of the time and doesn’t speak much and I thought it would be interesting to see what he was thinking. I called McMurphy in this perspective since it’s Bromden and the Nurse who calls him McMurphy I also felt like this scene impacted Billy the most since after the meeting he went on to talk to McMurphy head-on about how he feels. So to get his thoughts and already introduced dialogue would make this scene even more interesting.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest has provided me with interesting insights about the importance and also the potential consequences of challenging authority. Throughout the book, McMurphy is seen as a rebellious con man, who is trying to disrupt the natural order of the ward for his own gain. While this might be true, McMurphy’s actions have also had a real positive effect on the ward. An example of this is when Bromden says, “In the group meetings there were gripes coming up that had been buried so long the thing being griped about had already changed. Now that McMurphy was around to back them up, the guys started letting fly at everything that had ever happened on the ward they didn’t like.” (144) While the patients’ sudden desire to address their issues with the ward could be interpreted as just annoying or a problem, I see it as a great thing. The ward is where the patients spend their lives and they have a right to make it as enjoyable a space as possible within reason. To me this shows the positive impact that one person’s challenges on authority can have for a group of people.

This idea of one person’s challenges on authority inspiring a group of people has a personal connection to me because of my job. The restaurant I work at has many issues, many of which are in some way affected by management. For example there are regularly too many people scheduled for each shift, and because the employees share tips, this means that no one makes as much money as they could and should. Whenever issues like this are brought up with our manager she often gets angry and tries to change the subject to things staff members should be doing differently or says that the way things are is how our owner wants them and is out of her control. Whether or not this is true, she clearly does not make any serious attempts to improve our situation. She is also generally disliked by the staff and yells at employees over minor things, disappears to her office while the restaurant is open and servers need her help and much like the big nurse, she acts as though any valid complaints from employees are personal attacks and gets angry. While some people are occasionally willing to bring up complaints to her, we generally feel forced to simply tolerate the issues with the restaurant. McMurphy’s actions in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” have made me think about what really standing up to her might do. If one person voiced their opinion it could inspire others to do the same and put pressure on our manager to make changes.

While One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest shows the potential positive impact of standing up to an authoritative figure, it also provides a warning about the potential consequences. After creating a stir in the ward, McMurphy seems to realize that the Big Nurse’s position of power allows her to do some serious harm to him. Bromden explains this to the reader and says, “They can understand as well as I can that the only way he’s (McMurphy’s) going to get the Big Nurse to lift his commitment is by acting like she wants.” (150) In the same way that the Big Nurse has the power to extend someone’s commitment, my manager at work has the power to fire people. Being fired from a restaurant may not be as serious as extended confinement in a mental hospital, but it is obviously something to consider, especially for those who are adults living off of the money they earn at my restaurant.

These similarities to the situation at my job have made me think more about our relationship with our manager. While I can’t say that One Flew Over the Cuckoos’ Nest will be the reason that I start arguing for change at my job, especially being the non confrontational person I am, I do think it is interesting to consider the potential outcomes of speaking up. The book also emphasizes for me just how little power those under the influence of an authoritative figure are. Like the patients in the ward, the degree to which some sort of real movement for change could succeed relies almost entirely on how far our manager would allow it to go. Just as the Big Nurse can send anyone to the Disturbed ward or extend someone’s commitment, our manager can fire as many people as she wants and still find replacements in the high turnover restaurant industry. The similarities between the situation at my restaurant and the ward in One Flew Over the Cukoos’ Nest have given me a new perspective on challenging authority in that sort of environment.

In Part 1, page 7, Bromden reveals a flashback to the readers about a memory when his father (“Papa”) and he went hunting for birds. He then describes the movement of the prey they’re hunting for, “The bird [is] safe as long as he keeps still… Then the bird breaks, feathers springing, jumps out of the cedar into the birdshot from my Papa’s gun.)” In the end, the bird dies. In my drawing, I drew exactly what happened to that bird. But the only difference is that this bird is still alive; Bromden is the bird, and the one who shot him is the Big Nurse. I relate Bromden to the bird, because he said it himself, “The least black boy and one of the bigger ones catch me before I get ten steps out of the mop closet, and drag me back to the shaving room. I don’t fight or make any noise.” He did what a prey could’ve done in that situation. I relate to the individual who shot the bird, originally Papa, as the Big Nurse. In Part 1, page 25, Bromden states what he calls the “huge organization that aims to adjust the Outside,” as the “Combine”. So when it came to the “Inside” of the hospital and who was in charge, Bromden brought up how he thinks she’s “Working alongside others like her who I call the “Combine,”… to adjust the Outside as well as she has the Inside.” She is the only one who has the power to shoot Bromden and the others in the hospital.

I specifically drew the bird in a glass case display, because there is a moment where Bromden grows as a character, finally opening his eyes to his surroundings and others. He says, “For the first time in years I was seeing people with none of that black outline they used to have, and one night I was even able to see out the windows.” The bird is drawn to be looking in the distance like how Bromden did that one night. Not only did I draw to try and convey the way Bromden realized this eye-opening experience she has never felt, but to show how small the space he’s been in for the past years of his life. This man has been living in a confined space for most of his life, trapped in a building he can wander in for only so long. For the stylistic part of my drawing, I tried to give it a look of realism, yet smudgy. A combination of the drawing of Cheswick on page 12, the streakyness yet realism of it. And on page 46 of Pete, the charcoal look of that utilizes the smudgeness of it. The reasoning behind the lack of color within my drawing is not only to mimic the little color in materials Bromden had to create these drawings of the people in the hospital. But also to show the pain that Bromden had to go through, specifically for therapy (ECT), “I’ve heard that the Chief, years ago, received more than two hundred shock treatments when they were really the vogue.” (page 62).

I have never liked being in highly controlled environments. When I was younger I went to this Christian school and I was constantly getting into trouble, I hated the uniforms, restrictive rules, and the physical abuse. While reading about the ward I was always thinking about the connection with that school. Although I was there for a short two years it was something that I remember vividly. The principal reminds me a lot of Nurse Ratched, she would have favorites and she would use physical forms of discipline when someone did something she didn’t like.

I have always been able to push back against systems I think are restrictive towards me. Not only at school but in the real world as well and as McMurphy helped me realize that the ward is an oppressive system I have made the similarities with what I’ve recently done. It has been a long time since I’ve spoken about systemically oppressive systems but I have found a voice speaking for the people of Palestine. In 2020 when the Black Lives Matter movement was in full effect my mother told me I wasn’t allowed to speak up because it was too dangerous. Recently, I went to a sit-in at UPenn to advocate for the people of Palestine although my activism may have been interpreted differently in the same way as how Bromden first saw McMurphy. As we, as a class looked deeper into McMurphy as a character I realized that I also have the same views and reactions when it comes to being dictated to. Like McMurphy, I also have a tendency to try and get people on board to do what’s right. The system that is happening in the book is oppressive and I think that’s why McMurphy is determined to make the other patients see that because as we discussed in class, people can be comfortable and complicit in their own oppression.

At first, I found McMurphy’s fallback suspicious because he was adamant about taking down Nure Ratched but I realize he’s trying to play the game of the ward. In class, we talked about the difference between influence and manipulation and now I think that McMurphy is trying to influence the other patients to break free from the oppressive systems Nurse Ratched has implemented on the ward. When McMurphy and Harding talk about Nurse Ratched, we can clearly see that in the beginning there’s a disagreement about her character McMurphy calls her a bitch and Harding refers to her as an angel. The way that Bromden describes the ward and Nure Ratched he talks about how the fate of the patients is solely up to her and the other doctors no matter how good or bad the outcome might be for the patients. When McMurphy stops trying to get a rise out of Ratched he establishes that he has to manipulate the system to his advantage in order to escape. McMurphy is strong about his feelings toward Nurse Ratched he doesn’t feel like he’s insane like the ward claims he is.

In the cuckoo’s nest, the mentioning of war and the implications it had on certain men intrigued my interest. For a man to come out of a war and be deemed “ok” as moments prompt us of the time period the book is set in. So the representation of fog makes for an abundance of visual material to work with as there is so much to be said about the fog. It could be the state of his mind being full from the pills & drugs. But I see so much that could be created from this scene as there is a calming bliss to it in my opinion. So the research I did on fog told me that fog is a visible aerosol consisting of tiny water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air. ”Which I decided to go with a faded or not so drawn representation of the background because in his “fogged state of mind” everything he knows is suspended. But the things he sees in the fog as he tries getting past the pill’s effects makes for him to only end up in more fog which is why I put the machinery and control panels Bromden has seen through his times in the war and the ward which produce the combination in the art piece. We see as he doesn’t feel strong as he drifts in the fog that the ward has placed in the vents as the staff makes for reality to be shifted. Even as he wants to be above everything, he’s not there yet. That’s why I added his mind falling in the fog because of the ward’s readiness for him. “The numbers Murphy, THE NUMBERS ” this was something I acknowledged very early in the book as his involvement in the military was major. His mind is still there like it’s a switch, you can go there and be in the fog or be in reality as if you’re still lost in the world. So I added the split of activity in his brain, one side being in World war 2 still and then there is the careless nothingness of the ward. Two different worlds but they seem so far apart as there is no stopping his mind from wandering. More precisely as he’s stuck in the tradition of receiving the medicine and being gone he’s still the key to change. I included change in the visual piece because Mcmurphy is the one thing throwing the course of normalcy off as everything changed when he did. But Bromden picks this observation up as he doesn’t know what the staff may do with him and that’s why I included a blurry aspect that differs from the fog because you can see through fog, but you can’t see if your vision is just blurry.

The sounds of hysteria come full fledged that open up to an unknown kind of tension as everything isn’t meant to be ok. As the quote mentions this moment reading, “ The trouble was I’d been finding myself because I got scared of being lost for so long and went hollering so they could track me.” The combine has made him morph even as must get out. He looks at the option of fooling around, he looks to welcome the trouble bound to him. But things you try to figure out you can’t because you’re back to where you originated which is the fog. All that Bromden wants is to wake up fine but even as he doesn’t know how he survives he still doesn’t get to rock bottom even as he takes over his mind.

Josie Barsky
Lit Log #1 McMurphy’s Strength

The Chronics won’t let me get my way. I know I have my power over all these Acutes, they’ll follow me in a second, but the Chronics? They must have something against me, listening to Miss Rat-Shed way too long they don’t know any other way. That nurse has gotten us locked down like we are in a real prison and these idiots won’t do anything about it. If I want to survive here I need to change something, starting with this TV rule. I bring it up during the group meeting. We need to switch the time so I can watch the World Series, I haven’t missed one in years. Scanlon blabbering about how switching the TV time will mess with his schedule and that the doctor is agreeing with him. He won’t change a thing unless Rat-Shed gives him her approval. Doesn’t anyone see my point? Why do we only have to listen to her? Why don’t they want to watch the games? All of them disgust me. A little change doesn’t hurt and these idiots haven’t been sticking up for themselves the whole time they’ve been here. Why does it take me to come in for some real fun to happen around here? I don’t know how these guys survived without me. Now they are all lying around the day room pointlessly, I need them to start listening to me. Maybe if I show them my strength they’ll be so scared they’re gonna have to. I’m an intimidating guy, I know Miss Rat-Shed is scared of me and the rest of them should be too. I bring it up and Harding won’t keep his mouth shut talking about “A baseball game isn’t worth the risk”(107) and the only one I can get to listen to me is Cheswick. That dummy, he will listen to anything I say. Then Fredrickson opens his big mouth saying, “…are you going to kick down that door and show us how tough you are?”(107) And I think that is exactly what I will do. Maybe not the door, seems too hard and I can’t embarrass myself in front of these weak old Chronics and Acutes. I could probably lift the table or maybe a bed. Not too heavy. Harding then brings up the control panel and I tell him, “Hell are you birds telling me I can’t lift that dinky little gizmo?”(109) Everyone looks over, including Old Chief Bromden who doesn’t have a clue what’s about to happen. I examine the dials and levers, it’s a big old cement block, but it’s nothing I’m not used to. I used to lift hay bales for a living, this thing doesn’t have a shot against me. I jump off the table, take off my shirt, and start hyping myself up. I can do this, I can lift it no problem. These guys don’t know my strength. I tell them, “…who’s willing to lay five bucks? Nobody’s going to convince me I can’t do something till I try it…”(109) I walk near the control panel and tell everyone to take a step back. Hardings still talking, calling me a fool. I’m so angry it’s like I’m taking all the air out of the room. I shift my feet, put my hands under the cement, and start lifting. It’s heavier than I thought, but I can’t let them know that. I might be turning red, it’s like my veins are about to pop out of my arms and like my hands are gonna fall off. I was lying, I can’t do this, I know it. If I keep trying my hands will fall off and no one will ever listen to me again. I used all my strength, I showed them my strength, who cares I couldn’t lift it. I turn to them all and say, “But I tried though… God damn it, I sure as hell did that much, now, didn’t I?” I’m not embarrassed. How could I be?

stylistic choices: Writing from McMurphy’s point of view I wanted his arrogance to show. Throughout the ward, he believes he is the top dog and above everyone, including Miss Ratched who he refers to as Rat-Shed. In this particular scene, McMurphy’s arrogance comes through. He almost rips off his hands trying to show everyone how strong he is so that way they’ll vote to change the T.V. time. Like McMurphy’s character, I wanted to start off the passage calmer, as he is in the beginning. He’s never thoughtful but he tends to blow up as situations evolve. I wanted to show the evolution of his character moving from verbal conversations to him then becoming physical and a bit scary.

Throughout the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest our narrator is a guy named Chief Bromden. Though we do not know why he is there and what might have happened, we know that he feels a certain way about the people there in the ward with him. When Mr.McMurphy gets committed to the ward the power dynamic between the Nurses, Chronics, and Acutes shifts. McMurphy often is known to have started arguing back and forth with the nurses, especially Big Nurse. He is really one of the only people who have begun protesting what Big Nurse has said. When Bromden and most of the other patients are really scared of Big Nurse and what she can do to them. She has great power over all of that but McMurphy does not seem to be afraid of this.

The way that McMurphy has protested is something that I have been trying to understand throughout this entire book. He doesn’t get nervous like Bromden or Billy Bibbit, he instead faces the problem he wants solved head first. When McMurphy knew the World Series was coming on TV he knew that he needed to be able to watch it in the ward. A number of people told him that it wasn’t worth the risk, “It’s still a risk, my friend. She always has the capacity to make things worse for us. A baseball game isn’t worth the risk.” (107) McMurphy completely disregarded this comment and went on asking people to vote with him, but he made it seem like they were getting something out of this as well when it was something he wanted himself really badly. When the vote came to a close it was 20-20 which meant that he wouldn’t get the World Series on the TV. But what no one told him was that the chronics were involved in this vote and they were the 20 who couldn’t vote yes so they would vote no. This made Mcmurphy extremely mad at Big Nurse and anyone else in charge. When the vote closed Bromden raised his hand, discrediting him being deaf and voted yes. Which changed how people now see Bromden. In that moment I’m not sure whether he cared about what he was doing or knew what he was doing. I just knew that it was something that would completely change how McMurphy see’s Bromden. McMurphy was so happy but Big Nurse kept saying the vote was closed when the meeting ended, which made Mcmurphy extremely mad again.

To me, as a reader and personally, I do not understand how McMurphy has the guts to keep standing up and pushing for what he wants against authority when no one else can or wants to. Like Bromden, I would be scared of Big Nurse as well, “Watching him sitting there frowning all to himself, I remembered what the Big Nurse had said in the meeting, and I began to feel afraid.” (148) I understand where Bromden is coming from. Knowing that both of these people are manipulators is something to keep in mind, something that will stay in your mind forever. Something that will alter the way you think about all authority figures in your life. When I look at the people of authority in my life I notice how scared I am to talk to certain people of power. Teachers, mentors, bosses, and even friends’ parents. In my life I have never really been able to stand up for myself the way McMurphy can. I usually just choose to deal with whatever I’m going through alone or with my friends, which is fine because I usually come out of anything with a better understanding of myself or I come out stronger than I was before. I think there are certain benefits and disadvantages to being like McMurphy when standing up for what you believe in and what you want.

I’ve never really been the one to go against what someone says or wants. I usually follow the rules to a T. When I was younger I always did what everyone told me to do. Which can be good but then sometimes can’t be good at all. Whenever I would do my homework when younger I would always tell my mom how I would have to follow exactly what the teacher told me or else I would get in trouble. Now knowing I can use my own strategies is something helpful. Knowing what’s best for you is something I think is so important to growing as a person. I think understanding a character as important as McMurphy is crucial. Understanding why he wants what he wants and will do anything to get what he wants. I think first finding out why he is committed there and if he acts like this normally in life. Being a true leader for people in the real world is what I mean. The way he gets everyone to follow him and listen to him. McMurphy has yet to be afraid or step back from addressing authority but rather run towards it. I think that is something that I am still figuring out how to do till now. Knowing how to ask for what I want and stand up for what I believe in.

My artwork is showing the scene from pages 141-143. Bromden wakes up not seeing any of his hallucinations for the first time in a long while. As he looks around, he states, “A window was up, and the air in the dorm was clear and had a taste to it made me feel kind of giddy and drunk, gave me this sudden yen to get up out of bed and do something.” Bromden had never been able to get a good look at the outside. He looks out the window and “saw for the first time how the hospital was out in the country.” Bromden takes in as many details of the outside as he can, most of which I portrayed in my artwork(141).

The first thing Bromden noticed was the moon low in the sky over the pastureland. He talks about the moon, saying that “the face of it was scarred and cuffed where it had just torn up out of the snarl of scrub oak and madrone trees on the horizon.”(141) Because of that, I made sure to include lots of trees in the horizon that were tall enough to cover parts of the moon.

Bromden then notes that the stars in the sky were pale next to the moon, but ”they got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant moon.”(142) In my artwork, I made the stars closest to the moon barely noticeable and get brighter when they were away from it.

Later on, Bromden notices the geese flying in the sky. He mentions a lead goose, which for a moment “was right in the center of that circle, bigger than the others, a black cross opening and closing”(143). Keeping that in mind, I drew a goose in the shape of a black cross in the middle of the moon, making the other geese behind it a lighter color, making sure the attention was on the goose in the middle.

With all these details, the most important one that I included is the window screen mesh. The mesh serves the purpose of reminding the viewer that Bromden is still stuck inside the hospital, unable to get any closer to the trees or look up at the sky.

This scene is significant to the story as it’s the only moment in the book so far where Bromden’s head clears up, and his vision is not affected by fog. For once in a long time, he’s not being tormented by his hallucinations. Bromden looks out into the world he hasn’t been out into in years. The scene sparks happy memories into his brain, reminding him of calmer times with his family, looking up at the sky. This moment of clarity can result in grounding Bromden in reality once more, or it can act as a small taste of freedom, pushing him to want to escape the terrors of the hospital and go out into the world once again.

The greatest mandatory structure for someone my age is school. It is a compulsory activity, meaning “required by or as if by law” according to Merriam-Webster. Meaning, I don’t have a choice. Technically I could stay home, not go, but then there would be consequences. And if I go I technically don’t have to do my work. But if I didn’t there would be consequences too. So, by extension, this assignment is a mandatory structure of my life. If I didn’t do it, and then didn’t do the next one, or the one after that, two things would occur: 1) I would acquire a bad grade, and 2) I would not be challenging my mind and learning new material to broaden my perspectives on life. Personally, the latter is more important to me. But the former is what really matters to society. If I don’t get good grades, my chances of getting into a good college drop, and while not mandatory, college is yet another structure set up to unlock for those lucky enough, abundant resources and prescribed slots in the economy. My education also allows me to have the tools that let me understand this very system which I can then critique. And the more I understand it, the more thoroughly opposed I am to being “mold[ed]… into a slot” (46). My best option is to become educated and learn the best ways to evade the mandatory structures as well as I can. So yes, I do the assignment, even though I do not want to.

My distaste grows for the system as I learn about the complete normalcy of corporate America, the gross disease of constant consumerism, and the mainstream thought that plagues our ability to change. In a world of insane people, everyone can call themselves sane. And those self diagnosed sane people write the rules of society, and “society is what decides who’s sane and who isn’t” (44). In the ward in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest there is a rigidity that is impossible to break from. But McMurphy uses laughter as a jolt to wake those deep in the trenches of their constricted normalcy. His laughter is like my somewhat educated grab for something different than business as usual. It is hope. When he first arrives at the ward, he laughs and “it’s free and loud and it comes out of his wide grinning mouth and spreads in rings bigger and bigger till it’s lapping against the walls all over the ward…I [Bromden] realize all of a sudden it’s the first laugh I’ve heard in years” (10). It is easy to get stuck in a rhythm, and hard to break from it. The nurses and staff at the ward have implemented strict schedules and rules about when the patients can eat, watch television, and play games. This kind of structure is exactly what McMurphy is trying to get the patients to believe they can do without. He is trying to revive them with laughter. During a group meeting, McMurphy loudly whispers a joke to Cheswick and then “leaned back in his chair and laughed so hard that nobody else could say anything for nearly a minute” (145). What he is achieving is disruption, which, for anyone who’s learned about direct action, is a main goal of protests. “If we don’t get it? Shut it down!” goes a popular chant heard at climate strikes and protests. When people walk en masse down a street, or stand with their arms chain-linked through each others’ in front of a building entrance, or a frequently traveled road, they are disrupting business as usual. They are stopping the incessant flow of mindless traffic, and insisting that people take a second to hear a specific message. McMurphy is protesting, and he “was getting a lot of kick out of all the ruckus he was raising” (145).

But, as the sad moral of this story goes, he too gets beat by the system. The Man, capital M. By page 159, he “don’t crack a smile.”

Aidan Simas
Lit Log 3
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

The perception someone has of the world around them can drastically influence their life in a lot of different ways. The narrator of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”, Chief Bromden has a unique perception of the world around him. Every perception is flawed and imperfect but Bromden experiences heavy delusions which are mechanically oriented in nature but still representative of the situations he is in. He describes in detail all of these machines that cause fog to fill the whole area or to slow down time. But being clinically insane we can not take these words at face value. To find the true meaning we must infer to the best of our ability. However there is the one moment where all these mechanical delusions fade while Bromden wakes up late one night. He goes to the window to see the moon and remembers his childhood. Specifically how he said he “watched that big Oregon prairie moon above me put all the stars around it to shame.” As he watched the “Canada honkers” fly overhead. This temporary escape from the delusions that plague Bromden is extremely rare and much needed. Not only for him but for me and everyone else as well.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. The ability to so vividly remember the “good times” in our lives can be both a driver of impulsive and unnecessary purchases, and it can help us get away from the daily routine that fills so much of our vision and time. A return to simpler times or a moment in which we felt at peace. These memories allow us to think deeply about our own situations if only for a brief moment. In Chief Bromden’s case he is stuck inside the mental institution and reflects on how it was to be free out in the wilds of America with his family. He longs for a better life just like everyone else in this world. Nostalgia offers a rosy eye’d perspective on the past, and a clearer picture of the present. I know that for me when I remember the past like that I see how much better things are now. I never had any security or certainty in my life until I was nine years old. My father was a sociopath that used my mother for his own personal gain. My parents were divorced by the time I was two and all throughout my childhood my father was trying to take me away from my mother and avoided paying child support whenever he could. I grew up in a single parent household, I moved from place to place and never really understood why. I had One friend throughout my whole childhood and I lost connection with him after I moved to Philly and his mom died of cancer. My father kept me away from anyone who genuinely cared about me as much as he could. And my mom had constant awful roommates who acted awful towards her just so she could pay the bills and put food on the table. But looking back I try to remember the small moments in between. The times I actually had fun. There were more than a few. But overall my childhood was a harsh one, so when I look back all I can think of is how much better off I am now.

My perception of things around me has been in the past quite unreasonable. I remember thinking everyone hated me and that the whole world was against me. And looking back on it, how could I not? I was bullied for my autism in elementary school, the federal government was constantly at my mother’s door making sure she could provide for me or else they would give me to my dad, and people I cared about kept dying without me getting a chance to say goodbye. As a child my life could not have been any more chaotic and uncertain. If I had continued on like this they would have most likely locked me up in a mental ward too! But things change, and my life changed for the better. I learned to be able to trust people and after middle school I finally felt like I fit in. I have through all that I have been through, gotten better and started taking my own life into my own hands. And now things are great, I have never been better, genuinely. I have my whole life ahead of me and I have everything I’ve ever wanted (that being people who actually give a damn about me). There is so much love and happiness in my heart, and my perception of everything around me is so much more clear. Where Chief Bromden sees his fog I saw an air of uncertainty and hate, but it has dissipated. And now by looking back on the past both me and him can see the present ever so clearly.

My artwork was about the gambling McMurphy had done and what it meant for the people there. In the artwork, there are a few different items that I felt had some sort of representation or a direct meaning in what would happen in their own life.

The first thing that I tried to do was make sure it looked like you were the one sitting at the table as if you were a person in the ward who was falling to McMurphy’s pressure and losing your money. We see this in the quote “My name’s McMurphy and I’m a gambling fool…I lace my money down “. This shows just how much his identity revolved around gambling and conning people out of their own money.

One of the other key parts of the book that I tried to fit in was the items on the table and how much they meant to all of the people inside the ward. The cigarettes themselves were based on how McMurphy after getting all of their own money would go into them gambling their cigarettes then after winning them all he would get their “IOUs’ ‘. There is also the whole pack on the table to the right then fewer and fewer cigarettes as you go farther to the left showing just how much the group at the table was being taken advantage of from having full packs to nothing at the end. The cards themselves are in pairs just as a traditional hand of blackjack would be if you did not gain another card. There are also no purposeful face cards to show how much he “cheated them out of their money. They were all friendly with him as they paid their bets” The coinage on the table is very spare and is also a way to portray just how much he is taking advantage of his scenario and how that is leading him into contention with the big nurse.

The lighting that I used was supposed to show that McMurphy was helping people out of the fog. You can see that on the dice and how there is one portion of the dice that is shining through and the rest is just as damp as the surrounding areas. This also shows how much of an issue that can become. This is why the right source is showing on the dice a symbol used for gambling and luck opposed to something more normal like a bulb or an ordinary object.

In conclusion, the reason that I made my art was to show just how diverse of a cast McMurphy’s act of gambling can be on the people of the ward. It shows that even if he is doing something that some people can see as a more positive thing like bringing people out of the “fog” it still leaves huge unanswered questions and issues with the morality of what he is doing and how he will accomplish it. The means may not be the way to the end with McMurphy and Chief.

For my Capstone, I’m working with my grandfather, or Zayda as I call him, to transcribe his memoir, which he began writing when I was born. There are over 100 handwritten pages, none of which have been read by anyone but us. This project has not only strengthen my relationship with him, but taught me things I never would have known about my family.

When we started reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the connections between my grandfather’s stories and the book were immediate. He began his residency in the early 70s, about a decade after the novel came out. He recalls the intensity of the locked unit with adult patients and the “biological revolution in psychiatry,” as he put it. Sometimes the things he tells me are surprising, like that he entered psychiatry when these breakthroughs about depression being caused by your brain. Just in his lifetime, he has seen a complete transformation in how mental illness is diagnosed and how those who suffer from it are treated.

Very early in the book, we see that the Big Nurse (and aides and doctor) have considerably more power than the patients. The Big Nurse controls everything on the floor, including the medications and who goes to the Disturbed ward. Her obsession with routine has created a hostile environment. I often find myself comparing my grandfather to the Big Nurse (even though he didn’t have that kind of jurisdiction during the time I mentioned) when she seems particularly cruel. “The length of the time he spends in this hospital is entirely up to us,” (137). There appears to be little resentment or hesitation from the ward’s professionals, which seems absurd today. They had complete control over these people, and from what we can see, they weren’t cared for in the way they should have been. Knowing my grandfather was one of the individuals in the ward who had authority, I often get fearful, perhaps irrationally, that he may have participated in the unfair treatment of patients.

My grandfather and I have spent hours talking about the transformation my grandfather witnessed in psychiatry. Things that seem so obvious now were groundbreaking at the time. “The idea that serious mental illnesses were disorders of the brain, with genetic and neurochemical determinants, was emerging,” he says about his residency. Empathy and understanding, which had been lacking, as we can see in the book, were appearing regarding those who have severe mental illness. The knowledge of mental illness has changed considerably in the past 50 years, so what we know as usual treatment is entirely different than what Kesey and my grandfather did. “They’ve learned a lot since then,” (111) Bromden says, comparing his current placement to the “old hospital.” Somehow, he is making the ward we know well sound like a privilege. The two moments I’m discussing are almost ten years apart, so there has been progress, but it still seems insufficient. We know that at the time of the book, they are still performing lobotomies and using harmful (and not scientifically proven) ways to “fix” the patients. While reading, it often makes me think that no matter how progressive we feel at a certain point, in the future, we will look back and be shocked at how far behind we were.

For the second year of his residency, he was placed into an adolescent unit, which he says was philosophically different. [It] was organized as a therapeutic community, each day began with a morning meeting in which the previous 24 hours events in the life of the community and its members— the 24 patients and the staff could be discussed, confronted, explored, validated, and processed.” I remember hearing him say this and me typing it and thinking, “Huh, that doesn’t sound so bad,” then I read the group therapy from Bromden’s eyes, and my perspective changed. Group therapy is when they are drugged the most, as a way to subdue their personalities and allow Nurse Ratched to be in complete control. I know the book has some magical realism, yet I cannot stop asking, “What was it like for the patients where Zayda worked?”. I can only hear what it was like from his perspective, but the novel has forced me to consider what it felt like to be the patients he was working with, many of whom weren’t there by choice, and there were often patients who attempted to run away (just like McMurphy). I think this shift in perspective is invaluable since it allows me to empathize more with the people in the book and his memoir.

Due to the School District of Philadelphia half day that begins Thanksgiving Recess, SLA will follow the below schedule on Wednesday, 11/22:

08:15-09:05 D2 Band

09:10-10:00 E2 Band

10:05-10:55 A1 Band

11:00-11:55 B2 Band

12:00-12:30 Lunch/Dismissal

HAVE A WONDERFUL THANKSGIVING, SLA!

My Prompt : Track your own intellectual and emotional experience through a close reading of a particular section. You are encouraged to tackle sections that you have found confusing, uncomfortable, or intriguing. You can write this in first person, citing specific examples from this selection as well as other parts of the novel that connect these ideas. Your selected text can be as short as one sentence or paragraph, and should not be from one of the sections we’ve used as an all-class close reading.

In page 39 Offred says, “I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance”. This sentence from chapter seven of the “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood dives into Offred’s complex relationship with memory, storytelling, and hope. Offred expresses a desire to believe that she is in control of her narrative, wishing that she could treat her experiences as a story she is telling, with the power to choose the ending and return to her previous life. However, she acknowledges that her situation is not fictional, but a real story that she is telling to an unknown audience. This internal conflict reflects her struggle to find agency and meaning in her circumstances.

Offred’s yearning to believe in the power of storytelling as a source of hope and comfort is evident in this passage. Despite recognizing the futility of her actions, she finds comfort in the act of recounting her experiences and imagining an audience that can hear her. This highlights the human need for connection and the resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity.

Offred’s reflection on the power of storytelling and her yearning for agency amidst her oppressive reality encapsulates the universal human desire for autonomy and meaning. Her internal conflict serves as a compelling exploration of the human spirit’s resilience in the face of adversity, resonating with readers on a profound level.

This passage also sheds light on the therapeutic nature of storytelling, as Offred seeks solace in recounting her experiences and envisioning an audience that can bear witness to her narrative. This underscores the innate human need for connection and the preservation of one’s humanity in dehumanizing circumstances.

Furthermore, Offred’s struggle to reconcile her longing for control over her own story with the harsh realities of her existence adds depth to her character, making her a relatable and multi-dimensional protagonist. This internal conflict not only enriches the narrative but also prompts readers to contemplate the complexities of hope and resilience in the face of oppression. Serves as a compelling exploration of the human spirit’s resilience in the face of oppression. This internal conflict not only enriches the narrative but also prompts readers to contemplate the complexities of hope and resilience in the face of adversity. It reflects the universal human desire for autonomy and meaning, as individuals seek to assert their agency and find significance in their experiences, even in the most dire circumstances.

Offred’s complex relationship with memory, storytelling, and hope reflects the profound impact of these themes on the human experience. Her desire to shape her narrative and find solace in the act of storytelling underscores the enduring human quest for meaning and agency, even in the most challenging circumstances. Offred’s internal conflict reflects the profound impact of hope and resilience on the human experience. Her yearning for agency amidst her oppressive reality underscores the enduring human quest for meaning and the capacity to find solace and purpose in the act of storytelling. This complexity adds depth to her character, making her a relatable and multi-dimensional protagonist whose struggles resonate with readers on a profound level.

This passage resonates with me as it captures the tension between the desire for agency and the recognition of the limitations imposed by reality. It also underscores the significance of storytelling as a means of preserving one’s humanity in dehumanizing conditions. This internal struggle adds depth to Offred’s character and underscores the universal themes of hope and resilience in the face of oppression, making it a compelling and thought-provoking aspect of the novel. It’s important to recognize that the tension between the desire for agency and the recognition of external limitations is a fundamental aspect of the human experience. This struggle is not confined to the fictional world of the novel but resonates deeply with real-life challenges and dilemmas faced by individuals in various contexts. The power of storytelling as a means of preserving one’s humanity is a theme that transcends cultural and historical boundaries, speaking to the enduring human need for connection, empathy, and understanding. In essence, the passage serves as a poignant reminder of the resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity. It prompts readers to reflect on the ways in which individuals navigate and negotiate their agency within the constraints of their circumstances. By delving into these themes, the novel offers a compelling exploration of the human condition, inviting readers to contemplate the complexities of hope, resilience, and the enduring power of storytelling in the preservation of one’s identity and dignity.

“His hand pauses. “I thought you might enjoy it for a change.” He knows that isn’t enough. “I guess it was a sort of experiment.” That isn’t enough either. “You said you wanted to know.” (254)

“Whatever there is to know,” I say; but that’s too flippant. “What’s going on.” (188)

This section of the reading frustrated me because the Commander used this outing as an opportunity to take advantage of Offred, even twisting her words to justify why he did what he did.

At the end of chapter 29, the Commander and Offred are talking about what happened to the last Handmaid that was in the house and the Commander tells her that Serena Joy had found out about their meetings at night, and that she had killed herself because of it. Offred sees how their meetings can be very dangerous for her, and she wonders if it would be best if she stopped coming to meet him. He believes she has been enjoying them and doesn’t see why they should stop. “You want my life to be bearable to me.” she says but means it as a question, to which he says, “Yes, I do. I would prefer it.” (187) This section of the book gives Offred and the reader the thought that the Commander wants to meet with her at night for her own benefit, that he hopes that their meetings are bringing some kind of value to her life. It makes the reader believe that he is on her side, when it is the complete opposite. After this interaction is where the quote from page 188 takes place, “Whatever there is to know,” I say; but that’s too flippant. “What’s going on.” The Commander later uses these words against Offred while taking advantage of her.

Even though at the start of their “relationship”, the Commander makes his intentions quiet clear when telling her he would like for her to kiss him “As if you meant it.”(140) This quote shows us what the Commander has wanted from Offred this whole time, but still I couldn’t help but feel hope for her when he told her he hoped for her life to be bearable for her. After the Commander has paraded Offred around Jezebel’s, he takes her upstairs to one of the old hotel rooms and takes advantage of her. He uses her want to know what was going on in the world to justify him taking her to Jezebel’s just to get what he wants. “His hand pauses. “I thought you might enjoy it for a change.” He knows that isn’t enough. “I guess it was a sort of experiment.” That isn’t enough either. “You said you wanted to know.” (254) He only says this to her after he sees that she is visibly upset with where she is, and notices that she isn’t as enthusiastic about having sex with him as he is. This part of the story made me feel disgusted towards the Commander, as it felt that he had done so well up until this point at masking his true intentions. To see his true intentions come to the surface again for the first time since their first meeting was frustrating and quite surprising. This whole situation also feeds into the theme of the abuse of women throughout the book, not just on the Commander’s part, but also on Serena Joy’s part, as she unknowingly sent Offred to go see Nick the same night she was forced to have sex with the Commander outside of a ceremony. While Serena was unaware of what had just happened between Offred and the Commander, she was still willing on her own part to exploit Offred for her own gain. Both the Commander and Serena Joy have put Offred’s life at risk for something that would only benefit themselves, and would most likely not get them into any trouble on their side.

It is also important to consider the fact that Offred could not stand up against Serena Joy of the Commander if she truly wanted to. He holds no power in a society built off of power and gender roles, if she were to speak up she would be risking her life. The Commander once asked her during one of their meetings what her true thoughts were on Gilead as a society, to which she responds with “There’s hardly any point in my thinking, is there? I say. What I think doesn’t matter.”(211) She has no room to speak up for her opinions and beliefs in Gilead, so she has no room to stand up for herself against Serena Joy and the Commander.

“Maybe it’s just something to keep the wives busy, to give them a sense of purpose. But I envy the Commander’s wife her knitting. It’s good to have small goals that can easily be attained.” (Chp 3 pg 13)

March 2020 I was forced into isolation and changed forever at the hands of Covid. I didn’t know then how drastically my life would change or the events that followed after that. Looking back at that time, I was young fresh out of middle school and put into high school virtually with no sense of who I would become. As I battled quarantine and the ability to keep myself occupied, I envy those older than me who continued to work and provide. I had no clue as to why I felt this way then but I knew this feeling would linger. As I got older and quarantine ended, I occupied myself with sports. For the majority of my high school years, I felt the desire to find my purpose in this world. As we read The Handmaid’s Tale, I realize in some ways I connected to moments Offered would have. This moment specifically, where she talks of the Wives knitting for children. I felt this connection since I’ve always battled what I wanted to do with my life. To this day I am aware I want to be an engineer, but I overwhelm myself with the thought of that being my purpose.

“What we are supposed to feel towards these bodies is hatred and scorn. This isn’t what I feel” (Chp 6 pg 33)

Reading this quote, I thought of the time where George Floyd was unfortunately killed at the hands of the police. During this time, there was an outrage from millions of people around the world. I agreed with this outrage however the hate towards all policemen, I couldn’t find it within myself to feel this way towards them. I’ve always had good encounters with the police, and I don’t say this to dismiss their actions. From my perspective, I always see good in people who may have not been so good. I believe my reasoning for this is because of how I was raised, and my take on certain issues. This situation specifically, the police are human and as humans we make countless mistakes and those follow with consequences. However, to hate someone because of what they did is something I couldn’t bring myself to do at the time. This section of the book, Offered see the bodies of those who have gone against Gilead’s social norms. Though what they have done could have not been morally wrong, those in power made the discretion that it was and that cost their life. I believe as a reader that Offered had some sense of this understanding and that caused her to not feel hate towards them. So in my situation where social media users were in power and had an influence on how those felt at the time, I too felt like offered and didn’t have any ill feelings.

“If I thought this would never happen again I would die.” (Chp 18 pg 103)

You wake up before the sun comes up, brush your teeth and get ready for school for about 180 days out of the year. I believe most of us do this for somebody or even ourselves. In this moment of “The handmaid’s tale”, Offered talks about her love for luke and how it motivates her to keep going in gilead society. In some way we are all Offered in this moment. I related to this quote a lot, this being because I am the oldest to four little sisters. When it comes to any activity or simple things I do in my life, I remind myself that not only am I doing it for me but I have four little girls looking up to me. When I cannot motivate myself no longer I think of my sisters and the type of example I would be leading but just giving up. Offered does this alot when mentioning Moira, Luke or her daughter. She uses them as hope any moment where she feels upset. As for myself, I caught myself at times not wanting to go on with something due to my lack of motivation, so in some ways my family is my hope.